Although he had no formal artistic training, as a young boy he would often fill his schoolbooks with drawings of horses, dogs, and ships.

[3] He attended Coleraine Model School, but left at the age of fourteen to work as a clerk at E. Gribbon & Sons, Linen Manufacturers.

[4] Years later, his artistic talents were discovered, and in 1877 he was hired by printing and publishing company Marcus Ward & Co.[2] On 29 December 1884, Thomson married Jessie Naismith Miller in Belfast.

[4] Thomson's correspondence reflects the fact that he missed being close to the National Gallery and the museums where he usually compiled research for his illustrations.

[5][8] His illustrations for Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford (1891) inspired a slew of publishers to produce a series of gift books in a similar style ("crown octavo with three edges gilt, bound in dark green cloth, front and spine heavily stamped in gold").

Thomson's most popular illustrations were "fine line drawing of rural characters and gentle countrified society".

The earliest known example of this was for the 1899 Birmingham and Midland Institute exhibition, where he colored the Cranford illustrations he had first drawn eight years earlier.

"[3] When illustrating a series of pieces set in the same location, Thomson would maintain the details of each room, hallway, or facade, drawing them from different angles throughout the publication.

When J. M. Barrie's Quality Street was published with Thomson's illustrations in 1913, the art critic for the Daily News stated, "The Barrie-Thomson combination is as perfect in its way as that of Gilbert and Sullivan".

Felmingham included the popularity of such architectural features as high-pitched roof, Flemish gables, and white or green painted sash windows as an outward expression of the revival.

[17] The members of the school had all been fired by the literature, art, costume or atmosphere of England in the eighteenth century and became dealers in nostalgia on a very large scale.

[18] It was a style of illustration harking back to pre-industrial rural England,[19] which specialized in the nostalgic recreation of a by-gone golden era before the ravages of industrialization.

[20] Cooke notes that the style involved the careful representation of Regency dress and interiors, pastoral settings and sharp characterization which was based on a close reading of the text.