Peter Perring Thoms

Peter Perring Thoms (1791 – December 1855) was an English printer and Chinese language translator based in Canton (Guangzhou) and Macau, China.

[4] According to Morrison writing in the preface to Volume I of the dictionary, Thoms had to work largely alone, serving as compositor, pressman, reader and corrector, "aided only by Natives who understood not the English language.

[8] However, having completed the printing of Morrison's dictionary, he returned to England in March 1825 where he was unable to continue with his researches "from the want of the assistance of educated natives."

[9] Sometime later Thoms met a native of Canton named A-lae, which enabled him to produce a short work on vases of the Shang dynasty dating from 1743 to 1496 BC.

In 1849 he printed A Vocabulary Containing Chinese Words and Phrases Peculiar to Canton and Macau and to the Trade of those Places written by John Francis Davis, former British Superintendent of Trade in China and governor and commander-in-chief of the colony of Hong Kong until 1848.