Biography

William McClure Thomson was born on December 31, 1806 in Hamilton, Ohio. He was the son of a Presbyterian minister. He graduated from Miami University, Ohio. He landed in Beirut on 24 February 1833. He was only the eighth Protestant missionary from America to arrive in the area. In 1834 he travelled, with his wife, Eliza Nelson Hanna, to Jerusalem. In April 1834 he was in Jaffa when the Peasants' Revolt broke out and he was forced to remain there as the rebels took control of the countryside. He was unable to return to Jerusalem until Ibrahim Pasha retook it with 12,000 troops. In his absence his wife had given birth to a son but she died 12 days after Thomson's return. He remarried, and his second wife's name was Mrs. Maria Abbott. In December, 1835, he opened a boys' boarding-school in Beirut. He moved around a lot, including returning to America for a couple of years; in some cases he aided in relief efforts and in other he tried to continue offering educational opportunities of young men. Thomson died on April 8, 1894 in Denver, Colorado.