He was apprenticed under Charles Barry and A.W. Pugin as a carpenter-joiner.
Thomas began his own practice at Leamington Spa in 1831 where he designed many buildings, but in 1837 went bankrupt. He designed some of the finest Decorated Gothic Revival architecture in Ontario. He was also Toronto"s city engineer when John George Howard made a trip to England in 1853.
He died in Toronto, aged about sixty.
Thomas is sometimes inaccurately credited with the architectural design and the elaborate stone carvings on Victoria Hall in Cobourg, Ontario. In fact, Kivas Tully designed the building and the fine sandstone carvings are the work of master stonecarver Charles Thomas Thomas (1820–1867).