James Thomson (23 November 1834 – 3 June 1882) — pen name Bysshe Vanolis — was a Scottish journalist, poet, and translator.

He was trained as an army schoolmaster at the Royal Military Asylum in Chelsea and served in Ireland, where in 1851, at the age of 17, he made the acquaintance of 18-year-old Charles Bradlaugh, who was already known as a freethinker, having published his first atheist pamphlet a year earlier.

For the remaining 19 years of his life, starting in 1863, Thomson submitted stories, essays and poems to the National Reformer and other periodicals.

Thomson died in London at the age of 47, from a broken blood vessel in his bowel,[9][10] and was buried in the east side of Highgate Cemetery in the grave of his friend, the freethinker, Austin Holyoake.

[11] In recent years, Thomson's poems have rarely been anthologised, although the autobiographical "Insomnia" and "Sunday at Hampstead" have been well-regarded and include some striking passages.