the blow.’ This last branch of the solution differentiated the successful Thomas-Gilchrist process from some other attempts on somewhat similar lines. The process could also be adapted to the ‘Siemens Martin’ system. It was immediately used both in Great Britain and abroad, and it spread rapidly. In 1884 864,700 tons of ‘basic’ steel were produced in all parts of the world, and in 1889 2,274,552 tons. Moreover in this last year there were also produced, together with the steel, 700,000 tons of slag, most of which was used for land-fertilising purposes. In England and Germany alone—no figures are now accessible for other countries—the output in 1895 amounted to 2,898,476 tons. The production of basic slag in the same year may be estimated as about a third of the weight of the steel produced.
Thomas, who was possessed of great financial ability, as well as of a thorough knowledge of British and continental patent law, had early secured his inventor's rights, not only in Great Britain but also on the continent and in America. He thus secured the ‘fortune’ predicted by Mr. Chaloner. But systematic overwork had ruined his health, and serious lung trouble soon manifested itself. In May 1879 he at length resigned his junior clerkship at the Thames police-court. In the early part of 1881 Thomas paid a triumphal visit to the United States, where he was enthusiastically welcomed by the leading metallurgists and ironmasters. In 1882 he was elected a member of the council of the Iron and Steel Institute, succeeding Sir James Ramsden, and on 9 May 1883 he was voted the Bessemer gold medal by the council of the institute. But the last few years of his short life were occupied in a vain search for health. After sojourns at Ventnor and Torquay, he made in 1883 a prolonged voyage round the world, by way of the Cape, India, and Australia, returning by the United States. The winter of 1883 and the spring and early summer of 1884 were spent in Algiers. Here experiments were pursued on the utilisation of the ‘basic slag’ formed in the Thomas-Gilchrist process. New lines of research were also begun—notably an endeavour to produce a new type-writer. In the summer of 1884 Thomas came northward with his mother and sister to Paris, where he died on 1 Feb. 1885 of ‘emphysema.’ He was buried in the Passy cemetery. He was unmarried.
Thomas secured a large financial reward for his labours; but from the first he held ‘advanced’ political and social views, and had he lived he had intended to devote his fortune to the alleviation of the lives of the workers. He bequeathed this intention to his sister as a sacred trust. After a modest provision had been made for her and for his mother his money was spent on philanthropic objects.
There is a portrait of Thomas in oils by Mr. Hubert Herkomer, R.A. (executed from photographs after death), now in the possession of Mrs. Percy Thompson at Sevenoaks.
[Jeans's Creators of the Age of Steel, 1884; Burnie's Memoir and Letters of Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, 1891; ‘A Rare Young Man,’ by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, in Youth's Magazine (Boston, Mass.), 4 Aug. 1892; personal knowledge.]
THOMAS, THOMAS (1553–1588), printer and lexicographer, born in the city of London on 25 Dec. 1553, was educated at Eton school. He was admitted a scholar of King's College, Cambridge, on 24 Aug. 1571, and a fellow on 24 Aug. 1574. He proceeded B.A. in 1575, commenced M.A. in 1579, and on 20 Jan. 1580–1581 was enjoined to divert to the study of theology. On 3 May 1582 he was constituted the first printer to the university of Cambridge, but nothing from his press appeared before 1584, when he issued the edition of Ramus's ‘Dialectics’ by (Sir) William Temple (1555–1627) [q. v.] About 1583 he had begun to print a book by William Whitaker [q. v.], and had other works in readiness for the press, when the Stationers' Company of London, regarding the proceedings as an infringement of their privileges, seized his press and materials. The vice-chancellor and heads of colleges applied to their chancellor, Lord Burghley, requesting his interposition on behalf of their ancient privilege. Eventually Burghley wrote in reply, stating that he had consulted Sir Gilbert Gerrard, master of the rolls, to whom he had submitted their charter, and who concurred with him in opinion that it was valid.
Thomas, who was called by Martin Mar-Prelate the puritan Cambridge printer, laboured with such assiduity at the compilation of his Latin dictionary as to bring on a fatal disease. He was buried in the church of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, on 9 Aug. 1588.
Ames enumerates seventeen works which came from his press. He was the author of: ‘Thomæ Thomasii Dictionarium summa fide ac diligentia accuratissime emendatum, magnaque insuper Rerum Scitu Dignarum, et Vocabulorum accessione, longè auctius locupletiusque redditum. Hinc etiam (præter Dictionarium Historicum & Poeti-
