 He joined the Norwich Stock Company, a stock theatre company, in 1791 and began his literary career there.Lathom was a precocious writer, beginning to write plays before he had turned eighteen.His first play, "All in a Bustle", was produced on the Norwich stage at the Theatre Royal Norwich in 1795; he would go on to write six other plays, including "The Dash of the Day" (1800), which went into three Norwich editions as well as a reprint published in Dublin.