Andrew Mitchell Thomson

Andrew Mitchell Thomson (1779–1831) was a minister of the Church of Scotland, known as an evangelical activist and political reformer.

The second son of the Rev. John Thomson, D.D., by his first wife, Helen Forrest, he was born at Sanquhar, Dumfriesshire, where his father was minister, on 11 July 1779. Educated at the parish school of Markinch, Fife after his father had moved there, and at Edinburgh University which he left in 1800, he was licensed to preach by the presbytery of Kelso; but before receiving a clerical charge he was schoolmaster at Markinch. In 1802 he was appointed parish minister at Sprouston, Roxburghshire. In 1808 he was transferred to the East Church, Perth; in 1810 to New Greyfriars, Edinburgh; and in 1814, on the opening of the church, moved within the city to St. George's. There he remained until his death.

When the Edinburgh town council presented Thomson to Greyfriars, there was strong opposition; but he became one of the influential Edinburgh preachers. He promoted singing at his church, and an improved psalmody in Scottish church worship. He issued a new set of tunes, some of which he composed himself, "Redemption" and "St. George's, Edinburgh" being among them.

Thomson belonged to the evangelical section of the Church of Scotland, and was strongly opposed to the interference of the state in matters spiritual. For the last few years of his life he was a recognised leader of the evangelical party. In the General Assembly he identified himself with the reformers, and took part in the debates against pluralities in livings and the abuses of lay patronage. Like Thomas Chalmers, his ecclesiastical successor, he was interested in social questions, and founded in Edinburgh a weekday school, known as "Dr. Andrew Thomson's". He also took a prominent part in the agitation against slavery in the British colonies, advocating immediate and not gradual abolition. When a rumour alarm was spread that the French had landed, he gathered the Sprouston volunteers and marched into Kelso at their head.

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