Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/195

 for his learning, but he never published any book.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 218; extract from original register of St. John's College kindly made by the bursar, Mr. R. F. Scott.]  THOMAS, OWEN (1812–1891), Calvinistic methodist minister, son of Owen and Mary Thomas, was born in Edmund Street, Holyhead, on 16 Dec. 1812. John Thomas (1821–1892) [q. v.] was a younger brother. His father was a stonemason, and he followed the same occupation from the time of the removal of the family to Bangor in 1827 until he was twenty-two. In 1834 he began to preach in connection with the Calvinistic methodists, among whom his father had been a lay officer until his death in 1831, and at once took high rank as a preacher. After keeping school in Bangor for some years, he entered in 1838 the Calvinistic methodist college at Bala, and thence proceeded in 1841 to the university of Edinburgh. Lack of means, however, forced him to cut short his university course before he could graduate, and in January 1844 he became pastor of Penymount chapel, Pwllheli. In the following September he was ordained in the North Wales Association meeting at Bangor. Two years later he moved to Newtown, Montgomeryshire, to take charge of the English Calvinistic methodist church in that town, and at the end of 1851 he accepted the pastorate of the Welsh church meeting in Jewin Crescent, London. In 1865 he moved again to Liverpool, where he spent the rest of his days as pastor, first, of the Netherfield Road, and then (from 1871) of the Princes Road church of the Calvinistic methodists. He was moderator of the North Wales Association in 1863 and 1882, and of the general assembly of the denomination in 1868 and 1888. Throughout life he was a close student, and his literary work bears witness to his wide theological reading and talent for exposition. But it was as a preacher he won the commanding position he occupied in Wales; his native gifts of speech and intense earnestness enabled him to wield in the pulpit an influence which was said to recall that of John Elias [q. v.], and he never appeared to better advantage than in the great open-air services held in connection with the meetings of the two associations. In 1877 the degree of D.D. was conferred upon him by Princeton College, New Jersey. He died on 2 Aug. 1891, and was buried in Anfield cemetery, Liverpool.

The following is a list of his published works: 1. A Welsh translation of Watson's essay on ‘Sanctification,’ Llanrwst, 1839. 2. ‘Commentary on the New Testament’ (1862–1885), embodied in additional notes to a Welsh version of Kitto's ‘Commentary.’ Editions of the commentaries on ‘Hebrews’ (1889) and ‘Galatians’ (1892) were issued separately. 3. ‘Life of the Rev. John Jones, Talsarn, with a Sketch of the History of Welsh Theology and Preaching’ (Welsh), 2 vols. Wrexham, 1874. 4. ‘Life of the Rev. Henry Rees’ (Welsh), 2 vols. Wrexham, 1890. Thomas was a contributor to the ‘Traethodydd’ from its start, and for a time one of its two joint editors. Many of the articles in the first edition of the ‘Gwyddoniadur,’ a Welsh encyclopædia, in ten volumes (1857–77), were from his pen.

On 24 Jan. 1860 he married Ellen (d. 1867), youngest daughter of the Rev. William Roberts, Amlwch.

[Information kindly furnished by the Rev. Josiah Thomas, M.A. of Liverpool; articles in the Geninen (January 1892), Dysgedydd (September 1891); and Cymru (September 1891).]  THOMAS, RICHARD (1777–1857), admiral, a native of Saltash in Cornwall, entered the navy in May 1790 on board the Cumberland with Captain John Macbride [q. v.] He was afterwards in the Blanche in the West Indies, and when she was paid off in June 1792 he joined the Nautilus sloop, in which he again went to the West Indies, and was present at the reduction of Tobago, Martinique, and St. Lucia. At Martinique he commanded a flat-bottomed boat in the brilliant attack upon Fort Royal. He returned to England in the Boyne, and was still on board her when she was burnt at Spithead on 1 May 1795. He was afterwards in the Glory and Commerce de Marseille in the Channel, and in the Barfleur and Victory in the Mediterranean, and on 15 Jan. 1797 was promoted to be lieutenant of the Excellent, in which, on 14 Feb., he was present in the battle of Cape St. Vincent [see ]. He continued in the Excellent off Cadiz till June 1798, when he was moved to the Thalia; in February 1799 to the Defence; in December to the Triumph, and in October 1801 to the Barfleur, then carrying Collingwood's flag in the Channel. During the peace he was in the Leander on the Halifax station, and was promoted to the rank of commander on 18 Jan. 1803. The Lady Hobart packet, in which he took a passage for England, was wrecked on an iceberg. After seven days in a small boat he, with his companions, succeeded in reaching Cove Island, north of St. John's, Newfoundland. On his arrival in England he was appointed,