Basil Thomson

Sir Basil Home Thomson, KCB (21 April 1861 – 26 March 1939) was a British intelligence officer, and colonial administrator, who was director of wartime intelligence during World War I, assistant premier of Tonga, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, prison governor and writer.

Early life

Thomson was born on 21 April 1861 at Oxford, where his father, William Thomson (who would later become Archbishop of York), was provost of The Queen's College. Thomson was educated at Worsley's School in Hendon and Eton College, and then attended New College, Oxford. Thomson ended his university studies after two terms, after suffering bouts of depression, and spent some time from 1881 to 1882 in the United States, working as a farmer in Iowa.Noel Rutherford, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36499 Thomson, Sir Basil Home (1861–1939)] , "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2008.]

Colonial service

In 1883, with the promise of marriage to a Grace Webber should he be financially secure, Thomson secured a cadet position at the Colonial Office, where he assisted Sir William Des Vœux, then Governor of Fiji. Arriving in Fiji in early 1884, and set about learning the Fijian and Tongan languages while appointed as a stipendiary magistrate throughout the islands. When Sir William MacGregor was appointed administrator of British New Guinea, Thomson joined his staff until he was invalided back to England after contracting malaria.

Back in England, Thomson married Grace Webber in 1890, returning to Fiji with his wife in the middle of that year to serve as commissioner of native lands. When Sir John Thurston, the Governor of Fiji, dismissed the Premier of Tonga (Shirley Waldemar Baker) in his capacity as High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, Thomson was moved to Tonga, where he became assistant premier to Siaosi U. Tuku'aho, the pro-British chief appointed as Baker's replacement.

Writing career

After three years at the Native Lands Office in Suva, Thomson resigned from colonial service, and returned to England in 1893, due in no small part to the deteriorating health of his wife. There he embarked on a career as a writer, drawing on his experiences in the South Sea Islands to produce "South Sea Yarns" (1894, written in Fiji) [cite book |title=Magic and Religion |last=Lang |first=Andrew |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=1901 |publisher=Longmans, Green & Co. |location=London |isbn=1402115784 |pages=p288 ] , "The Diversions of a Prime Minister" (1894, about his government work in Tonga), and "The Indiscretions of Lady Asenath" (1898).

Prison governorship

In the mid-1890s, Thomson read for the bar examinations at the Inner Temple, and was admitted to the bar in 1896. Instead of becoming a barrister, Thomson accepted the position of deputy governor at HM Prison Liverpool, after his name was suggested for the post due to a personal acquaintance with Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, a fellow Old Etonian who had stayed with Thomson in Tonga. [cite book |title=Prison Governors: Managing Prisons in a Time of Change |last=Bryans |first=Shane |authorlink= |coauthors= |year=2007 |publisher=Willan Publishing |location=London |isbn=1843922231 |pages=pp 32 ] Over the next twelve years, he served as governor of Northampton, Cardiff, Dartmoor, and Wormwood Scrubs prisons.From 1908 to 1913, he served as secretary of the Prison Commission.

In 1899, the United Kingdom and Germany signed an agreement formalising each country's rights and claims over Tonga and Samoa respectively. Given his inside knowledge of Tongan politics, Thomson was tasked with expediting the establishment of a British protectorate over Tonga, which was established on 18 May 1900 despite Tongan resistance.

