William Morgan—(“U. M. C.”)—Thomas 

R. WILLIAM MORGAN THOMAS, 
familiarly and affectionately 
known to sportsmen the country over 
as “U. M. C. Thomas,” passed away at 
his home in Bridgeport, Connecticut, 
on November 5th. He had been ill but 
a very few days with pneumonia. 
Mr. Thomas was born in Wales in 
1848. At the age of 14 he came to the 
United States, sailing from Liverpool 
in a sailingsvessel which required sixty- 
five days to make the voyage. He came 
to Bridgeport in 1869 and found em- 
ployment in the Cartridge Works then 
just being developed on the ground 
which is now a part of the U. M. C. 
Bridgeport Works of the Remington 
Arms Company, Inc. He was not a 
“rolling stone” and remained continu- 
ously in the U. M. C. Works until his 
retirement from active service, which 
occurred several years ago, when he 
completed his fiftieth consecutive year 
of service with the Remington Arms 
Company and its predecessors. 
He was first employed in the loading 
department of the Union Metallic Car- 
tridge Company. During the early 
part of the Russian-Turkish War Mr. 
Thomas acted as Chief Inspector of 
manufacture of the Peabody-Martini 
rifles for the Turkish Government. In 
this work he was associated with Mr. 
A. C. Hobbs, Superintendent of the U. 
M. C. Cartridge Plant. During this 
same period he was engaged in the de- 
velopment of primers for metallic car- 
tridges. 
Some time later he was placed in 
charge of the Inspection and Ballistic 
Departments at the U. M. C. Plant, and 
for many years was active as a pioneer 
in the development of paper shotgun 
shells, metallic cartridges for rifles and 
pistols, primers, smokeless powders 
and almost everything connected with 
the arms and ammunition industry. 
His reputation as an authority on 
everything pertaining to ammunition 
manufacture spread beyond his adopted 
country, and he was several times 
called to England to lend aid and as- 
sistance to English engineers in con- 
nection with ballistic matters. 
In 1899 Mr. Thomas went to Mexico 
in connection with a contract for am- 
muntion for that country, and while 
there was entertained by the then 
President, Porfirio Diaz. 
In 1919, after having served the 
Remington Arms Company, Inc., and 
its predecesors for fifty years, Mr. 
Thomas was retired from active duty. 
On the occasion of a dinner given in 
Page 23 

his honor and to celebrate the com- 
pletion of his fiftieth year of honorable 
and able service, the many beautiful 
and valuable gifts presented by his old 
associates and friends testified to the 
high esteem in which he was held by 
his associate, many of whom had 
served the same company almost as 
long as he. On that occasion at one 
table were grouped ten of his associ- 
ates whose combined term of service in 
the U. M. C. Works totaled 478 years, 
an average of 47.8 years each. 
Mr. Thomas had been for many years 
Ballistic Engineer of the U. M. C. 
Works. Since retiring from active ser- 
vice he was Consulting Ballistic En- 
gineer and hardly a day passed that 
did not see him around the works just 
as keenly interested as ever in every- 
thing that was going on, giving freely 
of his advice on all new experiments, 
and wherever he went there was a 
friendly smile to greet him, as he was 
genuinely popular throughout the en- 
tire works. He was at his old desk 
only a few days prior to the end. 
Mr. Thomas was responsible for a 
great many of the improvements and 
developments in paper shotgun shells, 
cartridges, primers, smokeless powder, 
ete. Working in conjunction with Mr. 
J. Stevens, of the J. Stevens Arms and 
Tool Company, Chicopee Falls, Mass., 
he developed the .22 long rifle cartridge 
and the .25 caliber rim fire cartridge. 
The .22 long rifle cartridge which has 
been popular for many years for its 
splendid accuracy at all ranges up to 
200 yards owes much of its present 
perfection to the genius and patience 
of Mr. Thomas. During the past few 
years of the greater development and 
refinement of this cartridge the entire 
ballistic staff and process engineers of 
the Remington Arms Company have 
contributed to its present high degree 
of accuracy and development. 
The .32, .32 long, .38, .88 special and 
.44 Rusian revolver cartridges adapted 
to the Smith & Wesson revolvers were 
developed by Mr. Thomas working in 
close cooperation with the Smith & 
Wesson Company. 
Similarly the .32 short, .32 long, .38 
short, .38 long, .41 long and .45 Colt 
cartridges were developed by him in. 
conjunction with the engineers of the 
Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Com- 
pany to whose revolvers these car- 
tridges are adapted. 
The automatic pistol cartridges of 
different calibers were also developed 
by Mr. Thomas, working in conjunc- 
tion with Mr. John M. Browning, the 
inventor of the automatic pistol and 
with the Colt Company manufacturing 
those pistols at their plant in Hart- 
ford. 
Smokeless powder was first loaded in 
revolver cartridges by Mr. Thomas at 
the U. M. C. Works, and he developed 
the first successful primer for use in 
revolver cartridges loaded with smoke- 
less powder. He developed the grooved 
shell for smokeless powder revolver 
cartridges, the bullet having an inside 
lubricant. 
When Mr. Thomas began his devel- 
opment of modern primers the system 
then in vogue was to have the “anvil” 
of the primer a part of the shell, this 
being known as the old Berdan primer. 
Mr. Thomas developed the modern 
primer in which the anvil is a part of 
the primer itself. This type of primer . 
is now used exclusively. 
The Thomas pointed bullet is an- 
other of his developments. It was this 
type of bullet with which the American 
rifle team won the Palma Match at Ot- 
towa in 1907 and with which Ameri- 
cans have since that time held the 
front rank in rifle competition, and at 
the international match at Bisley, Eng- 
land, during the present year, it was 
the 220 grain Thomas pointed bullet 
with which the United States rifle 
teams won against seven competing in- 
ternational teams. 
For many years Mr. Thomas at- 
tended the most important shooting 
events throughout the entire country. 
(Continued on page 40) 
