James (Diego) Thomson: 1788-1854
James Thomson[1] was born in 1788 in the small port of Creetown in south-west Scotland. From his home town he moved to Edinburgh and studied medicine there for two years before moving to Glasgow for theological studies. He then spent a further period in Edinburgh, as co-pastor with James Haldane in the city’s Leith Walk Tabernacle . Following a period of study of educational methods in the Borough Road Schools in London in 1818, he went to Argentina to distribute and promote the Bible and establish monitorial schools, in cooperation with the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) and the British and Foreign Schools Society (BFSS). The Leith Walk church financed his first year in South America. He understood mission in terms of a tripod--the School Society, the Bible Society, and the Missionary Society--and advocated the formation of "Christian colonies" consisting of "emigrants possessing real religion".
The liberalism of the revolutionary era provided him with an open door for his work, and coupled with his irenic and catholic disposition, enabled him to win the confidence of many Roman Catholic clergy and the leaders of the independence movement such as Bernardino Rivadavia, Bernardo O'Higgins, José San Martín, Simón Bolivar and Francisco de Paula Santander. He initiated public education in Argentina (1818-1821), Chile (1821-1822), and Peru (1822-1824). He became officially an agent of the BFBS on leaving Peru towards the end of 1824. On his return to England in 1825 he developed friendships in the Spanish American community in London, made up of diplomatic envoys, political exiles, and deputies travelling to the Cortes in Cádiz, Spain.
Following his marriage to Mary Morrish of Bristol in 1827, he was BFBS agent in Mexico from 1827 to 1830. While there the Thomsons suffered the loss of their two infant daughters, both born in Mexico. Undaunted, he pressed on with distribution plans and attempted to initiate Bible translation into a number of Mexican languages. He was also a member of the Government Board of Education. He found Scripture distribution opportunities seriously curtailed by the earlier BFBS decision not to publish the Apocrypha (a decision he had opposed), and by edicts against the Bible Societies.
Following a year or so in England he represented BFBS in the Caribbean (1831-1838) and in Canada (1838-1842). distributing Scriptures, encouraging existing BFBS auxiliaries and setting up new ones. He was the prime mover in founding the French-Canadian Missionary Society in 1839. He again took up medical studies and graduated M.D. from McGill University in Montreal in 1842 at the age of 53.
He returned to Mexico in 1842, but a serious illness while in Yucatán brought his ministry in the Americas to a close in 1844. In 1845 he represented BFBS in Scotland, and in 1847 succeeded George Borrows as BFBS agent in Spain. While there he also visited North Africa, France and Portugal. The difficulty he had in finding a place to bury his wife, who died in a flu epidemic Madrid in 1848, led to his involvement in the quest for religious liberty in Spain. His activities there brought him under suspicion and he left the country in 1849.
Thomson was a constant advocate of Bible translation and helped to develop work in a number of languages: Quechua (Peru, 1824), Aymará (London, 1826), Nahuatl (Mexico, 1828). He attempted to begin translation into other languages: Haitian Creole (Haiti, 1835), Mixteco, Otomí, Tarasco, Zapoteco (Mexico, 1842), Maya (Yucatán, 1843), and encouraged translators working in still other languages: Chippewa and Cree (Canada, 1830, 1839), Catalán, Basque, Spanish (Spain, 1847-1849).
He left BFBS service in 1849 and devoted himself to helping emerging protestant groups in the Iberian peninsula. He himself had earlier begun small congregations in Buenos Aires, Lima, and Mexico City and been involved in a group in Madrid. During the 1851 Great Exhibition in London he organised evangelistic meetings for Spanish visitors. He was instrumental in founding the Spanish Evangelization Society which came into being in 1855, the year after his death. In his final years he was also increasingly involved in the peace movement and in the cause of religious liberty in Europe, promoting it through his writings and tireless lobbying of parliamentarians and government ministers.
Throughout his life Thomson used the printed page to inform and educate the evangelical public, to make needs known and promote various causes. He was unafraid to use the Press in different countries to argue the Bible Society cause, at times to the dismay of BFBS Secretaries in London. He was an early advocate of unity amongst protestants. His books on prayer and liturgy were warmly received. His scholarship in matters of the biblical text, canon and history was valued. His letters to BFBS--over 400 written from 1820 to 1850--are not mere reports of his work, but reveal a fertile mind and a person who pursued lifetime learning. He was fascinated with culture, customs, language, geography and climate. He thought and planned strategically and moved with urgency to grasp the opportunities that presented themselves. Throughout his ministry he felt himself borne along by Providence, by the hand that was ushering in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
Those who knew him best spoke of his irenic disposition, catholic spirit and warm evangelical piety. His correspondence and publications shed light on the Independence movement in Latin America and on British commercial and political interests there at that time. His letters helped shape the way the evangelical public in Britain understood Latin America, and open a window into a period of Protestant church history in the Americas and elsewhere that merits wider understanding and investigation.
We are grateful to Cambridge University Library for permission to make available to a wider public Thomson's letters from the Bible Society Collection in the Library.
Bill Mitchell.
[1] Better known as Diego Thomson in Latin America and Spain.