Sir Thomas Twisden, English judge and member of Parliament, was born on 2 or 8 January 1602 at Roydon Hall, East Peckham, Kent. He studied at Cambridge, was called to the bar, and built a successful practice in Kent, arguing prominent cases concerning writs of mandamus and habeas corpus. In 1660 Twisden was knighted and became a justice of the Court of King's Bench, a post he held for eighteen years. Twisden had eleven children with wife Jane Thomlinson (m. 1639, died c. 1703). He passed away on 2 January 1683.