In 1709 he was ordained Priest at Fulham and on 10 August 1709 he was appointed Perpetual curate of the parish of Teddington, Middlesex and left Cambridge, although he retained his Fellowship until 1718. He became a Bachelor of Divinity in 1711. Hales remained in Teddington for the rest of his life, except for occasional visits to his other parishes. He was an assiduous minister – in addition to parish duties he enlarged and repaired the church and commissioned a new water supply for the village – and well regarded although there is some evidence that his experimental work on animal physiology was viewed with misgivings. Thomas Twining included a verse in his poem The Boat on Hales: