Edinburgh-born and the son of a printer, William Thomson was employed as an accountant in Glasgow. He emigrated with his family, arrived in Canterbury in 1853 on the Hampshire, a vessel of about 600 tons. Theirs had been ‘a protracted voyage of five months’.

Thomson attended the ball on Queen Victoria’s birthday – on 24 May – in Highland costume. The Lyttelton Maori ‘hearing of his costume, gathered along Norwich Quay to see the Taipo coming – rather peculiar considering their style of dress’.

Thomson bought a property at Governors Bay which he called ‘Hemingford’. It became the famous and beautiful property of sheepfarmer, scientist and conservationist T. H. Potts and was and is known as ‘Ohinetahi’. To get home the family had to travel by boat or walk along a very narrow track and pass through the big and little Rapaki Maori pas. William’s son, J. J. Thompson, was to recall that :

in one ... the natives stuck up my father for the purpose of levying blackmail. However, an old woman being seized with the colic, he was allowed to go on after prescribing for her.