Background
Born in Hackney, Middlesex, on 3 January 1828, he was younger son of Moy Thomas, a solicitor who was known as a legal writer with his brother John Henry Thomas.
Born in Hackney, Middlesex, on 3 January 1828, he was younger son of Moy Thomas, a solicitor who was known as a legal writer with his brother John Henry Thomas.
He became private secretary to Charles Wentworth Dilke. And in 1850 he was introduced by Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd to Charles Dickens, who engaged him the following year as a writer on Household Words, where he contributed until 1858. In 1866-1867 Thomas was London correspondent of the New York Round Table, under the signature "Q", and in 1868 he joined the staff of the Daily News, writing the weekly article In the Recess and the drama criticism.
He was the first editor of Cassell"s Magazine, in which appeared A Fight for (3 vols 1868), a novel that was dramatised.
He was honorary secretary of the Authors" Protection Society (1873), and lobbied for the Royal Commission on copyright, which reported in 1878. He was dramatic critic for the The Academy from 1875 to 1879, and for the The Graphic from 1870 until dropping out of journalism some nine years before his death.
Thomas died after a long illness, at Eastbourne on 21 July 1910. Thomas married Sara Maria, daughter of Commander Francis Higginson, Registered Nurse, who survived him.
They had eight children, including the author Frederick Moy Thomas.