He was also an amateur mythologist, and wrote Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, first published in 1869 and then again in 1875.
Thomas went to school at Wakefield, and in 1836 was apprenticed to his uncle, Richard Inman, M.D., at Preston, Lancashire.
[1] Declining a commission as an army surgeon, Inman settled in Liverpool as house-surgeon to the Royal Infirmary.
On 21 October 1844 he became a member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, to whose Proceedings he contributed papers, mainly on archæological subjects.
From Godfrey Higgins he derived the suggestion that the key to all mythology is to be sought in phallic worship.