Background

• Sir Joseph John Thomson was born December 18, 1856 in Cheetham Hill near Manchester, England.

 
• His dad was a bookkeeper in Manchester who died with Thomson was 16 years old.

• He entered Owens College, now known as the Victoria University of Manchester, at age 14.

• There he took courses in experimental physics and math.

J.J. Thomson and Cambridge Classmates

http://www.aip.org/history/electron/jjthomson.htm

• In 1876, he obtained a scholarship for Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and remained there for the rest of his life.

• In 1890, he married Rose Elisabeth.

• He and Rose had a son, Sir George Paget Thomson, Emeritus Professor of Physics at London University, and a daughter.