Sir Joseph John Thomson OM PRS (18 December 1856 – 30 August 1940) was a British physicist and Nobel Laureate in Physics, credited with the discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be discovered. Thomson was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases. Thomson was also a teacher, and several of his mentees also went on to win Nobel Prizes.