Thomas Witlam Atkinson (1799–1861) was an English architect, artist and traveller in Siberia and Central Asia. Between 1847 and 1853 he travelled over 40 000 miles through Central Asia and Siberia, much of the time together with his wife Lucy and son Alatau, who was born during their travels. He also painted and documented his travels in two books that are today regarded as travel classics. His and Lucy's son, Alatau Tamchiboulac Atkinson, born on 4 November 1848 in what is now Eastern Kazakhstan, was named after a famous spring in the town of Kapal at the foot of the Djungar Alatau mountains.

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On the advice of Alexander von Humboldt, he turned his attention to Oriental Russia, and, having received a remarkable blank passport from Nicholas I of Russia, he set out in January 1847 on the first of many journeys throughout Siberia and Central Asia. This first journey saw him visit the Urals, the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia and the northern Kazakh Steppes. He returned briefly to Moscow in February 1848 where he married Lucy Sherrard Finley, an Englishwoman who had been a governess in a noble Russian family in St Petersburg. Two days later he set off again for Siberia, accompanied by his newly married wife. Their travels extended over 39,500 miles, and occupied them until the end of 1853. His avowed aim in these expeditions was to sketch the scenery of Siberia, and he brought back over 500 clever watercolours - some of them five or six feet square - and drawings. Many were of places that were completely unknown to Europeans. He kept detailed journals of his explorations, which were written with much power and freshness.

On his return to England in 1858 he published his first book, Oriental and Western Siberia: a Narrative of Seven Years' Explorations and Adventures in Siberia, Mongolia, the Kirghis Steppes, Chinese Tartary, and part of Central Asia. A second volume appeared two years later: Travels in the Regions of the Upper and Lower Amoor and the Russian Acquisitions on the Confines of India and China.  This work was highly praised by the Athenæum on its publication, although it was later suggested - after his death in 1861 - that he had used material that had previously been published in Russia in a book published by Richard Maak in St Petersburg in 1859. In fact, Atkinson fully acknowledged his debt to Maak in the foreword to the book.

Atkinson's portrait of Sultan Souk, a Kazakh leader

Atkinson was much in demand as a speaker and in 1858 was even granted a private audience with Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle. The same year Atkinson read a paper before the British Association On the Volcanoes of Central Asia. He was also elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and in 1859 a fellow of the Geological Society and the Ethnographic Society. He was also elected to membership of the exclusive Geographical Club. To the Proceedings of the RGS he contributed in 1859 a paper on a Journey through some of the highest Passes in the Ala-tu and Ac-tu Mountains in Chinese Tartary, and in the Journal of the Geological Society in 1860 he wrote On some Bronze Relics found in an Auriferous Sand in Siberia.