Sir William Thomson FRSE LLD (1856–1947) was a 19th/20th century Scottish mathematician and physicist primarily working as a university administrator in South Africa.
He was born on New Year's Eve, 31 December 1856, in the village of Kirkton of Mailler in Perthshire.
He was educated at Perth Academy then studied mathematics and physics at the University of Edinburgh.
His proposers were George Chrystal, Peter Guthrie Tait, Alexander Crum Brown and Sir William Turner.
[2] In 1883 he succeeded Prof George Gordon as Professor of Mathematics at Stellenbosch University in Cape Colony.