A lamplighter at the age of 12, Thomas Shallcross, Jr.*, was responsible for nine lamps along a two mile stretch of Pennsylvania country road and earned $90 a year for his evening toil. Born on a farm in Byberry, PA, he went to Philadelphia at the age of 16 and found a job at $3 a week with Peter Wright & Sons, well-known foreign exchange banks and steamship operators of the day. Within two years he was attending to the rental of hundreds of properties for the Tacony Trust Company. From that time on, his interests centered firmly in the field of real estate. When two of Philadelphia's oldest real estate firms merged in 1936, he became a general partner in the resulting firm, Jackson-Cross Company.
Mr. Shallcross was president of the Phildelphia Real Estate Board and was the first president of the Philadelphia Kiwanis. During the First World War, Mr. Shallcross served as an assisant administrator of the Pennsylvania Food Administration and as official negotiator and commanding officer for the U.S. Housing Corporation over a territory extending from Boston to Norfolk. He was also active in the Liberty Loan drives of that period.
As National Association president, he was instrumental in framing the more detailed code of ethics adopted by the Association at the close of his administration in June 1915.
For many years served as a director of the Centennial National Bank and of the First Trust Company of Philadelphia. He was also a director of the Land Title Bank & Trust Company, the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company, and the Girard Fire & Marine Insurance Company; president of the Loganian Building & Loan Association; and chairman of the board of Pocono Hotels Company and Skytop Lodges, Inc. He was president of the Merion Civic Association and a member of the zoning board of lower Merion Township.
Source: Presidents of the National Association of REALTORS®, (Chicago: NAR, 1980).
*Deceased