THOM, ALEXANDER (1801–1879), founder of ‘Thom's Almanac,’ was born in 1801 at Findhorn in Moray.
His father, Walter Thom (1770–1824), miscellaneous writer, was born in 1770 at Bervie, Kincardineshire, and afterwards removed to Aberdeen, where he established himself as a bookseller. In 1813 he proceeded to Dublin as editor of the ‘Dublin Journal.’ He died in that city on 16 June 1824. He was the author of a ‘History of Aberdeen’ (Aberdeen, 1811, 12mo) and of a treatise on ‘Pedestrianism’ (Aberdeen, 1813, 8vo). He also contributed to Brewster's ‘Encyclopædia,’ to Sinclair's ‘Statistical Account of Scotland,’ and to Mason's ‘Statistical Account of Ireland.’
His son Alexander was educated at the High School, Edinburgh, and came to Dublin as a lad of twenty to assist his father in the management of the ‘Dublin Journal.’ In this capacity he learned the business of printing, and on his father's death he obtained, through the influence of Sir Robert Peel, the contract for printing for the post office in Ireland. In 1838 he obtained the contract for the printing for all royal commissions in Ireland, and in 1876 was appointed to the post of queen's printer for Ireland. In 1844 Thom founded the work by which he has since been known, the ‘Irish Almanac and Official Directory,’ which in a short time superseded all other publications of the kind in the Irish capital. Its superiority to its predecessors was due to the incorporation for the first time in a directory of a mass of valuable and skilfully arranged statistics relating to Ireland, and the ‘Almanac’ has ever since maintained its position as by far the best periodical of its kind in Ireland. Thom continued personally to supervise its publication for thirty-seven years, and until within a few months of his death. In 1860 he published at his own expense for gratuitous distribution ‘A Collection of Tracts and Treatises illustrative of the Natural History, Antiquities, and the Political and Social State of Ireland,’ two volumes which contain reprints of the works of Ware, Spenser, Davis, Petty, Berkeley, and other writers on Irish affairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Thom, who was twice married, died at his residence, Donnycarney House, near Dublin, on 22 Dec. 1879.
[Obituary notice of the late Alexander Thom, Queen's Printer in Ireland, by W. Neilson Hancock, LL.D., in Journal of the Statistical Society of Ireland, April 1880; Historical and Bibliographical Account of Almanacks and Directories published in Ireland, by Edward Evans, 1897.]
THOM, JAMES (1802–1850), sculptor, ‘son of James Thom and Margaret Morison in Skeoch, was born 17th and baptised 19th April 1802’ (Tarbolton Parish Register). His birthplace was about a mile from Lochlee, where Robert Burns lived for some time, and his relatives were engaged in agricultural pursuits. While Thom was still very young his family removed to Meadowbank in the adjoining parish of Stair, where he attended a small school. With his younger brother Robert (1805–1895) he was apprenticed to Howie & Brown, builders, Kilmarnock, and, although he took little interest in the more ordinary part of his craft, he was fond of ornamental carving, in which he excelled. While engaged upon a monument in Crosbie churchyard, near Monkton, in 1827, he attracted the attention of David Auld, a hairdresser in Ayr, who was known locally as ‘Barber Auld.’ Encouraged by Auld, he carved a bust of Burns from a portrait—a copy of the Nasymth—which hung in the Monument at Alloway. It confirmed Auld's opinion of Thom's ability, and induced him to advise the sculptor to attempt something more ambitious. Statues of Tam o'Shanter and Souter Johnnie were decided upon, and Thom, who meanwhile resided with Auld, set to work on the life-size figures, which were hewn direct from the stone without even a preliminary sketch. William Brown, tenant of Trabboch Mill, served as model for Tam; but no one could be induced to sit for the Souter, whose face and figure were surreptitiously studied from two cobblers in the neighbourhood of Ayr.
The statues were secured for the Burns monument at Alloway, and when completed were sent on tour by Auld. The profits, which were equally divided among the sculptor, Auld, and the trustees of the monument, amounted to nearly 2,000l. They reached London in April 1829, and at once attracted great notice, the critics hailing them as inaugurating a new era in sculpture. Replicas to the number of sixteen, it is said, were ordered by private patrons, and reproductions on a smaller scale, but also in stone, were carried out by Thom and his brother. James Thom also produced statues of the landlord and landlady of the poem, which were grouped with the others, and several pieces of a similar class, such as ‘Old Mortality’ and his pony, which was conceived in 1830 while reading the novel