Metropolitan Police

In June 1913, Thomson was appointed Assistant Commissioner "C" (Crime) of London's Metropolitan Police, which made him the head of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at New Scotland Yard. When World War I broke out in 1914, the CID found itself acting as the enforcement arm for Britain's military intelligence apparatus: while the newly-formed Secret Service Bureau (later known as MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service), and the intelligence arms of the War Office and the Admiralty, collected intelligence on suspected spies in Britain, they had no arrest powers. As head of CID, Thomson was involved in the arrests in several high-profile espionage cases, including Carl Hans Lody and Mata Hari establishing himself a reputation as a "spycatcher". Thomson worked closely with the MI5, especially the MI5(g) headed by Vernon Kell and his works at the was key in dealing with the Indian seditionist movement in Europe. However, since the existence of the latter organisation was not acknowledged at the time, Thomson controversially claimed a large proportion of the credit in the successful British counter-espionage operations. In his memoirs, "The Scene Changes", Thomson acknowledges only the works of Robert Nathan, who worked closely with him, and was involved in the interrogation of a number of Indian revolutionaries who worked with the Germans during the war.Harvnb|Popplewell|1995|p=220] Harvnb|Popplewell|1995|p=219] Thomson and Nathan's work at the time was key in identifying the plans by Ghadar Party and the Berlin Committee to assassinate Lord Kitchener in 1915 through an associate of Har Dayal, Gobind Behari Lal, as well as identifying the outlines of the Indian revolutionary conspiracy.Harvnb|Popplewell|1995|p=224] Their efforts at the time also resulted in the capture of Harish Chandra (who was associated with the Berlin committee), and he was successfully turned into a double agent. Thomson's efforts were also key in uncovering the first concrete evidence of Turco-German agents operating in the middle east and attempting to destabillise Afghanistan and British India.Harvnb|Popplewell|1995|p=227]

Thomson's work as Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard has its darker side. His natural conservatism was given full throttle against suffragettes, then against spies from Imperial Germany and its allies, then against Irish Sinn Feiners, and finally against Bolsheviks and British Socialists. To be polite, he kept a tight handle on those considered enemies of the British Government and people, but to be more honest he did anything to undercut those enemies, even when (like the British Labour Party) they were totally legitimate. Thomson was involved with the spreading of the "Black Diaries" used against Sir Roger Casement to prevent public support of a reduction of Casement's death sentence for treason in 1917. It may not have been done for patriotic reasons: the same year Thomson was made a Companion of the Bath. Later he would be made a Knight Commander of the Bath. He also equated Bolsheviks only with Jews, and even wrote anti-Semitic articles about Jews for a newspaper, the Whitechapel Gazette, owned by the highly questionable social figure Maundy Gregory.Maundy Gregory had done some espionage work for Scotland Yard in the war but he was also heavily involved (with a wink from Prime Minister David Lloyd George) in the illegal sale of honours to rich and questionable "contributors" to the Liberal Party. The connections here are curious and not the best for a man who claimed a clean record. Thomson also aimed his anti-Labour Party activities to those men who were actually trying to do work for the rank and file members (like supporting Unions in their demands). His views of Labour members he liked were the more conservative types who later willingly joined the Conservative led National Government in the 1930s, weakening the same Labour party for nearly a decade and a half.One gets the impression that Thomson was simply a total reactionary.

The Hyde Park incident

In December 1925, Thomson was arrested in London's Hyde Park, and charged with "committing an act in violation of public decency" with a young woman, Miss Thelma de Lava. Thomson rejected the charges, insisting that he was engaged in conversation with the woman for the purposes of research for a book he was writing on London vice. Nonetheless, he was found guilty of public indecency, and fined £5. [ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,728905,00.html The Thomson Case] , "TIME", 18 January 1926.]

In reality the story he gave the court (which his barrister, Sir Henry Curtis Bennett probably did not support) sounded totally peculiar. Thomson apparently lied (or told a half-truth) regarding his name, calling himself "Home Thomson" when he was arrested with Miss de Lava. "Home" was one of his middle names. Unfortunately he was recognized by the police. He tried alternately to bluster or to offer a vague bribe to the constables. When he presented his version in the courtroom he said he was researching a book on the danger of left wing agitators in England and he was together with Miss de Lava awaiting for the speech to begin.Had this been true, Thomson should have revealed in court who the orator was he was awaiting for. He kept refusing. That plus the background of Miss de Lava as a prostitute ended any real credibility that Thomson thought would save him.

To be fair to Thomson, there is a slim chance he was partly set up. That is he was legitimately arrested, but given no chance to keep the matter quiet. The reason may be that Thomson was interested in an opening for a new Commissioner of Scotland Yard, a post that he would have felt he was properly prepared for. His enemies in the police may have made sure that the entire affair became public to discredit him.

References

Bloomfield, Jeffrey "The Rise and Fall of Basil Thomson, 1861-1939", Journal of the Police History Society, Volume 12 (1997), p. 11-19.