David Alfred Thomas, 1st Viscount Rhondda, PC (26 March 1856 – 3 July 1918), was a Welsh industrialist and Liberal politician.

Samuel, a man not noted for a cheerful temperament, is said to have remarked on the day of his son's birth (during a thunderstorm), "Well, I see nothing for him but the workhouse.

[2] This house was built as a suitable residence for a rising industrial entrepreneur, and sets Samuel Thomas' gloomy remark in context.

She gave young David the love that he needed, nurturing the more sensitive side that D. A. Thomas' daughter, Margaret, was to cherish.

Towards the end of Thomas' life, William Brace, the Trade Union leader commented that "Rhondda has the income of a Duke and the tastes of a Peasant.

As it was, Thomas obtained a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge,[9] where he studied mathematics, and would have finished top of his year, if it had not been for his indifferent health.

[11] That said, Thomas does not appear to have been an atheist, but to have found the religious sectarianism that marked the life of Wales at that time distasteful.

After moving to Carmel English Baptist Church, Samuel Thomas appears to have become embroiled in an argument with Rev.

This appears to have been over no more than personalities, for Samuel had supported the man's predecessor, and the move to Tabernacle English Congregational church ended similarly, when the minister was replaced.

At college, he rowed and boxed enthusiastically, and his obituary in the South Wales Daily News spoke of him being seldom happier than 'when romping with children.

'[20] In 1881, D. A. Thomas rescued a boy who fell through the ice on Hirwaun Pond, Aberdare, an act for which he received an award from the Humane Society.

[21] In this, and in his later survival of the wreck of the Lusitania, D. A. Thomas' prowess in swimming, another college sport in which he excelled, holding a medal in the long-dive, stood him in good stead.

Thomas joined Osborn Henry Riches in the sales department of the Cambrian Collieries, later moving to Clydach Vale to learn the management of the mines themselves.

The sale of shares was not a means for the heir to become an idler, for D. A. Thomas continued to take an active part in the management for the company.

Despite his fearsome reputation as an industrialist, Thomas appears to have been a genuinely well-loved landowner, the tenants of Pencoed actively lobbying him to buy the estate.

With David Lloyd George, Francis Edwards and Herbert Lewis, Thomas revolted against the Rosebery Government's perceived downgrading of Disestablishment in 1894.

Unlike Herbert Lewis and Lloyd George, more had been expected from Thomas in 1894, and his actions in joining the revolt had not endeared him to the Liberal leadership.

[30] In the pre-war years Thomas acquired tracts of coal-bearing land in North America which was not fully developed.

[20][29] He was awarded the Guy Medal in 1904 from the Royal Statistical Society for The Growth and Direction of our Foreign Trade in Coal (1850–1900) written in 1903.

A humorous story, remembered by his daughter, was that the local (Cardiff) Evening Express newspaper displayed a poster about the sinking that read "Great National Disaster.

[1]: 200 Clement Edwards, MP, related the story of an aged collier who, on being informed that Thomas had been in the ship when it had gone down, declared, "I will wait till tomorrow.

[37][38] Thomas's widow, Sybil, Viscountess Rhondda (1857–1941) was created a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1920.