British biologist (1860–1948)

Thompson studied medicine at the university in his native city of Edinburgh, where he was greatly influenced by Charles Thomson, who had recently returned from the Challenger Expedition. In 1884 he became professor of biology (subsequently natural history) at University College, Dundee. In 1917, when he became senior professor, Thompson published On Growth and Form, in which he developed the notion of evolutionary changes in animal form in terms of physical forces acting upon the individual during its lifetime, rather than as the sum total of modifications made over successive generations – the latter being the traditional credo postulated by Darwinists. In a later edition (1942), however, Thompson admitted the difficulty of explaining away the cumulative effect of physical and mental adaptations, which can scarcely be accounted for in the experience of one generation. In addition to such theoretical work, Thompson was much involved in oceanographic studies, as well as fisheries and fur-seal conservation in northern Europe. He was one of the British representatives on the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, from its foundation in 1902. He was also interested in classical science, publishing works on the natural history of ancient writers, including an edition of Aristotle's Historia Animalium (1910; History of Animals) and accounts of Greek birds and fishes.

(1898–1975) [Bi]

British archaeologist who worked extensively on the Maya of Mesoamerica. Educated at Winchester College, he left to join the army during WW1, fighting in France with the Coldstream Guards. His family had Argentine connections and for some time after the war he worked as a gaucho on a cattle ranch in South America. A growing interest in archaeology took him to Cambridge in 1924 where he studied at Fitzwilliam House (now College). From 1926 through to 1935 he was on the staff of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, during which time he carried out much of his fieldwork. He applied ethnology to his work of interpretation, and excavated a number of sites in British Honduras, including San Jose, Bushilha, and San Antonio near Lubaantun. He was the first to establish a detailed chronology for the Belize Valley and to make a distinction between ceremonial centres and urban areas. Perhaps his greatest work was in advancing the decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphic scripts and in linking the Mayan calendar to the Christian calendar. In 1935 Thompson joined the Carnegie Institution in Washington where he remained until his retirement in 1958.

[Obit.: American Anthropologist, 78 (1976), 317–20]

1844–94, Canadian political leader, b. Nova Scotia. He was elected (1877) to the provincial assembly, was briefly provincial prime minister, and then was made a justice of the supreme court of Nova Scotia. In 1885, Sir John Macdonald appointed him minister of justice for Canada. In that post Thompson skillfully defended the government's position in the debates on the execution (1885) of Louis Riel and on the Jesuit Estates Act (1888). In 1892 he became prime minister of Canada. He died suddenly in England, shortly after having been sworn in as privy councilor. He was knighted in 1888.