Piers Gilchrist Thompson (10 May 1893 – 7 February 1969) was an English publisher and Liberal Party politician. Family and education Thompson was born in Battersea, the son of the Reverend Canon Henry Percy Thompson and his wife Lillian (née Thomas). He was educated at Winchester College and Brasenose College, Oxford where he obtained his MA degree. He was married to Hester Barnes and they had two sons and a daughter. Career On 26 August 1914, shortly after the British entry into the First World War, aged 21 years, Thompson was commissioned into the 4th Battalion The Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment). He ended his military service with the rank of captain. From the early 1920s, Thompson was looking for a career in publishing. He invested in the publishing house established by Jonathan Cape and became a junior director in the firm. After 1923, he was a Treasurer of Jonathan Cape. He also worked with Hamish Hamilton who founded his own publishing house. He later became a partner in the publishing company of Lovat Dickson and Thompson Ltd. Politics Torquay Thompson first stood for Parliament at the 1922 general election. Torquay Liberal Association had had trouble in finding a suitable candidate after the 1918 general election. They consulted the Liberal Chief Whip and party headquarters in 1919 but no nominee came forward until Thompson was adopted as Liberal candidate for Torquay in 1922. At the 1918 general election the Liberal candidate, Captain Russell Cooke, had finished a poor third behind Coalition Conservative and Labour opponents, gaining just 15% of the poll. 1922-1923 In 1922, Thompson faced a straight fight against the sitting Tory MP, Colonel Charles Rosdew Burn, who was a distinguished ex-soldier and an Aide-de-camp to the King. In the absence of a Labour candidate Burn's majority was reduced from the 10,039 he had obtained in 1918 to 1,251 or 4.4% of the poll. Burn stood down from the House of Commons at the 1923 general election. Thompson had another straight fight in Torquay this time against the new Conservative candidate Charles Williams. In a tight contest, Thompson emerged as the winner by the narrow majority of 372 votes, just 1.2% of the total votes cast. 1924 At the 1924 general election Thompson faced the intervention of a Labour candidate, Arthur Moyle, who later went on to be MP for Stourbridge. Labour's decision to stand was criticised by