John Joseph Thompson

John Joseph Meagher Thompson (20 December 1907 – 19 July 1968) was an Australian poet, writer and radio broadcaster.

Thompson was born in Kew, Victoria, Australia. He was educated at Melbourne Church of England Grammar School and the University of Melbourne, where he obtained a BA in 1929. In 1931, he travelled to London, where he attempted to make a living as a writer.

He was awarded the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 1954, for his collection Thirty Poems, and wrote poetry throughout his adult life.

He met and married Patricia Drakeford Cole in 1938 and worked at a number of jobs before returning to Australia in early 1939. The couple landed in Perth, Western Australia, where Thompson got a job as an announcer with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). In December 1942, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, serving in Australia in an educational capacity, before being discharged from the army on 2 August 1945 to work as a war correspondent for the ABC.

After the war, he settled in Sydney where he became a senior feature writer and producer at the ABC, and where he remained until retirement in 1968.

Thompson and his wife had one son, the film critic Peter Thompson, and adopted another, the actor Jack Thompson. John Thompson died in 1968, following an operation for a duodenal ulcer.