The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Thomas, Sidney Gilchrist

Born Apr. 16, 1850, in Canonbury, near London; died Feb. 1,1885, in Paris. English metallurgist.

Thomas studied the humanities in college. While working as a clerk in a London court, he attended evening courses at the Royal School of Mines. In 1878, together with his cousin P. Gilchrist, he solved the problem of dephosphorizing high-phosphorus pig iron in the Bessemer converter by developing the Thomas-Gilchrist process. Between 1877 and 1882, Thomas took out a number of patents for making steel by this method. He proposed that the high-phosphorus slag produced by his process be used as fertilizer.

REFERENCES

Pokrovskii, Iu. M. “Sidni Dzhilkrist Tomas (1850–1885 gg.) i znachenie tomasovskogo protsessa dlia metallurgii.” Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki, 1960, issue 10.
Mezenin, N. A. Povest’ o masterakh zheleznogo dela. Moscow, 1973.

References in periodicals archive

| Sidney Gilchrist Thomas (1850-85) - Blaenavon Iron Works Sidney Gilchrist Thomas came from a Welsh family and grew up in London.

Man Engine stands among other giants of south Wales' industrial past; As the impressive Man Engine - the UK's biggest mechanical puppet - begins a tour of south Wales telling the story of the region's industrial past, Stuart Griffin, from Swansea University's Hafod-Morfa Copperworks Development Project, profiles significant figures from Welsh industrial history..

You can watch as the giant puppet "collects" coal from the Big Pit Museum and parades it through the Gilchrist Estate before "selling" it at the main event at Blaenavon Ironworks, where Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and a host of choirs, brass bands and theatrics await.

Man Engine Cymru has arrived in Wales and this is where and when to see it; The giant moving, steaming, mechanical miner is travelling around the country

Often called Bessemer converters, they are also called Gilchrist-Thomas converters, after their inventor Sidney Gilchrist Thomas.

After the recent creation of a memorial to Sir Henry Bessemer, IMechE archivist Karyn French looks back at the inventor's wide-ranging achievements

In 1877, Sidney Gilchrist Thomas (1850-1885) and his cousin Percy Gilchrist (1851-1935) invented the 'Thomas process' at Blaenfaon.

T GREAT OUR INVENTIONS INVENTIONS; New book challenges some accepted facts

IN the 1870s, cousins Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Gilchrist discovered a method to produce steel and transformed the industry throughout the world.

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Sidney Gilchrist Thomas was a chemist working in London.

Nerves of steel were required..

Carnegie is supposed to have said that when the history books would come to be written, what the two cousins Percy Carlyle Gilchrist and Sidney Gilchrist Thomas had achieved in Blaenavon would be accounted as far more important than all the doings of all the Kings and Queens of England!

Brown's U-turn on devolution hurt us more than Scotland; Today, in the last of our series of fascinating extracts from Rhodri Morgan's autobiography, the much-loved former First Minister describes how Wales suffered as Prime Minister Gordon Brown went to battle with Alex Salmond and the SNP..

From Branwen ferch Llyr to Gwenllian, and Llywelyn the Great to Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, the audio guides each link to a specific theme on the Wales History Map, and can be downloaded and listened to while exploring sites.

Take a journey through history OFWALES with a new hi-tech travel map

The chemists of Blaenavon In 1876, Sidney Gilchrist Thomas worked on experiments at Blaenavon Ironworks with cousin, Percy Carlyle Gilchrist which led to a discovery that changed steel manufacturing worldwide.

Building history; Shaping history and living great lives was all in a day's work for the heroes and heroines of Wales. Kirstie McCrum finds out about those commemorated by Cadw in a new story collection

Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and his cousin, Percy Carlyle Gilchrist, developed a way of making steel using the local iron ore, which led to a worldwide boom in the steel industry?

'Mines and steelworks loomed over the horizons of my childhood' As part of Welsh History Month, Cadw - the Welsh Government's historic environment service, asked Tim Rhys-Evans, musical director of Only Men Aloud, Only Boys Aloud and Only Kids Aloud about his favourite historic sites

PERCY GILCHRIST: With his cousin Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, this chemist at the Blaenavon ironworks discovered a way to eliminate phosphorus from steel in 1876.

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