Molloy was born in
Toronto,
Canada West, to John Molloy, a soldier who served with the
Royal Welch Fusiliers in the
Crimean War and the
Indian Mutiny of 1857, and Jane Curtis. In 1862, they migrated to
colonial Western Australia, where John Molloy served as a
Pensioner Guard supervising
convicts who had been transported from the
United Kingdom. Thomas Molloy, meanwhile, attended
Christian Brothers College, Perth, and left school at the age of 13 to work at a printing office. He then worked in the
cooperative movement with Reilly, and became manager of the city cooperative store at the corner of
Barrack and
Murray streets. By 1870, his successes enabled him to buy the entire block between Murray and Wellington streets for
£900, equivalent to in . On 18 February 1873, he married Amelia Littlejohn, with whom he had two daughters and one son. They moved to
South Australia, where he worked as a merchant, but returned to Perth in 1875 where he became a successful baker, not only owning his Goderich Street shop but also 10 two-roomed cottages for his workers. Returning to printing, he worked on the
Daily News from 1881, and then from 1884 became commercial manager for
The West Australian. He became involved in buying and selling real estate in the central and western parts of the city, and by the 1890s with the onset of the
gold rush and the resulting flow of capital into Western Australia, this had proved profitable enough an enterprise that he was of independent means and had become one of the largest landowners in Perth. His wife died on 21 April 1888, and he subsequently married Mary Reaney McHale on 23 January 1889, with whom he had two daughters.
Political life In 1884, Molloy was elected to the
Perth City Council, where he represented the Central and West wards until 1906. In December 1891,
Edward Scott resigned from the
Western Australian Legislative Assembly seat of
Perth, and Molloy nominated for the resulting
by-election which he won against mayor
Edward Keane, and was duly appointed to the vacancy on 13 January 1892. In this, he had been supported by the infant Trades and Labor Council, who were advocating electoral reform, payment of Members of Parliament, prohibition of Asian immigration and introduction of an arbitration court. Being Roman Catholic and not part of the landed classes which dominated the Parliament of that time, he proved to be somewhat populist in character, advocating universal suffrage and public ownership of power and utilities. After this loss, Molloy unsuccessfully contested the
Metropolitan Province seat in the
Western Australian Legislative Council in 1894, when the body became fully elective. He then attempted to re-enter Parliament on a further twelve occasions under a variety of party labels or as an
independent, and then as a
Nationalist Party candidate from 1917 onwards. His last effort was at a by-election for the Metropolitan Province in 1932. He continued through this period as a
Perth City councillor, serving as
mayor of Perth in 1908–09 and 1911–12. He was known as something of a radical, espousing similar causes to those he had supported previously, with a notable achievement during his time as mayor being the ending of Perth Gas Company's monopoly on power and lighting in 1912. He also advocated public ownership of Perth's tramways, but was outnumbered by other councillorstransport remained in private ownership until the advent of the
Metropolitan Transport Trust in 1958. He also opposed admission charges to enter public space and sporting events on the Esplanade, and supported the construction of free public baths. At the time Western Australia had 53,177 peoplea figure that was to double within the next five years. On 20 September 1893, Molloy purchased Perth Lot F3 on the south side of what is now
Hay Street Mall with the assistance of
Alexander Forrest, the then Mayor of Perth, and obtained a publican's licence a week later. In 1894, the Hotel Metropole was constructed on the site, and in February 1895, he announced plans for a 1,000-seat theatre to be built on land adjoining the hotel. The foundation stone was laid by Mrs A. Forrest on 8 May 1895, and the Theatre Royal opened on 19 April 1897. While its initial success was mixed, due mainly to the changing economic and demographic characteristics of Perth, by the 1930s it had become the most popular picture theatre in Perth. It eventually closed in 1977. By 1901, Perth had become a place of optimism and confidence fuelled by the gold rush. In 1902, after the ascension of
King Edward VII to the English throne, Molloy announced plans for a new theatre at Hay and King Streets, to be known as
His Majesty's Theatre. It was completed at a cost of
£A (equivalent to in ) by architect William Wolf and builder
Friederich Liebe, although Liebe had to pursue Molloy (reputed to be one of the most litigious businessmen in Perth) through the courts at exorbitant costs all the way to the
High Court and
Privy Council for the final payment of £A17,000 (equivalent to in ). The theatre boasted the largest stage in Australia for many years, and the Heritage Council of Western Australia, which listed the building in 1999, described it as having "the most lavish and well-executed ornamentation of any Federation Free Classical theatre building in Australia". Molloy went on to build other hotels, such as the Australia Hotel in Perth, the North Beach Hotel, the Brighton Hotel in Scarborough and the Oceanic (later Mosman Park) Hotel.
Later life His second wife Mary died on 7 February 1925. He was created a
papal knight commander of the
Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1931given his anxiousness to become a knight, he went by the title of
Sir from this point. He died at St John of God Hospital,
Subiaco, on 16 February 1938 and, after a requiem mass at
St Mary's Cathedral, was buried in the Roman Catholic section of
Karrakatta Cemetery. He was survived by one daughter from his second marriage. ==References==