Sir Daniel Thomas
Public service in Wales
Sir Daniel Lleufer Thomas, LL.D. (Wales), F.S.A., who died at his home at Rhiwbina, Cardiff, on Thursday night at the age of 76, served his native Wales with distinction in many fields.
Descended from Tomos Glyn Cothi, the Welsh revolutionary bard of the eighteenth century who was the last person in Wales to be publicly pilloried, Thomas as was the son of a Carmarthenshire tenant farmer, and was educated at the rural grammar school at Llansawel, Llandovery, and at Oxford, where he was Tancred scholar from 1886 to 1892. His lifelong interest in social and progressive movements began at the University where he came under the influence of William Morris, Henry George, and others of like kind, and here, too, he found spiritual kinship in the Dafydd ap Gwilym Society, that notable band of Welsh students (of which he was the last foundation member) which left its impress heavily on the cultural life of Wales of the last half-century. he was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1892, and joined the South Wales and Chester circuit. In 1909 he was appointed stipendiary magistrate for the Rhondda and Pontypridd Division in succession to the late Mr. Arthur Lewis (father of Mr. Justice Lewis), and did outstanding work in pioneering the police court probation system in Wales. He retired from the post in 1933.
He was best known to his countrymen, perhaps, for his activities outside his profession. He was the Assistant Commissioner to the Royal Commission on Labour, 1892-93; secretary to the Welsh Land Commission, 1893-96; chairman of the Welsh Panel of the Industrial Unrest Commission, 1917; a member of the Court of the University of Wales and Junior Deputy Chancellor, 1915-17, and sat on the Councils of the University Colleges at Aberystwyth and Cardiff. He played a leading part in the foundation of the National Library of Wales and the National Museum ad it wa largely through his instrumentality that Aberystwyth was selected as the site of the first-named institution, He was vice-president of the Cambrian Archaeological Association and of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (which bestowed its gold medal on him a few months ago); he was also a member of the Departmental Committee on the Welsh Language, 1925-27. Adult education and town planning were among other of his many interests. He was president of the Workers' Education Association for Wales fro 1915 to 1919, took a leading part in foundling the Welsh Agricultural Organization Society, ad was one-time chairman of the Welsh Housing Development Association.
His literary activities embraced a wide field of sociological and antiquarian research, and much of his earlier work is to be found in the "Dictionary of National Biography" and the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." His Digest of the Report of the Welsh Land Commission contains valuable information in land tenure and agricultural practice in Wales of former times. In 1931 he received the honour of knighthood in recognition of his public services. He married, in 1892, Mary, daughter of Mr. T. Gethin, of Aberdare, who survives, with an adopted daughter.
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