Civil War, and was attached to papers in New York and San Francisco. He was in France during the Franco-German war, and afterwards visited South America, Tahiti, and Hawaii. He went to Australia in 1874, and commenced the series of "Vagabond" papers in the Melbourne Argus, which created a remarkable sensation, and were subsequently republished in book form. In 1877 he went to the newly discovered gold fields in Northern Queensland, and in the following year proceeded to New Caledonia as war correspondent during the native revolt. He was for some months with the French troops attached to the expedition of Henri Reviere, afterwards killed in Tonquin; and visited the Isle of Pines, being the only journalist ever allowed to land there. In 1879 he again travelled through Northern and Central Queensland. On his return he went to the Fiji Islands, and spent some months in that group; and in 1880 visited China, Japan, and British Columbia, returning to Australia in 1882. In that and the following year he spent a long time in the South Pacific, visiting New Caledonia, the New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea, where he commanded the expedition sent out by the Argus proprietary. The "Vagabond" was the first to call attention in the press to French and German aggressions in the South Seas. In 1886 he was special correspondent of the Melbourne Argus at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at South Kensington. In 1887 he revisited New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, on behalf of the Melbourne Age. He revisited England in 1888, and in 1889 went to Tonga and Samoa for the Age, saw the return of the deposed king Malietoa at the latter place, and witnessed the troubles in Tonga. He is author of "Vagabond Papers" (five series), "Occident and Orient," "Cannibals and Convicts", and several plays, of which No Mercy is the best known. The "Vagabond" claims to have travelled more extensively over Australia and New Zealand than any living journalist. In 1891-2 he acted as secretary to the Royal Commission on Charities appointed by the Victorian Government.
Thomas, Margaret, an Australian sculptor and portrait painter, was born in Surrey, but taken to Victoria by her parents when quite a child. Miss Thomas received her first art education under the late Charles Summers, the sculptor, who had then a studio in Melbourne. She was one of the first three art students to apply for, and obtain permission, to draw from the casts and copy the pictures in the galleries of the Melbourne Public Library, and she exhibited both sculpture and paintings at the Victorian Society of Fine Arts Exhibition. Miss Thomas next proceeded to South Kensington, and from there to Rome, where she remained as a student over two years and a half. On returning to England, she was admitted a student of the Royal Academy, and won the silver medal for sculpture, this being the first occasion on which that distinction was bestowed on a lady student. After two years' study, Miss Thomas set up a London studio, and was a frequent exhibitor at the Academy—in 1874 having no less than six portraits on the walls. On the death of Mr. Charles Summers in 1878, it was decided to erect a memorial bust of him in the Shire Hall, Taunton, and Miss Thomas, his old Melbourne pupil, was chosen to execute the work, which was unveiled by the High Sheriff of the County of Somerset on Nov. 26th, 1880. Miss Thomas subsequently executed busts of a number of other "Somersetshire worthies" for the Shire Hall, Taunton, including that of Henry Fielding, unveiled by James Russell Lowell, then American Minister; General Jacob, of the Scinde Horse, founder of Jacobabad; and Dr. Wilson Fox, the Queen's physician. She recently finished (1891) a marble bust of the late Richard Jefferies, for Salisbury Cathedral. Miss Margaret Thomas is also an industrious littérateur, and has published a memoir of Charles Summers, entitled, "A Hero of the Workshop," and a quantity of verse in various English, American and Australian periodicals, a selection from which will be found in Mr. Douglas Sladen's "Anthology."
Thomas, Right Rev. Mesac, D.D., Bishop of Goulburn, N.S.W., was son of John Thomas, of Aberffrwd, Cardiganshire, by the daughter of Edward Williams, of Llwynyrhedydd, Cardiganshire, and was born at Typoeth in that county in 1816. He was educated at Oswestry and Shrewsbury schools, and at Trinity
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