History
Australian printing pioneer born at Rhandregynwen Hall
Robert Thomas (1781 - 1860)
Rhandregynwen Hall is the birthplace of Robert Thomas (1781-1860), who became South Australia’s printing pioneer and newspaper proprietor. At the age of 21, he established a printing, bookselling and law stationery business in Fleet Street, London.
He married Mary Harris (1787-1875) in Southampton in 1818 and they had seven children. In 1836, Thomas bought 134 acres of land in the proposed province of South Australia for £81. On June 18, with his friend George Stevenson as editor, he printed in London the first number of the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register.
Thomas and his family arrived in Australia on November 10 and established a general store, stationery and printing business in 1837. Later that year, Stevenson and the Thomas family produced the first colonial edition of the newspaper, announcing a firmly independent policy.
In 1839, Robert Thomas & Co. announced a further newspaper, the Port Lincoln Herald and South Australian Commercial Advertiser. With a staff of 21, Thomas paid £800 for the rival Adelaide Chronicle and South Australian Advertiser in 1840.
The Register, critical of Governor George Gawler’s economic policies, strongly attacked him again for ordering the execution without trial of two Aboriginals suspected of murdering some settlers. As a result, the firm lost all government business, worth about £1,650 a year, to the fiercely competitive Southern Australian.
Thomas claimed that he had been authorised by the British government to do their printing, but he had no written proof. A visit to England to protest was unsuccessful and in 1842 he returned to Adelaide, became insolvent, sold the Register for £600 and The Adelaide Chronicle and South Australian Literary Record ceased to appear. In 1841, he opened a new commercial exchange and reading room.
Thomas, who was a government inspector of weights and measures from 1845-52, died on July 1, 1860, aged 78, of congestion of the lungs in his home, Rhantregwnwyn Cottage, Hindley Street. Governor Sir George Grey described him as an 'earnest, able, energetic pioneer … of great natural ability and singular force of character'.
He was survived by three sons, two daughters and his wife, whose valuable account of settlement, the Diary and Letters of Mary Thomas 1832-1866, was edited and published by her grandson E. K. Thomas in 1915.
His second son William Kyffin, bought the daily South Australian Register and its weekly counterpart, The Adelaide Observer, in 1853. He continued as a principal proprietor of W. K. Thomas & Co., publishing the Register, The Adelaide Observer and the Evening Journal for the next eight years. He died of heart disease and dropsy on July 5, 1878 and was survived by his wife Mary Jane, six daughters and three sons.
Eldest son, Robert Kyffin, joined the staff of the family paper in 1869 and became the principal joint proprietor of the South Australian Register and, as chief of staff, also edited the Adelaide Observer in 1877. Five years later, he became general manager of the South Australian Register, which became the Register in 1901.
He visited England in 1884, 1902 and 1909 when he was elected chairman of the overseas delegates to the Imperial Press Conference in London and was knighted on January 31, 1910 for his work at the conference.
On June 13, Sir Robert died of stomach cancer at his home, Ardington, North Adelaide. His sons Reginald Kyffin (d.1914) and Geoffrey Kyffin carried on their father's share in W. K. Thomas & Co.
