Thomas, a learned physician, was born about 1460, at Canterbury, and educated there under the accomplished William Selling. After studying at Oxford, and becoming fellow of All-Souls' College in 1484, he set out for Italy with his former instructor Selling, who had been appointed ambassador from Henry VII. to the court of Rome. Settling down at Florence, he was permitted by Lorenzo de' Medici to attend his sons' preceptors, and progressed rapidly in Greek under Chalcondylas, and in Latin under Angelo Poliziano. He then removed to Rome, where, applying himself to the study of natural philosophy and physic, he became more intimate with Aristotle and Galen in the original than any Englishman before him. On his return to England he received the degree of M.D., and the appointment of public professor of physic from the University of Oxford; but was called to court by Henry VII. to be physician and tutor to Prince Arthur. He was afterwards successively physician to Henry VII., Henry VIII., and the Princess Mary. In the reign of Henry VIII., he founded two lectures on physic at Oxford and one at Cambridge; and in 1518, chiefly through his influence, letters-patent were issued for the foundation of the College of Physicians in London, vesting in that body the right of examining all medical practitioners in the capital. and within 7 miles around it, and of licensing all physicians throughout the rest of the kingdom who were not graduates of Oxford and Cambridge. Of this college Linacre was the first president, and held that office till his death. Having commenced to study divinity late in life, he was presented in 1509 to the rectory of Mersham, a benefice which he exchanged in the same year for a prebend in the church of Wells. In 1518 he became a prebendary, and in 1519 precentor in the Church of York. Resigning the latter office, he obtained more preferments, and, among others, a prebend in St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, and the rectory of Wigan, in Lancashire. He died under a severe attack of the stone, on the 20th of October 1524, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. Thirty years afterwards, a monument was erected over his grave by Dr Caius.

Linacre was esteemed in his own day, not less for his private virtues than for his unrivalled skill as a physician. His character as a scholar is established on the high authority of Erasmus, who says, "that his translations of Galen speak better Latin than before they ever spoke Greek." As a restorer of classical learning in England, he ranks with Colet, Lily, Grocyn, and William Latimer.

His translations from Galen are—De Temperamentis, Camb. 1521; De tuenda Sanitate, Camb. 1517, Paris, 1530; De Methodo Medendi, Paris, 1526; De Naturalibus Facultatibus, London, 1523 and 1728; De Pulvis usu, London, 1522; De Symptomatum Differentiis unus liber; Epistulae de Symptomatum Causis libri tres, London, 1524.

His other works are,—A translation of Proclus de Sphera, printed in the Astronomi Veteres of 1499; De Emendata Structura Latini Sermonis libri sex, London, 1524, frequently reprinted; The Rudiments of Grammar, written for the use of the Princess Mary, and translated into Latin by George Buchanan. In conjunction with Grocyn and Latimer, he began a translation of Aristotle, which was never finished.