Thomas Bayes was born in 1702 in London, England. He was educated privately and ordained as a non-conformist minister, like his father.
Bayes was evidently an avid amateur mathematician. He wrote a famous article, published anonymously, defending the new theory of calculus: An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, and a Defense of the Mathematicians Against the Objections of the Author of The Analyst, published in 1736. Although he held no academic post and had no articles published in his name, Bayes was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society in 1742.
A version of what is now known as Bayes' theorem in probability was used in his paper Essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances, published after his death in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London in 1764. Because of this article, his name is now synonymous with an entire philosophy of statistics.
Thomas Bayes died on April 17, 1761 in the county of Kent, England.