Who Mr. Thomas is.

I feel duty-bound to put this brief post together: A few days ago I posted about "Mr. Thomas" of Adelaide, who operated the lantern slide projector at ACD's Adelaide lecture: 221bcooee.blogspot.com/2023/08/who-was-mr-thomas-of-adelaide.html 

All I really knew about Mr. Thomas was summarized in my post: Mr. Thomas was operator of the lantern projector at the Adelaide Town Hall in late 1920, and the address on the note he provided to ACD was "Hindmarsh Square", which is NOT the location of the Adelaide Town Hall, though it is very close by.

Given the exceptionally limited information that I was provided with, I wasn't optimistic. But as I noted in the original post (as an edited update) I managed to find Mr. Thomas. I'll add some information about how I found him, and some basic facts about Mr. Thomas. This information will serve as the basis for an article about Mr. Thomas.

I searched the 1920 Adelaide Sands & McDougall South Australian Directory, available digitally at the State Library of South Australia (guides.slsa.sa.gov.au/c.php?g=410329&p=6950224 ).

The 1920 entry shows the following:

1920 Adelaide Sands & McDougall South Australian Directory

Hindmarsh Buildings

Thomas, Arthur O. (biograph and lantern supplies depot)

Brilliant - this absolutely fits. So Arthur O. Thomas (our Mr. Thomas) wasn't simply someone who worked at the Town Hall - he was a specialist engaged to project ACD's photographs. Exploring other Directories reveals a little more detail about Mr Taylor, and the occupation of 'Lanternist':

1921 Adelaide Sands & McDougall South Australian Directory

THOMAS' LANTERN and CINAMA STORES (Arthur O. Thomas), Practical Lanternist (By special appointment to their Excellencies Admiral Sir D. H. Bosanquet, GCVO, KCB, and Lieut-Col Sir Henry Lionel Galway, KCMG, DSO). All Goods for the Lantern and Biograph Business stocked and repaired. Hindmarsh Buildings, Hindmarsh Square,

Now that we have clarified how Mr. Thomas came to provide his expert perspective.

Where did Mr. Taylor come from, and what happened to him?

Well sadly, Arthur Thomas dies a few years later. This article was accessed through the National Library of Australia Trove index of digitized newspapers:

Register (Adelaide, SA : 1901 - 1929)

Saturday 13 August 1927, page 5

FATAL FALL IN STREET.

Death of Mr. A. O. Thomas.

Faling on some steps when leaving a business house in Grenfell street at about 4.30 pm on Friday, Mr. Arthur O. Thomas (58), .of 54 Seventh avenue, St. Peters, struck his head, and later died in the Adelaide Hospital, presumably from concussion.

Mr. Thomas was born at Hindmarsh in 1870. educated at Hindmarsh School, and later privately. He was a prominent man in the lantern and film business; Before the war he toured the Commonwealth on behalf of the Western Australian Government; lecturing on land settlement. During the war he was appointed by the Director of Recruiting as lecturer on recruiting for South Australia. He was lecturer, for the Institutes' Association, and one' of the adjudicators for the South Australian Literary Societies' Union contests. Prominently connected with Young Men's Christian Association work, he was a member of the board of  directors of that institution, and was long Chairman of the A and B grade Y.M.C.A. Football Association. For many years he was Chairman of the Chicago Mission Board.

He was formerly. Councillor for East Adelaide Ward in the St. Peters Corporation. He was a member of the Hindmarsh Congregational Band of Hope, and was 'a popular local preacher in the Congregational Church. He was associated with many charitable organizations. Mr. Thomas is a brother or Mr. Ernest O. Thomas, the Adelaide representative of Mac Robertson's,, Limited, and has left a widow.

This reveals an incredible amount of information about Mr. Thomas, and also leads to the identification of his place of burial in the Hindmarsh Cemetery, Adelaide (via BilloinGraves.com):

Hindmarsh Cemetery, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Arthur O Thomas
Died Aug 12 1927

Aged 57 years

Arthur is buried with family, memorialized on each side of this square pillar headstone, including his father Edwin Courtney Thomas who died only the year before, and his mother Martha who died when Arthur was quite young in 1882.

There's plenty more to learn about Mr. Thomas, and I'll pull that into a biography, but I think there are two unanswered questions that deserve to be highlighted.

What did our Mr. Thomas look like? Well, here is a photograph of him next to a film projector, as part of a long article he wrote in the Daily Herald titled 'The History of the Cinematograph'.

Daily Herald (Adelaide, SA : 1910 - 1924)

Saturday 18 February 1911, page 3

Writer of the article, Mr. Arthur O. Thomas, Lanternist to His Excellency the Governor.

The second question that deserves an answer is who he married. His obituary simply says he "left a widow". She deserves a name. South Australian marriage record indexes are a little, shall we say, paywalled, but some searching and cross-referencing reveals that in 1910 Arthur Orlando Thomas married Winifred Lucy TUCKER. Better yet, the newspaper has an article about the wedding and a wedding photo:

 Critic (Adelaide, SA : 1897-1924)  Wed 27 Apr 1910

Arthur Orlando THOMAS and  Winifred Lucy TUCKER do not appear to have left any issue, but there were certainly descendants of the THOMAS siblings. Hopefully one will find this article.