Constituency : Devonport 1854-9
Thomas was born in Wimbledon, the son of the proprietor of the Morning Chronicle and educated at Charterhouse and Cambridge. He became involved in the reform agitation in 1831 and founded the Parliamentary Candidate Society to further the cause. In this vein he stood for Parliament at Chatham in 1832 but failed to unseat the Whig occupant.. He became a barrister and a law reporter. In 1840 he lost a lot of money in a bank collapse and sought a government post ; he was appointed to serve as a supreme court judge in Bombay. He was chief justice from 1847 to 1852 and president of the Indian board of education for a decade. In 1855 a professorship of jurisprudence was set up at Elphinstone College in Mumbai in his honour. He returned to England in 1852 and wrote a number of pseudonymous letters to The Times calling for the abolition of the East India Company and its replacement by an independent council. He contested a by-election in Liverpool. He was successful at Devonport the following year. He made a mark in Parliament with speeches on increased opportunities for Indian natives and married women's property rights.
Immediately after the 1859 election Thomas was appointed to the Council of India and resigned his seat.
He died in 1882 aged 75.
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