[2] In 1674 he was sued by John Ormrod, Vicar of Burton, near Kendal, for small tithes and oblations, and in default of payment was imprisoned for three years.
[2][1] Thomas married Anne Audland, née Newby (1627–1705) in 1666, and they had two daughters, Mary (later Moore) and Sarah, who died of smallpox and fever at the age of almost nine, an event which was commemorated in a joint work with his wife entitled The Admirable and Glorious Appearance of the Eternal God in and through a Child, 1684.
[1] He became involved in the Wilkinson–Story Separation (a breakaway group within the Quaker movement), and wrote against William Rogers and John Story, two of the leaders.
In 1684 he penned The Line of Truth and True Judgement in response to a pro-Wilkinson–Story pamphlet (The Memory of that Servant of God John Story Revived, 1683), and accused its authors in his epistle to the reader of "bitter and ungodly false reflections against Friends", which he claimed were an attempt to "stir up persecution against us, and to render truth odious".
He died at Eldworth, Yorkshire, on 13 January 1708, aged sixty-seven, after suffering from a short illness which left him unable to eat due to the ensuing pain and incapable of sleep.