Tommy was born at Waikaripi in the Chatham Islands, on May 7, 1884 and raised on the Moriori Reserve at Manukau. His mother died in 1903 but because of his youthful irresponsibility the interest in her land was vested in his father during his lifetime.
Tommy was married in 1903 to Ada Fowler of the Ngai Tahu tribe and began learning the trade of sheep farmer first on leased land and then on the family holding which gradually increased in size as the other Moriori people died off. When his father and his wife died in 1915 Tommy was running 7000 sheep and a herd of cattle on the family farm. Tommy remarried in 1916 to Whakarawa, the niece of his first wife and subsequently had five chidren. As Ngai Tahu is a Maori tribe rather than Moriori Tommy's chidren would have been of mixed descent.
During the 1920s Tommy became known as one of the most successful farmers in the Chatham Islands. He took an active part in the social and political life of the Chatham Islands and was widely respected for his generosity and his conciliatory nature. However it was as the last full blooded Moriori that he was best known.
He died of pneumonia and heart failiure on March 19, 1933.
There are still many people of partial Moriori descent in the Chatham Islands and in New Zealand itself.