Personal Data

Douglas Hamilton Thomas, Jr., was born on March 5, 1872, son of Douglas H. Thomas and his wife, Alice L. Whitridge.

He married on January 5, 1901, in Boston, to Bessie Lyman Chadwick (b. 28Jun1875 in Boston;  d. in 25Mar1912 in Biarritz), daughter of James Read Chadwick and his wife, Katherine (Katie) Maria Lyman (daughter of Dr. George Hinckley Lyman).

Douglas Thomas died on June 11, 1915, in an automobile accident.

Career

Douglas Thomas graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1893, after which he studied architecture at MIT and the Ecole des Beaux Arts.  In 1899, he was associated with Winslow and Wetherell of Boston, as their Baltimore representative.

In 1900, he joined with J. Harleston Parker of Boston to form the firm of Parker and Thomas, with offices in Boston (led by Parker) and Baltimore (led by Thomas).  In 1907, the firm was joined by Arthur Wallace Rice (previously a partner in Peters and Rice) and it became Parker, Thomas, and Rice.  Thomas died in 1915 and Parker died in 1930. The firm remained Parker, Thomas, and Rice until Rice’s retirement in the mid-1930s.

Parker, Thomas, and Rice designed a number of public, commercial, and residential buildings.  Their Boston work included the R. H. Stearns Building (1908); the Harvard Club (1912) at 374 Commonwealth; the John Hancock building (1922) on the block located bounded by Clarendon, Stuart, Berkeley, and St. James Streets (the eastern half of which was replaced in 1947 by a larger structure designed by Cram and Ferguson); the Chamber of Commerce Building (1923) at  Federal, Franklin and Congress Streets; and the 24-story Art Deco-style United Shoe Machinery Building (1929) at 138-164 Federal Street.

Their work in Baltimore included the campus plan and Academic Building for Johns Hopkins University; the Hotel Belvedere; the Baltimore & Ohio office building; the Maryland Casualty Company; the Savings Bank of Baltimore; the Metropolitan Savings Bank; and the offices of the German Lloyd Steamship line.

Back Bay Work