The son of Nathaniel Soames, shoemaker of Ludgate Street, London,[1] he was educated at St. Paul's School and went to Wadham College, Oxford, matriculating on 21 February 1803.
He held the post of assistant to the high master of St. Paul's School from 1809 to 1814, and took holy orders.
In 1839 he became rector of Stapleford Tawney with Theydon Mount, Essex, where he remained till his death.
He was Bampton lecturer in 1830, and was appointed chancellor of St. Paul's Cathedral by Bishop Charles James Blomfield in 1842.
[2] Soames's major work in English church history addressed the Anglo-Saxon times and the sixteenth century.