ABLE SEAMAN WILLIAM (BILL) HENRY THOMSON 1735 RAN.
Bill Thomson was born in Narre Warren Victoria in December 1897, the son of Erik and Elizabeth Thomson. Erik was a Danish Ship’s Carpenter who had arrived in Australia in January 1893, marrying Elizabeth four months later. Bill was the third of their eight children, and he enlisted in the RAN on the 1st of June 1912 as a Boy 2nd Class on HMAS Tingira, possibly the youngest boy in his intake. He was advanced to Boy 1stClass in February 1913 and joined the Battle Cruiser HMAS Australia in October 1913. He was advanced to Ordinary Seaman 2nd Class on his 17thbirthday and to Ordinary Seaman in October 1915.
Bill was a well reported rating, and he was advanced to Able Seaman just eight weeks after being rated as an Ordinary Seaman. He was rated as a Seaman Torpedoman in 1916 and in early 1918 he was landed from Australia, most probably to do electrical training with the Royal Navy as he was qualified as a LTO on his return to HMAS Australia in May 1918. LTO’s were Seaman sailors qualified in electrics to maintain torpedo and gunnery systems.
Whilst Bill was serving in the North Sea on Australia his older brother Private Eric Moslyn Thomson 2811 was killed in the disastrous Battle of Fromelles serving with the 59th Bn AIF. Eric has no known grave and is commemorated on the memorial in VC Corner cemetery. In December 1918 Bill was repatriated to Australia to HMAS Cerberus and he discharged at his own request in May 1919.
The reason Bill requested his discharge was because his father Erik had passed away in 1917, brother Eric had been killed in France, and his sister Alma had died of Spanish Influenza and his mother and sisters Greta and Ella were also ill with Influenza.
Despite having trained as an electrician in the RAN, Bill found he was not qualified as an electrician in Australia as he had not completed an apprenticeship. Undeterred he took work in the Victorian railways and in 1923 on a trip to Sydney with his mother he met and married Jessie Manson. The couple would have three children and would have postings throughout Victoria with Bill being a Stationmaster.
In 1954 Bill left the railways and he and Jessie purchased the Post Agency and News agency at Erica in Victoria, later buying the Post Office in Beaconsfield Victoria. In January 1971 the couple retired to Kangaroo Flat, however on the 12th of July 1971 Bill passed away.
William (Bill) Henry Thomson was cremated, and his ashes are interred in Springvale Botanical Cemetery Plot Cassia, Wall T, Niche 405.
References: Ancestry, in particular the Davies Sakaressen family tree.
