NEN Gallery

Thomas’s father, Joseph Paine, a master stay or corset maker, was
a freeman of the Borough of Thetford which entitled him to have his son
educated at the Grammar School, at reduced fees. Thomas later wrote,
"my parents were not able to give me a shilling beyond what they gave
me in education, and to do this they distressed themselves."
He probably attended the school between the ages of eight to thirteen years. On leaving school, he was then apprenticed to his father.