 He attended Charterhouse School, in England, after which he served with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers in India at the end of the Second World War before going on to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he read Chemistry.From 1951 to 1955, he worked on the editorial staff of ‘A History of Technology’, then began his long association with the National Gallery in London, where he started as a research chemist.Garry Thomson began his career as a Research Chemist, at the National Gallery (London), a post he held from 1955 to 1960, when he was promoted to Scientific Adviser to the Trustees and Head of the Scientific Department at the National Gallery from 1960 a post he held until his retirement in 1985.