Robert Thomas (newspaper proprietor)

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Robert Thomas (November 1781 – 1 July 1860) was a Welsh newspaper proprietor, printer and early settler of South Australia who was born on a farm 'Rhantregynwen', at Llanymynech, Powys, Wales.[1]

In 1836, Thomas migrated to the new colony with his wife

proclamation
of the new colony (28 December 1836). On 27 and 28 March 1837 he purchased from the
Town Acres Nos. 41 on the north side of Rundle Street; 51, 56, and 58 on the north side of Hindley Street; 82 on the south side of Rundle Street; and in North Adelaide Nos. 729 on Brougham Place, and 891 and 893 on Burton Street.[2]
Town Acre No. 56 would be the site of his first printery, where the first issue of the
South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register was printed on 3 June 1837.[3]
By 1838, the Register was a weekly newspaper. He also published the weekly Adelaide Chronicle and South Australian Literary Record (27 May 1840 – 18 May 1842).

Thomas also printed copies of the South Australian Church Hymn Book for the Rev. Charles Howard, the Royal South Australian Almanac (1838-1842) and from 1839, the Port Lincoln Herald and South Australian Commercial Advertiser.

The Register had a fierce policy of independence and this resulted in conflict with Governor

Government Gazette
– a loss to the company of £1650 a year.

After an unsuccessful trip to London to protest the loss of business from the Government, he returned to

Hindley Street
.

Family

His wife Mary Thomas, née Harris (30 August 1787 – 10 February 1875) was a poet and diarist, who published The Diary of Mary Thomas, which is considered a valuable history of her voyage on the Africaine and the early days of the colony. Children aboard Africaine were:

  • Frances Amelia Thomas (c. 1818 – 27 February 1855) married solicitor and artist John Michael Skipper (18 June 1815 – 7 December 1883) on 28 December 1840. He married again, to Mary Thomas (c. 1813 – 28 April 1883) on 28 April 1856.[4]
  • Spencer John Skipper
    (c. 1848 – September 1903), journalist remembered as "Hugh Kalyptus" of the Register.
  • William Kyffin Thomas (1821–1878), became a proprietor of the South Australian Register.[5]
  • Mary Thomas (c. 1823 – 28 April 1883) married her sister's widower John Michael Skipper (c. 1817 – 7 December 1883) on 28 April 1856
  • Helen Thomas (6 July 1825 – 17 August 1921) married Swiss pianist Alfredo Placido "Alfred" Mantegani (1829 – 5 June 1861) on 25 June 1855.[6]
  • Teresa Victoria Mantegani (c. 1856 – 19 Jun 1937) married Miles Horatio Beevor in 1878
  • Alfred Victor Mantegani (c. 1859 – 24 Aug 1926) married Ellen Deveny in 1898

Another son,

G. S. Kingston, aboard Cygnet in 1836,[6]
worked as a surveyor (he drafted the original plan of the City of Adelaide), then in 1846 returned to England. He was back in Adelaide in 1861 and served for a time as later Government Architect before reverting to private practice.

References

  1. ^ www.adb.anu.edu.au; accessed 2015
  2. ^ "Durrant Family website: Land sales". Retrieved 25 March 2019.
  3. The Register (Adelaide)
    . Vol. LXXV, no. 20, 000. South Australia. 17 December 1910. p. 8. Retrieved 25 March 2019 – via National Library of Australia.
  4. Adelaide Observer
    . Vol. LVI, no. 2, 988. South Australia. 7 January 1899. p. 2 (Illustrated Supplement to the Adelaide Observer.). Retrieved 30 August 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  5. ^ Suzanne Edgar, S. Cockburn. "Thomas, William Kyffin (1821–1878)".
    ISSN 1833-7538
    . Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  6. ^
    The Register (Adelaide)
    . Vol. LXXXVI, no. 25, 261. South Australia. 18 August 1921. p. 7. Retrieved 31 August 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
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