William W. Thomas, Jr.

William Widgery Thomas Jr. (August 26, 1839 – October 7, 1927) was a United States politician from Maine.

He was born in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine, the son of William Widgery Thomas and Elizabeth White (Goddard) Thomas. A lawyer before entering foreign politics, most notable was his effort to bring Swedish colonists to northern Maine and later founding the community of New Sweden, Maine in 1870. He is also noted for being the last U.S. ambassador to the united kingdoms of Sweden and Norway.

A Republican, Thomas found a love for the people of Scandinavia at an early age. At only 23 years of age, and full of enthusiasm for his task, he was appointed consul to Gothenburg, Sweden on October 23, 1862. Prior to that he had gone as American consul to Galatz in Romania, and after a voyage of four months he reached Gothenburg in the middle of June, 1863. He learned quickly to understand and speak Swedish, and as consul in the kingdom of Sweden-Norway he laid plans for a large emigration of both Swedes and Norwegians, with the hopes that most would seek new fortunes in his home state of Maine. As he wrote April 5, 1864, for the encouragement of immigration: "Besides all other reasons, I believe these honest, pious, plodding Swedes would form an excellent balance to the fickle, merry, light-hearted Irish, who are now crowding in such goodly numbers to our shores."

After the Second war of Schleswig between Denmark and Prussia ended in 1864, Swedish volunteers coming back from Denmark wanted to go to America and continue fighting there in the American Civil War. Thomas solved this problem without asking his government for directions. He arranged with the captains of the Hamburg steamers to take these soldiers across the ocean at half price, and together with some friends he "made up a little purse" with which they could be sent to Hamburg. "I am well aware," he reported to the U.S. Department of State, "that as consul I can have nothing to do with enlisting soldiers, but no international law can prevent me from paying a soldier's passage from here to Hamburg out of my own pocket." In the course of the following winter Thomas induced more Swedish soldiers to go to America.

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