The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Thomas, Margaret
Thomas, Margaret, an Australian sculptor and portrait painter, was born in Surrey, but taken to Victoria by her parents when quite a child. Miss Thomas received her first art education under the late Charles Summers, the sculptor, who had then a studio in Melbourne. She was one of the first three art students to apply for, and obtain permission, to draw from the casts and copy the pictures in the galleries of the Melbourne Public Library, and she exhibited both sculpture and paintings at the Victorian Society of Fine Arts Exhibition. Miss Thomas next proceeded to South Kensington, and from there to Rome, where she remained as a student over two years and a half. On returning to England, she was admitted a student of the Royal Academy, and won the silver medal for sculpture, this being the first occasion on which that distinction was bestowed on a lady student. After two years' study, Miss Thomas set up a London studio, and was a frequent exhibitor at the Academy—in 1874 having no less than six portraits on the walls. On the death of Mr. Charles Summers in 1878, it was decided to erect a memorial bust of him in the Shire Hall, Taunton, and Miss Thomas, his old Melbourne pupil, was chosen to execute the work, which was unveiled by the High Sheriff of the County of Somerset on Nov. 26th, 1880. Miss Thomas subsequently executed busts of a number of other "Somersetshire worthies" for the Shire Hall, Taunton, including that of Henry Fielding, unveiled by James Russell Lowell, then American Minister; General Jacob, of the Scinde Horse, founder of Jacobabad; and Dr. Wilson Fox, the Queen's physician. She recently finished (1891) a marble bust of the late Richard Jefferies, for Salisbury Cathedral. Miss Margaret Thomas is also an industrious littérateur, and has published a memoir of Charles Summers, entitled, "A Hero of the Workshop," and a quantity of verse in various English, American and Australian periodicals, a selection from which will be found in Mr. Douglas Sladen's "Anthology."