The son of David Collet Thomas, from Hove,[2] he was educated at the Highgate School and at Oriel College, Oxford, where he graduated with a BA degree in 1881.
[3] In 1897 he married Ellen Stanford, the daughter and heiress of William Stanford of Preston Park, Sussex, and widow of Vere Benett-Stanford, the former MP for Shaftesbury.
[5][7] He was re-elected in 1918[8] as a Coalition Conservative[9] (i.e. a supporter of the coalition government led by the Liberal David Lloyd George), and stood down from Parliament at the 1922 general election.
[9] In 1922 he donated Lewes Castle to the Sussex Archaeological Society, of which he was a long-serving chairman.
[3] Thomas-Stanford was made a baronet on the 1929 New Year Honours[10] and the title was conferred on 8 May 1929.