Educated at St. Peter's College, Adelaide and the University of Melbourne, and winner of the Fred Johns Scholarship for Biography at the Adelaide University, 1951, Thomas Thornton Reed offered for the priesthood and did his training at St Barnabas' College, Adelaide. In 1957 he was appointed Bishop of Adelaide (the first Australian-born Anglican bishop in SA) and in 1973 with the formation of a third Anglican diocese in SA became the first Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide and Metropolitan of the Province of South Australia; a position he held until his retirement.
He published a number of works on the poet Henry Kendall as well as a volume of his own songs and sonnets, and his witty occasional rhymes marked many an event in South Australian circles. Other published works of his include a history of St Peter's Cathedral (1969), Historic Churches of Australia (1978), works on Anglican worship. and Anglican Clergy in South Australia in the Nineteenth Century (1986).
He was awarded the CBE for services to his church and the community.
