Painter, draughtsman, potter and teacher, full name Robert Sinclair Thomson, born and lived in Glasgow. While at Allan Glen’s School there aged 16 a rugby injury prompted leg amputation, always to cause pain and inconvenience. During World War II served as a dispatch rider – he was obsessed by motorcycles – in 1941 going to Glasgow School of Art to study drawing and painting under Hugh Adam Crawford. While teaching in the High School Thomson, a fine potter who erected his own kiln at home, taught pottery in the evening at the School of Art. He created large pottery murals for Lanarkshire schools. Thomson also arranged art classes in his home, which brought together students such as Joan Eardley, Margot Sandeman and his first wife Florence, a painter.