 The leaders of the Movement preached at the church, and the early Tractarians were closely associated with St Thomas's.It has traditionally been held in Osney that the church was founded in the reign of Stephen, but this is unlikely to be true, as Thomas Becket was not martyred until some fifteen years after Stephen's death.It is known that in the 1180s, the site was granted to the canons of the nearby Osney Abbey, and a chapel was erected on the site around 1190.