The Scotsman

Alexander Thomson [called Greek Thomson] (1817-1875), architect, was born on 9 April 1817 at Balfron, Stirlingshire, the seventeenth of the twenty children of John Thomson (1757/8-1824), bookkeeper, and the ninth of his second wife, Elizabeth Cooper (d. 1830). Alexander began work in a writer's office before his talent as a draughtsman was noticed by the Glasgow architect Robert Foote, who took him as an apprentice. In 1847 he married Jessie Nicholson (1827-1866), daughter of the London architect, Michael Angelo Nicholson.