THOMSON, Robert, M.A. (1865-1945)
Assembly memorial minute, 1946
Robert Thomson was born in Leslie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on September 14th, 1865. His father was a farmer. Robert received his higher education at the University of Aberdeen, where he graduated Master of Arts. He was at the Free Church Theological Hall, Aberdeen, from 1887 to 1891. He passed his final Theological Examinations in April, 1891, and was licensed by the Free Church Presbytery of Garioch in May. He sailed for Australia on 12th June, 1891.
From July, 1891, to July, 1892, he was in Western Australia for six months assisting the Rev. David Shearer, M.A., the pioneer Presbyterian minister in Perth. The next six months he was in charge of the Presbyterian Church at Albany, where, during his stay, the present beautiful little church, costing £2,000, was opened for service. He landed in Melbourne in July, 1892, just after the collapse of the great Land Boom, when the banks were closing their doors.
He did Home Mission work in East Malvern and in the Murray Valley at Tallangatta. He next supplied the pulpit of the Rev. W. Mabin, of Campbelltown, Tasmania, during his visit to Scotland. Thereafter he was placed on the Preachers’ List. His first Charge was that of Dunolly, where he was ordained and inducted on July 11th, 1894.
He resigned on April 30th, 1898, and took a trip to his native land. On his return he was inducted into the pastoral Charge of Flemington on June 13th, 1899. Although he had a strong preference for country life, he remained at Flemington for about eight years. His next and last Charge was that of Smeaton, where he was inducted on May 30th, 1907. He retired from active work, but still remaining Senior Pastor, on January 1st, 1922. The Rev. Archibald F. Lawson was inducted to Smeaton on May 16th, 1922, and the actual working of the Charge was his responsibility. Mr. Thomson married Miss Ida Trewin, of Waubra, and their home was at Creswick, where he died on October 25th, 1945, in his 81st year.
A friend who has known him ever since his Dunolly days thus writes of him: “From the moment that he entered the pulpit, one realized that he was in the presence of a powerful and richly furnished mind. He was a great reader, not perhaps of the light ephemeral stuff of the day, but of the great masterpieces of English literature. Poetry was his especial study, and he made Browning and Tennyson his own. To all his reading he brought an experienced judgment. Nor was he content to absorb the thought of others: he was a thinker himself, and loved to brood over the great themes of life and religion. Two things always impressed one very strongly: first, Mr. Thomson’s power of penetration. He seemed to get to the heart of things, whether it were a passage in Scripture, or a situation in life, or the motives of human action. This penetration, indeed, was almost uncanny. Next, his power of original expression. You did not easily forget his terse and forcible delineation. This originality of expression was all the more striking by reason of his Scottish accent. His sermons were marked often by passages of real eloquence, and he made a most effective use of iteration to drive home his point. He was very outspoken in his utterances, but men felt that they came from the heart.
His public prayers were those of a man who knew well the wrestlings of private prayer. He seemed to know the soul of man in its greatness and its weakness, and its pathos. Once, at the close of a prayer by the late Rev. David Ross, he turned to a friend and said, ‘Well, where are you now? ’ The same question might have been often asked at the close of some of his own prayers. Mr. Thomson was a man of profound sympathy with men and women in their trials, sorrows, and disappointments; and many a despondent soul received power to ‘walk and not faint’ from his encouragement. Mr. Thomson never sought popularity or publicity. It is doubtful if he ever opened his lips in the General Assembly. He listened, and weighed. Ask some of the farming people of Smeaton or Dunolly what they thought of him. They would all agree that ‘There was only one Robert Thomson. ’ ”
The Assembly extends its sincere sympathy to Mrs. Thomson.
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