The Passing Acquaintances of Arthur Conan Doyle - Part 3: Arthur O Thomas

The newest issue of the Passengers' Log has arrived in the mail - and it contains my third article on the people ACD met and mentioned in his Australian memoirs.

This biography is different as there are two blog posts that preceded the writing of the article.

1. A post about the mention of "Mr Thomas" in the book, and how it would be difficult to identify him. 

2. A post on actually finding out who Mr. Thomas is.

I'm posting here the submitted text (think of it like a pre-print) with some added pictures that didn't make the article. The published article also has footnotes with references. 

The Passing Acquaintances of Arthur Conan Doyle - Part 2: Arthur O Thomas

Matthew D. Hall

During his tour of Australia and New Zealand, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle interacted with many people, and spoke to tens of thousands in his audiences. Yet ACD’s book describing the tour, 'The Wanderings of a Spiritualist’, mentions relatively few people by name  . This article is the second in a series that shines a light on those people ACD mentions by name on his visit. Why did ACD choose to mention those that he did? Who were these Australians? The biosketches presented aim to address these questions, and point to more detailed resources. 

In undertaking this series, I want to be thorough, but not ALL people mentioned are going to be easy to identify.  Take, for example, the slightly anonymous "Mr. Thomas".  This article will provide an outline of Mr. Thomas' appearance in ACD's book, and an outline of how he was identified.

When ACD's visit to Australia was announced, the first city visited was Adelaide, and advertisements for his lectures appeared in the local newspapers, placed there by Carlyle Smyth (in the 'Amusements' section!). Note that there were two different lectures offered  

 

Figure 1. Advertisement in the Daily Herald (Adelaide, SA), Tuesday 21 September 1920.

The venue for the lectures in Adelaide was the Town Hall, which still stands today on King William St, Adelaide. As related in other articles, I visited Adelaide in July 2023 and captured some photographs of the Town Hall (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Adelaide Town Hall. Photograph by the author.

The Adelaide lectures were sold out, and another lecture topic was added to the schedule that included a presentation of pictures of psychic phenomena  . 

"EXTRA CONAN DOYLE LECTURE. Owing to the very large demand for tickets for the lectures to be given in the Town Hall tomorrow and Monday, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will deliver a third and extra address entitled "Pictures of Psychic Phenomena." This forms a sequel to the address, "Death and the Hereafter," and will be illustrated by some fifty psychic pictures, many of which have never been exhibited before, and have been, specially collected for the Australian tour. They are guaranteed to be genuine by Sir Arthur himself, and are intended to illustrate his two previous lectures, but

some commentary will be provided for each picture, so that those present may appreciate its bearing upon the subject."

This new, remarkable lecture on 'Pictures of Psychic Phenomena' is where our Mr. Thomas comes in. The lecture involved the presentation of pictures, projected from lantern slides. ACD relates the event in Wanderings:

"Never before have I experienced such direct visible intervention as occurred during my first photographic lecture at Adelaide. I had shown a slide the effect of which depended upon a single spirit face appearing amid a crowd of others. The slide was damp, and as photos under these circumstances always clear from the edges when placed in the lantern, the whole centre was so thickly fogged that I was compelled to admit that I could not myself see the spirit face. Suddenly, as I turned away, rather abashed by my failure, I heard cries of "There it is," and looking up again I saw this single face shining out from the general darkness with so bright and vivid an effect that I never doubted for a moment that the operator was throwing a spot light upon it, my wife sharing my impression. I thought how extraordinarily clever it was that he should pick it out so accurately at the distance. So the matter passed, but next morning Mr. Thomas, the operator, who is not a Spiritualist, came in great excitement to say that a palpable miracle had been wrought, and that in his great experience of thirty years he had never known a photo dry from the centre, nor, as I understood him, become illuminated in such a fashion. Both my wife and I were surprised to learn that he had thrown no ray upon it. Mr. Thomas told us that several experts among the audience had commented upon the strangeness of the incident. I, therefore, asked Mr. Thomas if he would give me a note as to his own impression, so as to furnish an independent account. This is what he wrote:—

"Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide.

