La Thangue studied at the South Kensington and Lambeth schools before entering the RA from 1875, where he won the RA Schools Gold Medal 1879, and studied with J L Gerome in Paris for three years. Whilst in Paris he came under influence of the Barbizon and plein-air painters such as Bastien-Lepage and Dagnan-Bouveret.

On his return to London he exhibited widely, though not in Cornwall until the Newlyn Art Gallery opened in 1895. He lived at Bosham, Surrey and was a close friend of Stanhope FORBES, whom he met first as a fellow pupil at Dulwich College. He was greatly in sympathy with the aims and ideals of the Newlyn School, although his subjects tended to be farm workers and country life rather than fisherfolk.  To show solidarity with Forbes, he sent his painting Clearing the Orchard to Newlyn in spring 1896; the WCAA holds a letter which asks politely for this to be packed and returned to him at Bosham, Chichester.

He is included here more as an influential force, and a name often mentioned in the history of the Newlyn colony, than because of time spent in West Cornwall.