A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Thomson, William Augustus
THOMSON. (Commander, 1832.)
William Augustus Thomson entered the Navy, 22 Sept. 1797, as Midshipman, on board the Hebe, Capt. Wm. Burchall; and in the following year accompanied a force sent under the direction of the late Sir Home Popham and Major-General Coote, to destroy the locks and sluice-gates of the Bruges Canal. After cruizing for some months in the Channel in the Resolution 74, Capt. Wm. Mitchell, he joined, in the course of 1800, the Experiment 44, Capt. John Griffin Saville, and Florentina frigate, Capt. John Broughton – the former employed under Sir John Borlase Warren in the expedition to Ferrol, the latter in the operations connected with the expulsion of the French from Egypt in 1801. Returning to England at the peace of Amiens in the Egyptienne 40, Capt. Chas. Ogle, he did not again go afloat until 1803; in the autumn of which year he was received in succession on board the Northumberland 74, Capt. Hon. Alex. Cochrane, and Arab 22, Capts. Lord Cochrane and Keith Maxwell. In the vessel last mentioned he was for upwards of 18 months employed as Master’s Mate and Acting-Lieutenant off Boulogne (where he came into frequent contact with the enemy’s batteries and flotilla) and on the coasts of Holland, Denmark, and Norway. He was then again placed under the command of Lord Cochrane as Master’s Mate in the Pallas 32; in command of one of the boats belonging to which frigate we find him, on the night of 5 April, 1806, entering the river Gironde, for the purpose of uniting in an attempt to cut out two French brig-corvettes, which lay 20 miles above the shoals and between two heavy batteries. One of these, La Tapageuse of 14 long 8-pounders and 95 men, although fully prepared, was most gallantly boarded and carried. The strength of the flood-tide preventing the boats or the prize from ascending the stream in quest of the remaining brig. La Tapageuse at daybreak made sail. On her way down, however, she was followed and attacked by her late consort, who, after an hour’s firing, was compelled to sheer off. On 20 Sept. following Mr. Thomson was made liieutenant into the Meteor bomb, Capt. Jas. Collins; and in that vessel, in which he remained until he invalided in Nov. 1807, he was again in action with the enemy in the neighbourhood of Boulogne, and was present under Sir John Duckworth at the passage of the Dardanells. His next appointments were – 22 May, 1809, to the Tisiphone sloop, Capts. Wm. Williams Foote and Wm. Love, on the Guernsey station, where he cruized in command of a tender – 16 April, 1810, to the Tweed 18, Capt. Thos. Edw. Symonds, which vessel, employed on the North Sea and Baltic, his health obliged him to leave in the following Dec. – 2 May, 1812, as First-Lieutenant (a rank he had for some time held on board the Tweed) to the Leonidas 38, Capt. Anselm John Griffiths, on the coast of Ireland – 2 Feb. 1813, for four months, to the Crescent 38, Capt. John Quilliam, at Newfoundland in May, 1814, again as First, to the Cretan 16, Capt. Chas. Fred. Payne, off the Scheldt – and 9 May, 1815, for a very brief period, to the San Josef 110, as Flag-Lieutenant to Vice-Admiral Sir Rich. Strachan at Plymouth. In 1822-3 he commanded the Earl Moira Revenue-cruizer, and another vessel of the same description, whose name we do not possess. Since he attained his present rank, 15 Feb. 1832, he has been on half-pay.