William Robert Thomas, known to his family as Bill, was
born in Wolverhampton on 13 July 1905, the second of four sons of Hubert
Robert Thomas and Eleanor Maud. His mother was the daughter of William Wright
Richardson, one-time mayor of Lincoln, who had risen from errand boy to
partner in the firm of Doughty, Son, and Richardson, seed crushers, manure
manufacturers and seedsmen. She read Mathematics, English and Anglo-Saxon at
Royal Holloway College, London, in the 1890s.
Bill’s father attended Wolverhampton Grammar School and
then read Mechanical Engineering at Owens College, Manchester University. He
became managing director of Edwin Richard & Sons Ltd, Portway Works,
Wednesbury, a heavy engineering firm, makers of axles and springs, in
particular, axles for ox-carts in South Africa and for gun carriages in the
First World War.
Bill, like his brothers, was at first educated
privately, then at Wolverhampton Grammar School, and then at Oundle, boarding
for five years. There he received a sound classical and scientific education
and in his last year succeeded his elder brother as Captain of the Gymnastics
Team. An early interest in keyboard playing was fostered by piano lessons on
his mother’s Bechstein and by his maternal Uncle Will who entertained his
nephews by playing the piano blindfold. After the early death of Uncle Will
in 1915, the Thomas family moved to Lincoln in 1921 for H.R.T. to try to
rescue the Richardson family business, returning to Wolverhampton in 1924. In
his retirement, H.R.T. was for 10 years governor of the Wolverhampton Grammar
School, where his portrait still hangs, and also governor of the Women’s
Hospital. He was trustee of the William Salt Library in Stafford and Honorary
Secretary of the Staffordshire Parish Registers Society.
During their vacations Bill and his elder brother
Richard worked at the Brayford boatyard belonging to the family firm in
Lincoln. Here they learned to handle tools correctly and to appreciate the
feel and grain of wood. This culminated in the four brothers building an 18ft
motor cabin cruiser, which was launched in September 1924. This same year
Bill went up to Clare College Cambridge, on a Scholarship to read Natural
Sciences, after working for a firm of accountants for five months; and Richard
started work at Taylor, Taylor & Hobson in Leicester. At Cambridge, Bill
pursued his interest in music, sang in the College choir, and frequently
joined his brother and friends for trips on the rivers and canals on the “Home
Maid”. At Leicester, his lifelong friendship with J.J.K. Rhodes began after
John started work at Taylor, Taylor & Hobson.
Though his mother said he wasted his time on music
while at Cambridge, it obviously laid the foundations of his lifelong hobby
and work. After graduation, Bill worked in a sugar beet factory in
Kidderminster before starting in the laboratory of the British Aluminium
Company at Burntisland, Fife, in April 1928. There he lodged at Rossend
Castle, then a boarding establishment run by a Miss Shaw. By 1930 he had
become interested in early keyboard instruments and visited museums to
ascertain how they were constructed. John Rhodes had set up a workshop in
Leicester and their first jointly-built instrument was completed in 1932.
Discussions and ideas for modifications, and parts carefully made by hand were
entrusted to the post.
In 1934 Bill was injured in a laboratory explosion
which left him with a withered upper arm and resulted in some 12 months of
recuperation. Rossend Castle proved an ideal place for Bill to develop his
hobby of building and repairing musical instruments. During World War II
Bill, by now manager of the Aluminium works, served in the Home Guard. While
on Fire Watch Duty he first saw the outcrop of rock on which he resolved to
build a Scottish Tower House, “Easterheughs”, at the end of the war.
In 1946, when building regulations were tight, Bill
retained the Kirkcaldy architects, Williamson and Hubbard, to translate his
ideas into plans which would be passed by the Planning Authority. The
classical proportions of the music room were to give it a great feeling of
space, and the turnpike staircase was designed to fit the handrail from
Rossend Castle. He salvaged stone from the villages of High and Low Binns
when they became a spoil ground for the Aluminium Works. He obtained window
stones from Otterston Castle, crow-step and step gabling from The Common, and
curved roof tiles from Auchtertool distillery, and many of the roof timbers
were made from railway sleepers and minesweeper keels. A local builder showed
him how to use the stone and as soon as the ground floor was completed with a
concrete roof, he moved in and continued building around him. Much of the
interior was finished with panelling and fireplaces from the by now derelict
Rossend Castle bought for £6 a load.
Easterheughs (“the eastern cliff overhanging the
river”) faces south with magnificent views across the Firth of Forth to
Edinburgh. With its lawn and much of the garden 100ft below the house, Bill
planted many unusual plants which thrived in the sheltered position, and the
steep drop between house and garden formed a natural rock garden. ‘Grassy’
paths between the rocks were originally planted with thrift to avoid the need
for mowing.
By the mid-1950’s, Bill retired and devoted all his
time to building the castle and musical instruments. When the music room was
completed, it became a venue for musical soirees and Bill performed on
harpsichord and clavichord at informal functions in local country houses. For
many years he repaired and maintained the University of Edinburgh collection
of instruments and later those at St Cecilia’s hall. He was an acknowledged
expert in his field at home and abroad, corresponding with other leading
experts in early musical instruments in Europe, and visiting collections on
trips at home and abroad. He and John Rhodes published a
number of papers and
contributed the entry on Pitch in several of Groves’ Dictionaries of Music.
