Home > William Hepworth Thompson

Thompson was born at York and was privately educated before entering Cambridge University. In 1834 he became a fellow of Trinity, in 1853 Professor of Greek (to which a canonry in Ely Cathedral was then for the first time attached), and in 1866 Master of Trinity College. With the exception of the year 1836, when he acted as headmaster of a newly established school in LeicesterThis article discusses Leicester in England. For other places of the name see Leicester (disambiguation). Leicester (pronounced Lester is a city in the English Midlands, on the River Soar. It is the traditional county town of Leicestershire (the administr, his life was divided between Cambridge and Ely. Thompson died in Cambridge, at the Master's Lodge, twenty years after being appointed Master.

Thompson had succeeded William WhewellWilliam Whewell ( May 24, 1794 March 6, 1866) was a British philosopher and historian of science. Whewell was born at Lancaster in England. His father, a carpenter, wished him to follow his trade, but his success in mathematics at Lancaster and Heversham as Master and proved a worthy successor; the twenty years of his mastership were years of progress, and he himself took an active part in the abolition of tests (in particular the compulsory religious tests) and the reform of university studies and of the college statutes. In Trinity College An Historical Sketch, G.M. Trevelyan notes;

"But Thompson and the society over which he presided (1866-1886) were more ready than their predecessors to accept and even to promote changes long overdue. Trinity men were now in the forefront of the reform movement in Cambridge, no longer deprecating but welcoming the help of Parliament to remove from the living academic body the shackles of an age out-worn."

The efforts of men such as Thompson were fundamental in transforming Trinity College and indeed Cambridge University into truly meritocratic institutions.

As a scholar Thompson devoted his attention almost entirely to PlatoFor the computing technology, see PLATO System. Plato ( Greek: Platon (c. 427 BC c. 347 BC) was an immensely influential classical Greek philosopher, student of Socrates, teacher of Aristotle, writer, and founder of the Academy in Athens. Plato, who is be; and his PhaedrusPhaedrus , Roman fabulist, was by birth a Macedonian and lived in the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius and Claudius. According to his own statement (prologue to book III), he was born on the Pierian Mountain, but he seems to have been brought to Italy ( 1868Events January 3 Meiji Emperor declares " Meiji Restoration", his own restoration to full power, against the supporters of the Tokugawa Shogunate. January 10 Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu declares emperor's declaration "illegal" and attacks Kyoto. Pro-Emperor) and GorgiasGorgias (Person) Gorgias (c. 483- 375 BC), Greek sophist and rhetorician, was a native of Leontini in Sicily. In 427 he was sent by his fellow-citizens at the head of an embassy to ask Athenian protection against the aggression of the Syracusans. He subse ( 1871Events January January 18 The member-states of the North German Confederation unite into a single nation-state known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany. January 28 France surrenders to en), with especially valuable introductions, remained as the standard English editions of these two dialogues for over forty years.

The quote "We are none of us infallible, not even the youngest of us" is attributed to Thompson and is recorded in Collections and Recollections by G.W.E. Russell (1898) and also in Trinity College An Historical Sketch by G.M. Trevelyan (1943). Thompson uttered these words while Master of Trinity at a College Meeting of the Fellowship on 30 March, 1878. As noted above, this was a time of great reformation within the College, willingly supported by Thompson. G.W. Balfour , then a junior Fellow of the College, later politician and Secretary for Ireland , proposed a revision of the College Statutes. The quote was, as Trevelyan puts it, "directed in a kindly spirit at the reforming zeal of a group of junior Fellows". Incidentally, the motion was seconded by Coutts Trotter , one of the most senior Fellows.

This entry was based on material originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and Trinity College An Historical Sketch by G.M. Trevelyan ( 1943).