“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph” – Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine Biography

Thomas Paine was born on 9 February 1737, in Thetford, Norfolk, England. He was the son of a Quaker father called Joseph and an Anglican mother called Frances. He attended Thetford Grammar School between the ages of 7 and 13 after which he was apprenticed to his father who was a stay-maker. Stay being a word no longer used for what is now called a corset.

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In around 1756 when he was about 20 years old, Thomas moved to London and would never return to Thetford. However, he did return to his father’s trade when in 1759 he opened a shop at 20 New Street in Sandwich, Kent. The building still stands and there is a plaque on the wall above the door identifying it as Tom Paine’s Cottage.

It was in Sandwich where he met a local girl called Mary Lambert and on 27 September 1759, the couple were married at St. Peter’s Church, after which Mary almost immediately became pregnant with their first child. Less than a year later, tragedy struck, when shortly after the couple had moved to Margate, Mary went into early labour. She and the child both died.

Thomas became an excise officer in various locations at the whim of the Board of Excise. He was appointed to Lewes in Sussex in 1768 where he lived above Bull House, within which he established a tobacco shop. During this time Thomas started to take an interest in politics and he became a member of the Court Leet, which governed the town. He also met his second wife during this time, Elizabeth Ollive, and they were married on 26 March 1771.

In 1772, and in an effort to seek better pay and working conditions from parliament, Paine wrote his first pamphlet, entitled “The Case of the Officers of Excise”, 4000 copies of which were distributed to the members of the house as well as other influential people in London.

Two years later, he was dismissed from the excise service for being absent without permission. More bad luck would follow later that year as his tobacco shop business also failed and he formally separated from his wife.

By September of 1774, Paine had moved to London and was introduced to Benjamin Franklin, by Commissioner of the Excise, George Lewis Scott. During a conversation with Paine, Franklin recommended that he move to the British Colonies in America, and provided Paine with a letter of recommendation to help him do so. By 30 November Thomas found himself in Philadelphia ready to start the next chapter of his life.

Thomas became a citizen of Pennsylvania and became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, a role which he seemed to take to like a duck to water. Two years after his arrival in America, he produced one of his most famous pieces of work, entitled Common Sense, which popularised ideas for an independent American republic that were previously only discussed in privileged circles. During the course of the American Revolutionary War, which was already underway, over half a million copies of Common Sense were sold.

Thomas Paine followed up Common Sense with a series of pamphlets called The American Crisis. George Washington had the pamphlet read aloud to his troops in order to inspire them during their battles with the British. In a later pamphlet, it was Paine who coined the term, United States of America.

In 1777 Paine joined the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs as its secretary. He resigned from the post due to certain indiscretions but that didn’t stop him from receiving an estate in New Rochelle, New York as thanks for services. He also received money from the state of Pennsylvania and from Congress.

In 1787, Paine travelled back to England in the unofficial capacity as American Ambassador. He met Thomas Jefferson wh...