Thomson Leys

He was five years a pupil at the People's College, Nottingham, and emigrated to New Zealand in 1863 with his brother William Leys and his parents, who joined the great Nonconformist movement to establish a special settlement at Albertland, north of Auckland.

[2] After arrival in New Zealand, Leys was apprenticed in the printing office of the Southern Cross, the oldest and most influential journal in the colony at that period.

Three years later he obtained a transfer to the literary staff as shipping reporter, and in 1870, at the age of twenty, became sub-editor of the Daily Southern Cross and Weekly News, which were then owned by Julius Vogel, Colonial Treasurer.

He has also edited for sixteen years the annual issues of the Auckland Almanack, a valuable compendium of statistical and descriptive matter relating to New Zealand.

Among his minor literary works are a brochure on "The Doctrine of Evolution," in reply to Professor Denton, and notes of a holiday excursion to the South Sea Islands, "The Cruise of the Wairarapa".