The Skinner family had lived in Shrewsbury since the 13th century and acquired extensive property in both town and vicinity. Thomas’s grandfather, William Skinner, senior, had represented the borough in Parliament six times between 1322 and 1339 (twice in association with his son, William junior),
Early in his career, in May 1367, Skinner was present in London at the formal settlement of a local dispute. During his first Parliament, in March 1371, a royal commission was set up to investigate complaints by John Routhale of Ludlow that he had broken into a house in Shrewsbury and stolen half of the goods (valued at 200 marks) which were locked up there for safe-keeping. However, there is a strong likelihood that the MP had acted in some official capacity. In February 1379 Skinner provided securities in Chancery for Hugh Acton, a clerk from the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield then appealing against episcopal sentence of excommunication, and on 28 Apr. of the same year, four days after the opening of his fourth Parliament, he found surety in the Exchequer for Thomas Butler, nephew and coheir of John, Lord Sudeley, who was then in the process of securing a royal lease of the latter’s estates. The burgesses of Shrewsbury sent several petitions of mutual complaint to the Parliament at Northampton, and it was probably in response to one of these that, in Chancery (housed in the Franciscan priory) on 20 Nov. 1380, Skinner, then again sitting in the Commons, was required to undertake on penalty of of £100 that members of the Biriton family would not assault Nicholas Gerard. On 29 Mar. 1381, three days after being commissioned to settle the factional disputes which were seriously disrupting the peace in his home town, he headed the list of the council of in elected at ‘Castle Isabel’ in the presence of Richard, earl of Arundel, to assist the bailiffs to govern for two years from September following. However, in the event he himself was made bailiff for the official year 1381-2, in the course of which he represented the borough in the Lower House twice more. He was returned to Parliament for the ninth time, in April 1384, while again in office as a bailiff, and five years later, in August 1389, he appeared once more as a member of the council of 12. The fact that in some years, even when he was not a borough official, Skinner received a fee of 20s., suggests that he was almost continuously active on the community’s behalf, and lends credence to the supposition that he was a lawyer. He was among the burgesses who, early in 1399, petitioned Richard II for redress following the alleged embezzlement of their funds by Thomas Pride, and he served as an assessor at meetings of the Shrewsbury guild merchant in December 1397 and on 31 Jan. 1408 (the latter occasion being that of his son John’s admission as a burgess).
Skinner’s obvious competence in administrative affairs had led him, in December 1385, when again representing Shrewsbury in Parliament, to be associated with Thomas Lee I, then knight of the shire for Shropshire, as a trustee of property in his home town once belonging to Reynold Perle. More important, ten years later, and also with Lee, he was made a feoffee of estates belonging to Sir Hugh Zouche in Leicestershire, Cambridgeshire and Sussex, and, probably as a consequence, also of the manors of Upton and Cantley, Norfolk, and Great Bradley, Suffolk, held by the prominent Shropshire landowner Hugh, Lord Burnell, whose second wife, Joyce, was Zouche’s heir.
Skinner made his will on 20 Oct. 1411. In it he asked to be buried in the chapel dedicated to St. Thomas the Martyr in St. Chad’s church, where, if his executors could obtain a royal licence, they were to found a chantry. Bequests went to the four orders of friars in Shrewsbury, to John Burley I, and to members of Thomas Lee’s family, and, in addition, Skinner provided for prayers for the souls of Katherine Weston and Sir Hamon Vaughan and his wife. Most of his possessions, including robes trimmed with fur, garments of silk, silver goblets, armour, swords and daggers, were to pass, along with his lands, to his son, John. Although probate was not granted until 16 May 1416, there is no evidence of activity on Skinner’s part after October 1411, and it is doubtful if he survived for much longer.