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James Beveridge Thomson

Scottish barrister

Summary

Scottish barrister

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun
name	Sir James Beveridge Thomson
honorific_suffix
image	Ketua Hakim Negara-1.jpg
order	1st
office	Lord President of the Federal Court
term_start	16 September 1963
term_end	31 May 1966
predecessor	himself (as Chief Justice of the Federation of Malaya)
successor	Syed Sheh Hassan Barakbah
office1	Chief Justice of the Federation of Malaya
term_start1	31 August 1957
term_end1	16 September 1963
predecessor1	Post created
successor1	himself (as Lord President of the Federal Court)
office2	Chief Justice of Fiji and Chief Judicial Commissioner for the Western Pacific
term_start2	1949
term_end2	1953
predecessor2	Claud Seton
successor2	Ragnar Hyne
office3	Chief Justice of Tonga
term_start3	1949
term_end3	1953
successor3	William Desmond Care
birth_date
birth_place	Clydebank, Scotland
death_date
spouse	Toh Puan Florence Adams, Lady Thomson

Sir James Beveridge Thomson (24 March 1902 – 31 March 1983), was a Scottish barrister who was the Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Malaysia. He was also Chief Justice of Fiji.

Life

Born in Clydebank, Scotland, he attended George Watson's College and graduated from the University of Edinburgh with first class honours in history.

He was called to the English Bar (Middle Temple) in 1929. He was a resident magistrate in Northern Rhodesia, appointed Puisne Judge, Fiji and Western Pacific, in 1945, and Puisne Judge in Malaya in 1947. He was Chief Justice of Fiji (and ex officio Chief Judicial Commissioner for the Western Pacific) 1949–1953, and Chief Justice of Tonga.{{cite journal

From 1953, Thomson was back in Malaya. He was a judge in the High Court in Ipoh, Perak, from 1953 to 1957. In 1957, he was appointed as Chief Justice of Malaya,{{cite web |access-date=14 March 2012}} receiving a knighthood in 1959. After the formation of Malaysia in September 1963, Thomson served as its first Lord President of the Federal Court until May 1966.The Federal Court was known as the Supreme Court between 1985-1994. He was appointed KBE in 1966.

Family life

He married Dr Florence Adams, MRCP (Eng.), LRCP (Lond.). After Sir James Thomson's knighthood in 1959, she was known as Toh Puan Datin Lady Florence Adams Thomson. She was a practising physician, working in Northern Rhodesia, where her husband was Resident Magistrate,{{cite journal |url-access=subscription}} During their time in Malaysia, she became chief nutritionist at the Institute of Medical Research in Kuala Lumpur, carrying out research and authoring a number of articles on child nutrition in Malaysia.{{cite journal

Honours

Commonwealth honours

Malaysia :
- [[File:MY Darjah Yang Mulia Pangkuan Negara (Defender of the Realm) - SMN.svg|50px]] Honorary Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (SMN (K)) – Tun (1966){{cite web
Malaya :
- [[File:MY Darjah Yang Mulia Pangkuan Negara (Defender of the Realm)- PMN.svg|50px]] Honorary Commander of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (PMN (K)) – Tan Sri (1958){{cite web
United Kingdom :
- [[File:Order of the British Empire (Civil) Ribbon.svg|50px]] Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) – Sir (1966)
- [[File:200px ribbon bar of the Knight Bachelor medal (UK).svg|50px]] Knight Bachelor (Kt) – Sir (1959)

Selected bibliography

{{cite book
{{cite book

Notes

References

Obituary, The Times (London), 8 April 1983
{{London Gazette. (12 January 1945)
{{London Gazette. (12 December 1947)
[http://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/1161/4v500.html Malaysian High Court judgments]
{{London Gazette. (1 January 1959)
{{London Gazette. (1 January 1966)
{{London Gazette. (1 January 1966)
{{London Gazette. (1 January 1959)

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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