How did he spend his childhood?
Thomas, who was the middle of three surviving children of Anne and John grew up in Wisbech living in the spacious house attached to the school until tragedy struck when Thomas was barely 6. His father died suddenly of a fever, caught whilst visiting the sick, on 31st March 1766. The children and their mother had to leave the tied accommodation to move a few streets away to 8 York Row where a relative of Anne’s owned a property they could rent. Thomas continued to attend the grammar school until he was 12 or 15 years of age when he went to London to attend St Paul’s School. He was to comment on the harshness of the discipline at this school, which was next to the great cathedral , but he was an able student and in 1779 went up to St. Johns College, Cambridge with two scholarships.
