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THOMSON, THOMS and MACTHOMAS

John Hamilton Gaylor

   In the September 1990 edition of Scottish World, the Clan MacThomas Society placed an advertisement aimed at North American bearers of the names Thomson, Thoms, MacThomas, MacCombie and several other variants of these. The chief of the clan and president of the society was stated to be MacThomas of Finegand. The advertisement made no claim that the clan included all these names – indeed it merely listed them and gave an American correspondence address – but the implication was clear. However, underlying this there is a complex situation, and the MacThomas clan is definitely less than the advertisement would make it seem.

   The commonest versions of the name are Thomson and Thompson, and arms for eight of them were matriculated in the early years of the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland, which opened in 1672. The coats show a consistent Thomson theme – argent, a stag’s head cabossed either gules or proper, and on a chief either azure or gules various small charges – which was maintained in fifty one out of another fifty three matriculations down to 1973. The Thomsons, larger than many names in the number of their matriculation, therefore demonstrably comprise a clan, deficient only in never having had a chiefly line recognised by the Lord Lyon.

   The arms of Thoms and Thom are quite different. Those of Thoms of Aberlemno, or, a lion rampant gules, debruised by a chevron sable, matriculated in 1881, 1884, and 1946, ie over two hundred years after the first Thomson matriculations, are based on the Mackintosh-MacDuff theme of or, a lion rampant gules. Three cadet versions were matriculated, one in 1955 and two in 1973, and two indeterminate cadet versions for Thom, one in 1963 and another in 1967. Together they comprise a small but distinct group, with Thoms of Aberlemno at its head. However, in 1967 Thomas of Aberlemno metamorphosed into MacThomas of Finegand, and the arms matriculated were those of a cadet of Mackintosh, with the fourth quartering for Thoms of Aberlemno. The arms were matriculated again in 1972 with a change in the second quarter, but retaining the brisure. MacThomas of Finegand now appears in the list of clan chiefs published annually in Whitaker’s Almanac. On the armorial evidence we have therefore three distinct and independent groups – Thomson, Thoms and M’Combie – and assorted Thomases. Of which, if any, is MacThomas of Finegand the chief?