Thompson arrived in Sydney as a convict on the transport Pitt with the Second Fleet in 1792. He was sentenced to fourteen years transportation for the theft of cloth, valued at about 10 pounds, from the shop of a merchant. Thompson was born c.1773 and was therefore about nineteen on his arrival in Sydney. His father was a weaver manufacturer and dyer at Kirk Yetholm in Scotland and Andrew had been educated at a parochial school until forced to leave due to ill health. He was studying for the excise service when arrested.
In the colony Thompson was appointed to the police service in 1793 and served with distinction at Toongabbie and other areas. In 1796 Governor Hunter appointed him to the Green Hills (later Windsor) and he rose to Chief Constable, a position he held until 1808. The Reverend Samuel Marsden praised Thompson's actions in the 1806 Hawkesbury floods when he saved the lives of 101 residents, plucking them from their rooftops in one of his boats.
Thompson had received an absolute pardon in 1797. He built the first toll bridge at Windsor, established a brewery and a hotel, managed Governor Bligh's Hawkesbury farms, owned ships, a tannery and salt works. In 1804 Governor King had helped Thompson set up a salt manufacturing plant in Broken Bay. The first site was Mullet Island (now Dangar Island) on the Hawkesbury River but later Thompson moved his salt works to Scotland Island, named for his homeland. In 1809 Thompson was granted by Lieutenant Governor Paterson '120 acres on island near the southern extremity of Pittwater Bay - being the first bay on the south west side of the south head of Broken Bay. Rent: 3 shillings per year commencing after 5 years. Governor Macquarie later approved this grant. The grant reserved to the government 'the right of making a Public Road through the island and also reserving for the use of the Crown such timber as may be deemed fit for naval purposes'.
At the salt works on the island Thompson extracted salt from seawater by means of an oil burner. He was able to extract 200 lbs (90 kgs) of salt a week. A house was built and a ship slipway. It was rumoured Thompson operated an illicit still on Scotland Island.
Governor Macquarie was a valued friend and appointed him a justice of the Peace and Chief Magistrate on the Hawkesbury. Macquarie described him as a man of 'sober habits and good character'. The 'exclusives' of the colony hated and maligned Thompson. Macquarie appointed him a trustee of the new turnpike road from Sydney to Parramatta, which antagonised the Reverend Marsden, another appointee. Marsden retired in anger to his farms.
By 1810 Thompson was ill as a result of his strenuous efforts in the Hawkesbury floods of 1809 and he died on 22 October 1810. His estate was valued at between £20,000 and £25,000 (pounds). In his will he bequeathed a quarter of his fortune to Governor Macquarie. Macquarie wrote that Thompson's death 'affected Mrs. Macquarie and myself deeply - for we both had a most sincere and affectionate esteem for our good and most lamented departed friend'.
Thompson's was the first burial in the cemetery of St Matthew's Church at Windsor and Governor Macquarie composed the long epitaph carved on his tombstone, which may still be viewed today.
Before his death Andrew Thompson had laid the keel of a vessel, which he named the "Geordy". "The Sydney Gazette" of 24 November 1810 states:
On Wednesday, the 14th of the present month, a launch took place at Scotland Isle, Pitt Water, of a vessel of 18 tons, said to be one of the finest of her brethren ever built in the Colony.- She makes part of the devised property of the late Mr Thompson, who at the laying down of her keel gave her the name of the "Geordy".
Following Thompson's death the island was initially rented to William Mason for £120 (pounds) for three years. Robert Lathrop Murray then purchased it. In 1812 Scotland Island was offered for sale and the Sydney Gazette advertisement declared it contains 'one hundred and twenty acres of good soil, extensive salt-works, a good dwelling-house and stores, labourers' rooms, and every convenience suitable for a fishery, or shipbuilding, also a vessel of about ninety tons, partly built, still on the stocks.'
In the 1920s the foundations of Thompson's house and the remnants of a wharf were still in existence.
(The text comes from a book on the history of the area called "Pittwater Paradise" by Joan Lawrence..)
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