James Bates Thomson (May 21, 1808 – June 22, 1883) was an American mathematician, educator, and writer.
After taking his degree he spent one year in New Haven, Connecticut, as a resident graduate, and then took charge of an academy in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1842, when he resigned and moved to Auburn, New York.
He was then entrusted by Yale president Jeremiah Day with the duty of abridging his treatise on algebra, and for four or five years subsequently devoted himself to the organization and extension of teachers' institutes and similar gatherings.
He received the degree of Doctor of Laws from Hamilton College in 1853, and again from the University of Tennessee in 1882.
His great-grandson, Thomson Burtis, was a prolific writer of adventure stories for boys as well as several movie scripts.