His father was Sir John Bennet, a wealthy politician and judge whose career had ended prematurely when he was found guilty of taking bribes.
Thomas was the judge's second son, but on the evidence of his own wealth at the time of his death, he was more successful than his elder brother.
[3] Sources suggest that during the English Civil War that engulfed England in the middle of the century, his sympathies may have tended to the royalist cause, and that he might have been among those expelled from Oxford following the parliamentarian purge of the city in the later 1640s.
[1] However, as far as is known Thomas Bennet was able to avoid incurring destructive wrath from the republican leadership which took over the reins of power following the execution of the king early in 1649.
His cousin, Sir Thomas Bennet of Cambridgeshire, had already been created a baronet the previous year.