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Godfrey Hilton Thomson was born in Carlisle in 1881.
His mother soon returned to her native Tyneside and to the village
of Felling on the south bank of the Tyne a few miles downstream from
Newcastle. He was brought up by his mother and her sisters. Financial
circumstances meant he had to attend the local free infants Board
School in Low Felling. He then spent the next six years at the High
Felling Board School. His headmaster, John Logan, encouraged him
to compete for a scholarship to a co-educational secondary school
in Newcastle, Rutherford College, which he won. Here he studied mainly |
science: chemistry, heat, light and sound, electricity and magnetism,
mathematics and Euclid.
At the age of sixteen, and having passed the London Matriculation examinations,
he returned to High Felling Board School as a Pupil Teacher, indentured
for three years. The school had four to six pupil teachers who taught portions
of the classes of up to seventy boys, for most of the day under the supervision
of a certificated teacher. In addition there were weekly ‘criticism
lessons’ in the presence of the headmaster and the other pupil teachers.
There was little time for private study, although the headmaster taught
him for some 40 minutes a day. However, at the end of the second year he
travelled to London to take the London Intermediate BSc examinations. At
the age of nineteen he gained distinction, and third place, in the competitive
all England Queen’s Scholarship Examination. This enabled him to
become a full time student at the Armstrong College, Newcastle, a constituent
college of Durham University.
As a teacher to be, a ‘normal student’, he studied for his
BSc degree alongside courses in Education and in English. In his finals
he gained a distinction in both Mathematics and Physics. After three years
he obtained a Research Fellowship and was able to research physics at Strasburg
University, obtaining his PhD there.
He returned to Armstrong College as Assistant Lecturer in Education. Here
he contributed to the training of elementary teachers through lectures
in geography, mathematics, some psychology, classes in blackboard drawing,
and visiting students in schools for their ‘criticism lessons’.
He was promoted to Master of Method and decided to take a university Diploma
in Education. He undertook his practical lessons at Haberdashers’ Askes
School in London. Following the retirement of Professor Wright in 1920
Godfrey Thomson applied and was appointed to the post of Professor of Education.
In 1921, following an exhaustive study of the literature, he devised the
first Northumberland Mental Test. This was given to eleven year old children
who were candidates for free places in secondary schools. In 1922 a revised
test was given to the whole eleven year old age group in the county. This
was not only for the purposes of selection but also to support educational
research. He wrote:
“ My interest in large scale intelligence
surveys arose from a desire to give an equal educational chance to children
from different classes in society and in different districts.”
He was invited to spend a year as Visiting Professor at Columbia University,
New York City. His lectures provided the basis for his book: Instinct,
Intelligence and Character, published in 1924. A year later he was appointed
to the dual posts of Professor of Education at Edinburgh University, the
Bell Chair, and Director of Studies at Moray House, then part of the Edinburgh
Provincial Teacher Training Centre. From the start he said that he would
see his university and college duties merged into one another without ‘an
over-nice discrimination between the two halves.’ From his many responsibilities
he identified two as his own priorities: the excellence of his teaching
and the development of Edinburgh as a leading centre for educational research.
His second book was published in 1929: A Modern Philosophy of Education.
His, and his team’s work, on mental testing was in increasing demand
both in Great Britain and internationally. From 1925 he used the title
Moray House Tests for all the testing materials he and his colleagues devised.
Room 70 in the then Main Building, now Paterson’s Land, became famous
as the research and development centre for the tests. At the time of his
retirement in excess of one and half million were being sold annually.
No one benefited personally from the royalties generated: these were used
to equip the research room at Moray House, pay for the salaries of professional
and administrative staff and to create a research lectureship. Later funds
were allocated to the Godfrey Thomson Research Fund.
Sir Godfrey chose to specialise in the field of psychometrics for both
research and teaching. His many articles and books reflect this choice.
His foremost claim for psychology was that ‘it has especially improved
education making the actual individual and not an average or a typical
individual the object of the teacher’s…care.’ Education ‘must
look at ends and purposes, not merely at methods and means.’ However,
his scientific approaches did not always find favour with the educational
establishment of the time. His legacy was probably greatest in the influence
he had on his generation of students who went on to make their mark and
influence education across the world.
He himself would not infer or draw conclusions not warranted by the findings.
For example, in the debate about the proportion of intelligence that could
be attributed to heredity or to the environment he commented: ‘All
I can venture as a scientist to say is that both are certainly concerned,
but in what proportion I do not know.’
He received many honours: an honorary degree from Durham University in
1939; he was made President of the Psychological Society in 1945-46; he
became an Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
in 1947; and he was knighted in 1949.
On his retirement from Moray House and the University in 1951 Professor
Sir Godfrey Thomson was able to count among his former university BEd students
thirteen professors and heads of colleges. His colleagues, students and
friends presented him with a portrait painted by R H Westwater, ARSA. As
he requested this portrait still hangs in the Board Room of Moray House.
In the Moray House Archive there is a commentary by him on the articles
and books he wrote during his career which he concludes:
“ In a sense I think the whole of my work
has been an attempt to bring mathematical exactitude into psychological
experiment and theorising.”
There is also a selection of the tests he devised, including copies of
the 1922 Northumberland Intelligence.
He died on February 9th 1955. The Association for the College’s
Hostels wrote of hims:
“ …it will not be the psychologist
of international repute nor the enthusiastic and stimulating teacher
they [the past students] will first remember, but the man they sat near
to at a dinner or met at coffee, whose kindly simplicity and eager responsiveness
quickly struck sparks from them which they had not known to possess and
kindled with them a warmth of mutual interest.”
Extracts taken from:
Sir James J Robertson, 1964, ‘Godfrey Thomson’, Godfrey Thomson
Lecture, published by Moray House.
Sir Godfrey Thomson, ‘The Education of an Englishman: an Autobiography’,
published in 1968 by Moray House.
James Duff: an obituary of Sir Godfrey Thomson.
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