[4] The later years of an apprenticeship might include substantial periods spent abroad, accompanying trading voyages or living in foreign cities, buying and selling goods for their master and others on commission.

Thorne would have completed his apprenticeship aged about 21 (1513) and could then have been made a Freeman of London on this basis,[6] giving him the right to trade independently and vote in council elections.

When he sold his share of the Reale Almonas soap factor in Seville in 1531, the deal included seventeen enslaved workers.

[11] Thorne had business interests throughout Spain, as well as with numerous English merchants, such as Thomas Malliard and his old master, Paul Withypoll.

In December 1524, Thorne invested in a voyage being prepared from Spain by Sebastian Cabot to search for a route to the Spice Islands by sailing around South America.

John Stow's 'Survey of London' records him as one of the city's worthies for his charitable bequests: Robert Thorne Merchant Taylor, deceased a bachelor, in the year 1532 gave by his Testament to charitable actions, more than £4440 and legacies to his poor kindred more £5142 besides his debts forgiven, &c.[25]Thorne's bequests in his will of 17 May 1532 included 'towards the making of the free schole of Saint Bartholomews in Bristowe £300 sterling' His will was proved on 10 October.

The Elizabethan geographer and historian, Richard Hakluyt, described Thorne as 'a notable member and ornament of his country, as wel for his learning, as great charity to the poore'.

[24] Thorne was buried in St. Christopher le Stocks (London) in 'a very fair tomb of pure touch, in the south side of the choir'.

The description of the placement of the tomb in the chancel of the church, and the accompanying epitaph, were published in 1720 in a revised version of Stow's 'Survey of London'.

[32] The surviving painting of Robert Thorne now hanging in Bristol Grammar School, along with a similar one of his brother, Nicholas, are both copies produced in 1624 from originals borrowed from a Wiltshire family.