Thomas Workman was born in Belfast and went into the family linen business. He was interested in natural history and collected and studied spiders, and his name was given to at least two new tropical spiders: Damchus workmanii thor and Theridium workmanii thor. He served as Vice-President and President of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club and was Librarian of the Belfast Museum. His business travels took him to many countries including Egypt, India, the Far East and South America; he studied the natural history of the areas and published and illustrated the accounts of his journeys in various journals. He had a valuable collection of spiders which he bequeathed to the National Museum in Dublin. He was a magistrate for County Down and a founder and vice-chairman of a firm of shipbuilders, Workman Clark (1880). In 1896 he published the first volume of Malaysian Spiders, illustrated with plates drawn by himself. The second volume was completed but unpublished at the time of his death, which occurred during a trip to the Rocky Mountains.

Born:	1843
Died:	1900