Skip to main page content (AccessKey S) Joseph Thomson lived
from 14 February 1858 to 2 August 1895. He was a geologist and
explorer who played an important part in the "Scramble for
Africa" in the 1880s and 1890s. The wider picture in Scotland at
the time is set out in our Historical Timeline. Joseph Thomson
was born at Penpont near Thornhill in Dumfries and Galloway. An
apprenticeship with his father, who was a stonemason, led to an
interest in geology. This he pursued at the University of
Edinburgh, where he studied under Archibald Geikie. He graduated
in 1878, and was appointed geologist and naturalist to Alexander
Johnston's expedition across modern Tanzania to find a route
from Dar es Salaam to Lake Nyasa and Lake Tanganyika. After
Johnston's death, Thomson successfully assumed leadership of the
expedition. In 1883, he undertook another Royal Geological
Society expedition, this time to find a route from the east
coast of Africa to the north shore of Lake Victoria. In 1885 he
worked for the National Afri