Thomas Perronet Thompson

Thomas Perronet Thompson (1783–1869) was a British Parliamentarian, a Governor of Sierra Leone and a radical reformer.

Thompson was born in Kingston upon Hull in 1783. He was son of Thomas Thompson, a banker of Hull and his wife, Philothea Perronet Briggs. The name Perronet was from his mother's grandfather, Vincent Perronet, vicar of Shoreham and a friend of John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley. He was educated at Hull Grammar School. He graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge in 1802 with the rank of seventh Wrangler. From 1803, Thompson served as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, switching to the British Army (as a lieutenant) in 1806. Thompson became Governor of Sierra Leone between August 1808 and June 1810, due in part to his acquaintance with William Wilberforce. He was recalled from the job after complaining about the system by which "freed" slaves were compulsorily "apprenticed" for fourteen years in Sierra Leone. He wrote that Wilberforce and the Sierra Leone Company had "by means of their agents become slave traders themselves". He threatened to expose this situation, so he was sacked, with Wilberforce himself agreeing to the dismissal.

In 1812, Thompson returned to his military duties, and, after serving in the south of France, was in 1815 attached as Arabic interpreter to an expedition against the Wahabees of the Persian Gulf, with whom he negotiated a treaty (dated January 1820) in which the slave trade was for the first time declared piracy. Whilst in the Army, Thompson was promoted to Major in 1825, Lieutenant Colonel in 1829 and in later years was made a Major General. While serving in the Army in India, his second son, Charles, was born at Bombay.

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