Algernon Thomas
He is best known for his early research (1880–83) into the life cycle of the sheep liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica), a discovery he shared with the German zoologist Rudolf Leuckart, his report on the eruption of Tarawera (1888) and his contribution to the development of New Zealand pedagogy.
His elder brother Ernest Chester Thomas, (1850–1892),[3] a Gray's Inn barrister by profession, obtained early recognition as Librarian of the Oxford Union (1874) and, subsequently, for his work as secretary of the Library Association of the United Kingdom (1878–1890) and for his 1888 edition of The philobiblon of Richard de Bury.
Inclined to scientific studies from an early age, Thomas profited from his attendance at Manchester Grammar during the regime of its reforming high master, Frederick Walker who had a reputation for ensuring that his pupils achieved the highest academic distinctions.
In 1879 he was awarded a Burdett-Coutts scholarship in geology, undertaking post-graduate study in Italy (Stazione Zoologica, Naples), France, Switzerland and Germany (Philipps-Universität Marburg).
Notwithstanding his father's relative wealth, his academic success and the overt support of Acland and the master of Balliol, Benjamin Jowett, Thomas was unclear as to where he might gain more remunerative employment subsequent to his appointment to the museum.
Selected on the recommendations of Thomas Huxley and Archibald Geikie, he delivered his first professorial lecture, 'a special discourse "On the Liver-parasite in Sheep"' alongside Acland at the University of Oxford in February 1883.
[11] In addition, there was an expectation that they would also examine secondary students, give public lectures, provide reports on scientific matters to various branches of government and be active participants in the city's intellectual life.
A very common notion of new arrivals, is, that Colonials are a sort of unkempt inferior race which it is the privilege and duty of them – the learned men – to make stepping stones of.
'[14] For their part, Parker, Thomas and Brown were not so much keen to step on 'colonials', but rather unimpressed by the descriptive, unanalytical, nature of the prevailing scientific methodology and sceptical of the rigour of its practitioners, many of them self-trained.
Hector's animus against the academic scientists is suggested by his failure to publish many of the papers submitted to him in his capacity as editor of the Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute.
[15] These tensions coalesced in June 1886 when the largest volcanic event in modern New Zealand history occurred at Mount Tarawera, 24 kilometres south east of Rotorua in the North Island.
Nonetheless, Thomas did produce significant research outputs, particularly during his first two decades at the university; between 1883 and 1903 he published thirteen scientific papers ranging in scope from observations on volcanic rocks of the Taupo district, notes on Tuatara embryology and an account of the prothallium of Phylloglossum.
At the AAAS conference held in Melbourne in 1890 he presided over the biological section, delivering an address lamenting the deficient state of scientific pedagogy, particularly at secondary level, the need for public scientific research and the failure of museums in some of the Australasian colonies to recognise their public role noting that 'It is over 30 years since Darwin pointed out how important and intimate were the relations of living beings to their environment.
While University of New Zealand degrees were initially set and examined in the United Kingdom, he developed courses in both biology and geology that focussed on the local condition and emphasised fieldwork.
His zoology students included Richard William Allen, MA (1899), Wooldridge Memorial Scholar in Physiology (1902) at Guy's Hospital, gold medalist material medica, University of London (1902), Gull student in pathology (1904), MB BS University of London (1905), who became 'a brilliant Harley Street specialist' and author of Vaccine therapy; its theory and practice (1910).
Writing to Thomas in 1912, Griffin observed that while he might think her 'a horrid "suffragette"' indulging in 'all kinds of bold & "unwomanly" things', she found her 'scientific training of immense value' in her work.
[21] Thomas' pragmatic approach to his teaching anticipated the development of an understanding of New Zealand's natural environment based on scientific method rather than on the fragmented observation of phenomena.
[23] In 1891, Thomas moved a resolution at the Christchurch meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, seconded by G M Thomson, encouraging the preservation of the native fauna and flora of New Zealand.
[25] In April 1894, emboldened by the success of this move, he advocated the preservation of the native flora and fauna of the nearby Waitākere Ranges and subsequently was the chief speaker in a delegation that sought to persuade the Auckland City Council to acquire the region as a scenic reserve.
[27] On taking up his appointment at AUC, Thomas initiated a scheme where, in the absence of any such facility in Auckland, the college grounds – such as they were – would be developed as a precursor botanical garden of indigenous flora.
This engagement with applied science prompted an interest in horticulture and in 1890 he acquired a denuded ten acre (4 hectares) section in the Auckland suburb of Epsom which he and his wife Emily developed into an extensive garden while retaining its key geological feature, a remnant lava field of the nearby Maungawhau volcanic cone.
The association was an Oxford creation – Acland himself was an honorary fellow of Balliol College – and many of those involved with it had served as lecturers with the university extension programme at Toynbee Hall in London's East End.
In a statement that retains contemporary significance, Thomas opined that 'The true way ... to protect the interests of the working classes is to afford them opportunities of acquiring such knowledge and skill as will enable them to hold their own in competition with the rest of the world.
'[30] Perhaps surprisingly given its conservative ideology, the Herald editorialised its support for Thomas' progressive proposals, observing that 'Professor Thomas is distinctly of the present and of the future, as indeed his colleagues are, and it is on the fact that our professors have thoroughly caught the temper of the times, and have brought themselves in touch with the onward spirit of colonial life, that the best hopes are based that our University institutions will prove to be the most influential and valuable of our educational agencies.
[33] Thomas's educational concerns prompted his election by the Senate of the University of New Zealand to the Auckland Grammar School Board in 1899, chaired by George Maurice O'Rourke who was also chairman of the AUC council.
In October 1913, a newly elected Reform government introduced legislation into the New Zealand Parliament creating a governmental scientific advisory body, the Board of Science and Art.
[35] Ross Galbreath asserts that the government intended that the board's primary function was to manage the Dominion (formerly Colonial) Museum and to publish scientific journals and reports, but its members appear to have had greater ambitions.
