[1] Thompson began a career as a journalist in Manchester, England, writing for several papers in the 1880s and meeting the socialist writer Robert Blatchford, who would become his lifelong friend.
[2] The Clarion's life was always precarious, but among its successes was a series of articles by Blatchford, collected in a volume entitled Merrie England, dedicated to Thompson.
[1] Thompson's first professional works for the stage in the late 1890s were scripts for pantomimes written for Robert Courtneidge, who was then the manager of the Prince's Theatre in Manchester.
In 1907, Thompson and Courtneidge adapted Henry Fielding's Tom Jones as a comic opera with music by Edward German, also at the Apollo.
"[1] Thompson returned to writing for the stage with an original book for a Japanese-set musical romance, The Mousmé (1911, Shaftesbury); it was a failure, although it met with critical praise.
During World War I and afterwards, Thompson wrote many articles for the Weekly Dispatch concerning the Labour movement, the condition of the poor and other social topics.