FOSTER, Thomas (c.1720-65), of Elim, Jamaica, and Egham House, Surr.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

12 May - 11 Dec. 1741
18 Mar. 1742 - 1747
1761 - 20 Oct. 1765

Family and Education

b. c.1720, 1st s. of Col. John Foster of Elim, Jamaica by his w. Elizabeth Smith of Barbados. m. 2 June 1741, Mary, da. and h. of John Helden of St. Kitts and Egham House, Surr., s.p.. suc. fa. 1731.

Offices Held

Biography

The grandson of Col. Thomas Foster of Northumberland who took part in the capture of Jamaica under Cromwell and was granted large tracts of land in the island,1 Foster was a wealthy West Indian planter. Returned for Bossiney as an opposition Whig in 1741, he was unseated on petition by the Administration, but succeeded on a further petition after the fall of Walpole. He was absent from the division on the Hanoverians on 10 Dec. 1742, supported a motion to discharge them on 6 Dec. 1743,2 voted for them on 18 Jan. 1744, and was absent from the division on them on 11 Apr. 1746, when he was classed by the ministry as ‘doubtful’. In 1747 he was put up for Bossiney by Thomas Pitt but was unsuccessful.3

He died 20 Oct. 1765.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Gent. Mag. 1741, p. 331; Caribbeana, iii. 230, 375.
  • 2. Yorke's parl. jnl. Parl. Hist. xiii. 144.
  • 3. HMC Fortescue, i. 108, 114, 120.