William Thomson J.P. was born at Cligh Farm near Wilsontown, Carnaruth, Lanarkshire, Scotland on March 24, 1831. Aged 7, he travelled to Sydney with his parents, 4 brothers and 4 sisters on the William Rogers, arriving in August 1838 (though his mother died on the voyage). In 1839, the family travelled to Port Phillip, taking up service with Mr Alexander Fullerton Mollison, who had taken up the Coliban station, now Malmsbury. After staying five years with Mollison, the family moved to Anderson 's Creek on the Upper Yarra River to occupy a small squatting station. They remained there until 1850 when the Thomson brothers purchased at the first sale of land at Kyneton, the farm known as ‘Prospect'. In 1858 the Thomson brothers dissolved the partnership and in that year William was elected member of the Lauriston and Edgecombe district road board and remained a member until it became part of the Kyneton shire in 1865. William purchased land in Kyneton, eventually owning 5 farms. He opened a store in the High Street in 1852.

He was a shire councillor from the formation of Kynton Shire Council in 1865; he was elected President three times and was in that office when the Duke of Edinburgh passed through Kyneton . He was president of the District Hospital and a member of the committee from 1861 (having been president seven times). He was a member of the Kyneton agricultural committee for 20 years and its president three times. Was elected member of the Kyneton State School board of advice when the Education Act came into operation and became its chairman. He contested the seat for the Legislative Assembly in the electoral district of Dalhousie, but was unsuccessful. In 1868 he was appointed territorial magistrate. The photograph below shows him planting an oak tree in the gardens in 1902.

He died on 24 December 1907, aged 76.

{sources include: 'Men of the Time', in Australia Victoria 1878; photograph from the Kyneton Museum)