High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sir Algernon Thomas (1857–1937) was a notable New Zealand university professor, geologist, biologist and educationalist. He was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England in 1857 and died in Auckland, New Zealand in 1937. He is best known for his early research (1880-83) into the life cycle of the sheep liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica), a distinction he shared with the German zoologist Rudolf Leuckart, and for his report on the eruption of Tarawera (1888).