David St John Thomas (30 August 1929 – 19 August 2014) was an English publisher and writer who founded

David & Charles David & Charles Ltd is an English publishing company. It is the owner of the David & Charles imprint, which specialises in craft and lifestyle publishing. David and Charles Ltd acts as distributor for all David and Charles Ltd books and cont ...

Early life and career

The son of writer Gilbert Thomas (1891–1978) he shared his father's enthusiasm for railways, particularly in the running of their Bassett-Lowke

model railway Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...

. Brought up in

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

over the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

period, his first job was as a reporter on the '' Western Morning News'' in Plymouth where he specialised in covering transport and holiday stories. He later became a freelancer, combining journalism and radio and television reporting with fruit farming and being commissioned by the

Dartington Hall Dartington Hall in Dartington, near Totnes, Devon, England, is an historic house and country estate of dating from medieval times. The group of late 14th century buildings are Grade I listed; described in Pevsner's Buildings of England as "on ...

Trust and others to produce reports on rural transport. His first book (for young people) was published in 1959 and in 1960 he produced the first book in the series he was to edit (and later publish), ''A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain'', ''The West Country''.

Foundation of David and Charles

On 1 April 1960 he founded, with

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

writer Charles Hadfield, the

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...

publishing house of

of which he became chairman. This was run from his house at

Ipplepen Ipplepen is a village and civil parish located within the Teignbridge district of the county of Devon in south-west England. A priory was located there. There is an electoral ward with the same name. The population at the 2011 census is 2,469 ...

before moving to its better-known address at Newton Abbot railway station. With a staff of up to 300 the firm ran Britain's second-largest book club group, Readers' Union, which had a score of specialised clubs totalling about 250,000 members. In later years, he also published some books under his own imprint. He continued to write himself, including a series of well-illustrated books on railway topics with Patrick B. Whitehouse and others, and more books on travel-related topics.e.g. He was keen to encourage new writers, and to this end launched the magazine ''Writers’ News'' in 1989, since sold.

The David St John Thomas Charitable Trust

Having sold David & Charles, to F+W Media in 2000, and moved to Nairn,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, he set up the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust. It makes awards to writers and also to

gap year A gap year, also known as a sabbatical year, is typically a year-long break before or after college/university during which students engage in various educational and developmental activities, such as travel or some type of regular work. Gap yea ...

students.

Death

Thomas died in his sleep on 19 August 2014 at the age of 84 while on a cruise in the Baltic.

Early life and career

Foundation of David and Charles

The David St John Thomas Charitable Trust

Death

References

Further reading