Thompson was born in Surrey and was admitted to St John's College, Cambridge, as a pensioner on 29 April 1818, graduating B.A.
In 1820, he competed for the Browne Medal, receiving an extra prize for a Latin ode.
[1][2] After being successively curate of St George's, Camberwell, Surrey (1824–7), of St Mary's, Salehurst, Sussex (1827–8), and of Wrington, Somerset (1828–1853), Thompson was appointed vicar of Chard, Somerset, on 14 September 1853, by George Henry Law.
In 1850, he edited a volume of Original Ballads by living Authors, for which his friend E. A. Freeman, met at Hannah More's house at Barley-Wood, wrote nine poems.
[1] He contributed most of the classical articles to the Encyclopædia Metropolitana (1824), some of which he later published separately.