Born at Wasperton Hill Farm in Warwickshire, Thomas Garner grew up in a rural setting that gave him an instinctive feeling for country crafts and construction, which were never weakened by long years spent in London.
When he returned to Warwickshire, Garner undertook various small works as a representative of Scott, including the repair of the old chapel of the Lord Leycester Hospital in Warwick, which he buttressed into security.
The ensuing period of dual practice under partnership left most of the secular opportunities to the control of the junior partner, Garner, while Bodley, with his penchant for Gothic forms and ecclesiastical work, devoted himself to church building and decoration.
He designed the altar screen in St Paul's Cathedral and several sepulchral monuments, including those of the Bishops of Ely, Lincoln, Winchester and Chichester, and that of Henry Parry Liddon.
Despite Bodley's distaste for business and trade, he and Garner also set up a fabric company with George Gilbert Scott Jr. in 1874, to provide embroidered and textile goods, wallpaper and stained glass.
The final period of the Bodley and Garner partnership is best seen in St John the Evangelist Church, Oxford, built for the Cowley Fathers in 1894–96.
After dissolving the partnership, Garner designed and supervised the restoration of Yarnton Manor, Oxfordshire in 1897;[3] the Slipper Chapel at Houghton Saint Giles; Moreton House, Hampstead; and the Empire Hotel at Buxton by the Duke of Devonshire's estate.