Painter, draughtsman, printmaker and teacher, born in New Zealand at Dunedin, where he attended the School of Art under A H O’Keeffe, was a commercial artist and a cartoonist for the Daily Times. Served with the New Zealand Army in World War I, was badly wounded at Messines and recovered in England. Battle scenes completed alongside George E Butler are in the New Zealand National Archives. An Army scholarship of 1919 enabled Thompson to study at the Slade School of Fine Art with Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer; studying etching with Frank Short at the Royal College of Art, he won first prize; and he also attended the Central School of Arts and Crafts. He was an engraving finalist, Prix de Rome, 1923 (he was a member of its faculty, 1941–66).