She was the seventh daughter of Thomas Byerley of Etruria, Staffordshire, a nephew by marriage and sometime partner and manager of the pottery works of Josiah Wedgwood.
[2] During their residence in London, for some of the time at Hinde Street, Marylebone, she and her husband assembled an artistic and literary circle, among their earlier friends being Thomas Campbell (poet), David Wilkie (artist), James Mackintosh, Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey, and Lord Cockburn.
Later, in Welbeck Street, they saw much of Thackeray, Robert Browning, and also of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who became a close friend.
At her husband's suggestion, Thomson began biographical compilation, starting with a brief Life of Wolsey for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1824.
She developed anecdotal biography, as used by Isaac D'Israeli, John Heneage Jesse, and Agnes Strickland.