Abstract
THE sudden death of Sir Basil Thomson, formerly assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and director of intelligence at Scotland Yard, which took place on March 26 at the age of seventy-eight years, brings to a close a career no less remarkable for the versatility it displayed than for its actual achievement. Its interest for the anthropologist lies in the fact that as a colonial officer, Thomson was an outstanding example, among members of the old school of administrators, of those who, while without special training in anthropology, attained efficiency in their methods of administration in dealing with native affairs by acquiring and applying a sympathetic knowledge and understanding of native institutions and ways of thought.
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Sir Basil Thomson, K.C.B. Nature 143, 630 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143630b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143630b0