Derick Thomson

He was an Honorary President of the Scottish Poetry Library, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the British Academy. In June 2007, he received an honorary degree from Glasgow University.

Derick Thomson studied at University of Aberdeen, Emmanuel College and Nicolson Institute. The recorded working language is Scottish Gaelic and English. The field of work recorded is Scottish poetry. Employment is recorded with University of Glasgow. Positions recorded include Chair of Celtic, Glasgow. Distinctions recorded are Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Fellow of the British Academy and Derek Allen Prize.

Thomson was originally from Upper Bayble on Lewis, a village that produced two other Gaelic writers of note, Iain Crichton Smith and Anne Frater. His parents, James Thomson and Christina Smith, were both primary school teachers. Educated at the Nicolson Institute in Stornoway, he went on to the University of Aberdeen, where he studied Celtic and English, the University College of North Wales, Bangor, and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took a second degree in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic in 1948. He would later teach at the University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow and University of Aberdeen. He became Professor of Celtic at Glasgow in 1963, and retired in 1991. He was Chairman of the Gaelic Books Council between 1968 and 1991; President of the Scottish Gaelic Texts Society; a member of the Scottish Arts Council; and was the first recipient of the Ossian Prize in 1974. Thomson was Chairman of the Scottish National Party's Gaelic Committee in the 1970s. Thomson was the author of numerous books, including An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry, The Companion to Gaelic Poetry, European Poetry in Gaelic, and collections of Gaelic poetry, including his collected poems Creachadh na Clàrsaich (Plundering of the Celtic harp) which shared the Scottish Book of the Year Award in 1983. He also edited The Companion to Gaelic Scotland. His English–Gaelic dictionary was published in 1981, and was for many years the most practical reference of its kind. He published seven collections of Gaelic poetry, with many English translations, including Meall Garbh/The Rugged Mountain (1995) and Smeur an Dochais. His publications included seminal works such as the Gaelic Sources of Macpherson's Ossian, An Introduction to Gaelic Poetry, The Companion to Gaelic Scotland, and Gaelic Poetry in the Eighteenth Century. His contributions to Welsh studies are also noteworthy. He worked to promote Scottish Gaelic literature as founder, editor and publisher of the quarterly journal Gairm. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 1992 and gave the 1999 Sir John Rhys Memorial Lecture on "Scottish Gaelic Traditional Songs from the 16th to the 18th Century". Thomson was also tireless in his support of other writers in Gaelic and helped bring to publication works such as Gaelic Verbs by Colin Mark. Thomson died at Glasgow in 2012, at the age of 90.

• Honorary President, Scottish Poetry Library • Professor of Celtic, University of Glasgow – 1963–1991 • Chairman of the Gaelic Books Council • Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh • Fellow of the British Academy