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

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

He died 20 Oct. 1765.