Little is known about Thomas Brett beyond the record of his public career. In 1556 he brought an action for a debt of £4 against Thomas Mascall of Horsted Keynes, Sussex, who was imprisoned in the Fleet for a while in consequence. The Brotherhood of the Cinque Ports, at which Brett represented Hastings frequently between 1551 and 1568, also granted him a general withernam against Sandwich in July 1562, because of his claim for damages from William Hertford of Sandwich. In 1564 he was paid £5 for his expenses ‘in riding to get the wayster [?fish spear] the last year’. After being elected bailiff to Yarmouth in 1566, he was discharged when he reminded the house that he had already served twice and that he had ‘great charges last year’; on his last appointment as bailiff in 1568 he was granted a fee of £15.3CPR, 1555-7, p. 140; Cinque Ports White and Black Bks., 264, 267, 269, 275.
In his will, made on 15 Aug. and proved on 16 Oct. 1568, he left varying sums of money to his younger children and his lands to his eldest son Thomas; his wife was both the executrix and the residuary legatee.4PCC 18 Babington.