Hugh Hamshaw Thomas

Hugh Hamshaw "Ham" Thomas FRS (29 May 1885 – 30 June 1962), was a British paleobotanist. One of his major contributions was to combine thinking about plant fossil anatomy with ecology, and consideration of how these related to non-extinct plants. He also led a change in attitude to fossils, from museum-based to a more exploratory, field-work based subject.

Education Thomas was born in Wrexham the son of Elizabeth Lloyd, from a farming family, and her husband William Thomas, who ran a men's outfitter's business. He had an elder brother and sister. After initially attending a private school he was educated at Grove Park School, Wrexham where he was finally head boy. He had already started an interest in fossils, collected from local coal mines. As well as prizes from the school, he was awarded a gold medal from the national Central Welsh Board.

Thomas came under Seward's influence again and focused on the Jurassic flora. He also developed the habit, influenced by Robert Kidston, of not publishing his work until he had a sufficient body of material to be absolutely certain of his conclusions. The result was that he did not publish some of his work and ideas for decades, or not at all. with a student, Lucy Wills, but ended this work when she changed to pursue a career in medicine. He also worked with Nellie Bancroft, to show that the cuticle cell structure clearly divided fossil cycad-like leaves into two group, one like modern cycads and the other like the extinct plant group Bennettitales.

However, he had also met another Swedish paleobotanist, Thore Halle (1884–1964), whose experience of plant fossils from the coast of Yorkshire inspired Thomas to seek out new fossils from these locations. He searched for the inconspicuous specimens of fruit or flowers, rather than the larger, more obvious, leaves. Thomas's approach to paleobotany, of actively seeking out his own specimens (rather than relying on ones sent to the museum), was novel to UK paleobotany at the time, and had a longer-term impact on the field than his scientific discoveries alone.

After being elected a Fellow in 1925,

War service Thomas joined the Office Training Corps as World War I started and by 1915 was with the Royal Artillery in France. He was transferred to the defence of the Suez Canal in 1916 and to the Royal Flying Corps. He served as a Photographic Officer in Europe and the Middle East. With the rank of captain, he led a team that was the first to draw maps from aerial photographs, that assisted the British ground campaigns in the region. He was awarded the Order of the Nile by Egypt and a military MBE by Britain as well as being mentioned in dispatches two times.

He died in Cambridge in 1962.