"In Adelaide, on September 28th, I projected a lantern slide containing a group of ladies and gentlemen, and in the centre of the picture, when the slide was reversed, appeared a human face. On the appearance of the picture showing the group the fog incidental to a damp or new slide gradually appeared covering the whole slide, and only after some minutes cleared, and then quite contrary to usual practice did so from a central point just over the face that appeared in the centre, and refused even after that to clear right off to the edge. The general experience is for a slide to clear from the outside edges to a common centre. Your slide cleared only sufficiently in the centre to show the face, and did not, while the slide was on view, clear any more than sufficient to show that face. Thinking that perhaps there might be a scientific explanation to this phenomenon, I hesitated before writing you, and in the meantime I have made several experiments but have not in any one particular experiment obtained the same result. I am very much interested—as are hundreds of others who personally witnessed the phenomenon."

Mr. Thomas, in his account, has missed the self-illuminated appearance of the face, but otherwise he brings out the points. I never gave occasion for the repetition of the phenomenon, for in every case I was careful that the slides were carefully dried beforehand." 

Who then was Mr. Thomas, operator of the lantern projector at the Adelaide Town Hall in 1920? Hindmarsh Square is not the location of the Adelaide Town Hall, though it is close by. As a man with a not-uncommon surname, I was not optimistic. Thankfully though, directories are digitized at the State Library of South Australia, including the 1920 Adelaide Sands & McDougall South Australian Directory that revealed Arthur O. Thomas, 'biograph and lantern supplies depot'  . A 'biograph' was an early device to show moving pictures on a screen. In 1921 (possibly published just a few months follow his interaction with ACD, directories also list the business as Thomas' Lantern and Cinema Stores, "Practical Lanternist (By special appointment to their Excellencies Admiral Sir D.H. Bosanquet... and Lieut-Col Sir Henry Lionel Galway...") (Figure 4)  . Were it not for these directory entries, it is not likely Mr. Thomas could be identified.

Figure 3. 1920 Sands & McDougall South Australian Directory. Hindmarsh buildings - Thomas, Arthur O. (biograph and lantern supplies depot).

Figure 4. 1921 Sands & McDougall South Australian Directory, Thomas' Lantern and Cinema Stores. 

Arthur Orlando Thomas was born in South Australia in 1870, the son of Edwin Courtenay and Martha THOMAS, and in 1910 (aged about 40) Arthur married Winifred Lucy TUCKER. The newspaper article reporting the wedding includes a delightful photograph of the wedding party  . Arthur developed his career as a lanternist (projectionist) and was regularly mentioned in newspapers both for professional work, the occasional legal dispute, and for publishing a pamphlet on commuting entitled 'The Soulful Joys of Traming'.

What did Mr. Thomas look like? Well, thankfully there 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' (Figure 5)  . 

Figure 5. A 1911 photograph of Arthur published in the Daily Herald. "Writer of the article, Mr. Arthur O. Thomas, Lanternist to His Excellency the Governor".

There is also a photo of Arthur at the time of his wedding:

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

Arthur died in August 1927 after an accident at the relatively young age of 57. The obituary published at the time provides a great deal of biographical information about Arthur  .

Register,  Saturday 13 August 1927

FATAL FALL IN STREET. Death of Mr. A. O. Thomas.

"Falling 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."

Arthur was buried in the Hindmarsh Cemetery, Adelaide, 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  . 

Hindmarsh Cemetery, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Arthur O Thomas

Died Aug 12 1927

Aged 57 years

Arthur and Winifred THOMAS do not appear to have left any issue, but there were certainly descendants of his THOMAS siblings. It is pleasing to identify Arthur Orlando Thomas and put him in the spotlight (pun intended) over one hundred years after the publication of 'Wanderings of a Spiritualist'.