Thomas Crisp was born into a family of shipwrights and fishermen in Lowestoft, one of ten children to William and Mary Anne Crisp. Although his father was the owner of a successful boatbuilding firm and thus could afford an education for his children, Thomas did not enjoy school, instead showing a "marked preference for quayside adventure to school routine".[3] Leaving school, Thomas took to the sea, spending several years as a herring fisherman before joining a fishing trawler out of Lowestoft.