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Memorial
FOR
JOHN WYCLIFFE THOMPSON
 John
Wycliffe Thompson was born on 27 January 1876 at 19 Victoria
Park, Dover. He was the fifth son of his parents, Charles
William Thompson, a Major General in the Army, and Margaret, née
Duke. The couple had married on 3 December 1870 at St James
church in Dover. Charles was a widower, and then a Colonel in
the 7th Dragoon Guards. He had been born in Bombay, the son
 of
General Thomas Perronet Thompson, the reformer, politician, and
musician.
John was christened on 9 March at St
James, and was probably named after his uncle, Charles's
brother. On 25 August 1872 the Thompsons were joined by twin
daughters, Irene Perronet and Margaret Wyclife. They too were
christened at St James, on 8 October. By then Charles had left
the Dragoons and become a Colonel H.O.
 John
Wycliffe Thompson served in the South African Campaign and Natal
Rebellion (1906). His daughter Marjorie stated that her parents
had "met in South Africa a few years after the Boer War and got
married in Pretoria". In the Chelmsford Chronicle of 17 December
1909 it was announced that a marriage had been arranged between
John Wycliffe Thompson, fifth son of General C W. Thomson
(Colonel 4th Hussars), of Wethersfield Place and Hilda Louise,
youngest daughter of William Eddowes, MRGC Eng, late
 senior
surgeon Salop Infirmary, and then of Johannesburg, South Africa.
In 1911 John and Hilda Thompson were staying
at the home of Hilda's only sister, Maria Mercer and her husband
Herbert, at 5 Upper Phillimore Gardens, Kensington.
There John was described as a horse-dealer in South Africa.
Mrs Thompson was a nurse and a fluent
linguist in French and German, having attended schools in those
countries. During the Great War she became Matron of the
Military Hospital at Rouen, and during World War II the Chief Night Sister at Hyères, Southern France. On the
fall of France she was interned with other British nationals near Avignon. She died while staying with her sister, in Kenya.
On 5 July 1918, John Wycliffe Thompson died
suddenly in a nursing home at the age of 42. His father was then
at Weathersfield Place but his mother was living at "Knights",
Little Waltham. He is buried in Little Waltham (St Martin)
Churchyard, east of the church where his funeral took place. The
choirs of both Great and Little Waltham accompanied the hymn
"Hark, hark my soul" at the funeral, and at the graveside sang,
"Through the night of doubt and sorrow".
 Mrs
Hilda Thompson kept an album of her time in Rouen, 1915-1919,
which has now been presented to the Royal College of Nursing.
Mrs Thompson is the lady in the middle row with the dark
sleeves.
Illustrations by courtesy of Gail
Perkins
With grateful thanks to Gail Perkins
illustrations top to bottom
2nd Lt John Wycliffe Thompson
Major General Charles William Thompson CB DSO
John Wycliffe Thompson in 1904
John Wycliffe Thompson
John Wycliffe Thompson
The War Memorial at Little Waltham
Tablet inside St Martin's church - 2nd Lt Thompson's name is
second from top
Group of Nurses from Mrs Thompson's album
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