Percy Thomas

Sir Percy Edward Thomas OBE (13 September 1883 – 19 August 1969) was an Anglo-Welsh architect who worked in Wales for the majority of his life. He was twice RIBA president (1935–37 and 1943–46).

Biography

Percy Edward Thomas was born on 13 September 1883 in South Shields, County Durham, the son of a sea captain from Narberth in Pembrokeshire, with whom the family often travelled. The family moved to Cardiff during the 1890s and Captain Thomas died at sea in 1897.

Percy Thomas began work in a shipping office, but changed to a career in architecture on advice from a phrenologist.

During the First World War Thomas joined the Artists Rifles in 1915, and served on the Western Front.

After the war he returned to Cardiff. Lancashire and Hiatt Baker Hall, Bristol (1966), he was a rival to Arthur John Hope. Other works by him included the campus of Aberystwyth University. He was elected president of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1935 (until 1937) and awarded their Royal Gold Medal in 1939. He was knighted in 1946.

Percy Thomas became seriously ill in 1962, retiring from the company in 1963. in Wales and England, the most recent being the Wales Millennium Centre. The practice lasted for 94 years and ultimately became known as the Percy Thomas Partnership.

In June 2004 Percy Thomas Partnership went into administration after cancellations or delays of key projects. They were bought by the large British outsourcing company, Capita, who created a new arm of their property consultancy division called Capita Percy Thomas.