He attended Doncaster Grammar School, and later entered the Yorkshire College of Science, now the University of Leeds.

He was then appointed a Senior Foundation Scholar of Clare College, Cambridge, from where he gained First Class honours in the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1886.

[3] In 1899 Easterfield was appointed one of the four foundation professors of the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; he and their two daughters set sail for the 90 day voyage on the Kaikoura from Plymouth on 11 February.

[8] Thomas Easterfield met Anna Maria Kunigunda Büchel while he was working in Würzburg and they married there on 1 September 1894.

[9] [He] will ever be remembered as an outstanding chemist who created from virtually nothing—much of the equipment was of his own making—the Department of Chemistry at Victoria College, Wellington, successfully fathering such an undertaking through all vicissitudes,