His father, John Ashe (d. 1879), originally a Manchester manufacturer and an amateur artist, resolved late in life to take holy orders, was prepared for ordination by his own son, and became vicar of St. Paul's at Crewe in 1869.
Thomas was educated at Stockport Grammar School and St. John's College, Cambridge, where he entered as a sizar in 1855 and graduated B.A.
In 1865 he became mathematical and modern form master at Leamington College, whence he moved to a similar post at Queen Elizabeth's School, Ipswich.
Three volumes of prose were published in Bohn's 'Standard Library'; Lecture and Notes on Shakspere in 1883', Table Talk and Omniana in 1884, and in Miscellanies, Aesthetic and Literary, in 1885.
He wrote steadily from his college days to the end of his life; but, although his powers were recognized by some of the literary journals, his poems failed entirely to gain the ear of his generation.