William Thomas (architect)

William Thomas
St. Michael's Cathedral was designed by William Thomas in 1845
Born	1799 Suffolk, England
Died	26 December 1860 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Nationality	English, Canadian
Occupation	Architect
Design	Brock's Monument

William Thomas (c.1799 – 26 December 1860) was an Anglo-Canadian architect. His son William Tutin Thomas (1829–1892) was also an architect, working mostly in Montreal.

Thomas was born in Suffolk. He was apprenticed under Charles Barry and A.W. Pugin as a carpenter-joiner. His younger brother was the sculptor John Thomas (born 1813).

Thomas began his own practice at Leamington Spa in 1831 where he designed many buildings, but in 1837 went bankrupt. In 1843, during a depression in the British building industry, he emigrated to Canada with his wife and 10 children to Toronto, where his career flourished. He designed some of the finest Decorated Gothic Revival architecture in Ontario.

He was also Toronto's city engineer when John George Howard made a trip to England in 1853. He died in Toronto, aged about sixty. Two of his sons, William Tutin Thomas and Cyrus Pole Thomas, also became architects.

Thomas is sometimes inaccurately credited with the architectural design and the elaborate stone carvings on Victoria Hall in Cobourg, Ontario. In fact, Kivas Tully designed the building and the fine sandstone carvings are the work of master stonecarver Charles Thomas Thomas (1820–1867).