FOLEY, Thomas (1617-77), of Witley Court, Great Witley, Worcs.

Thomas Foley’s grandfather was a nailer (craftsman manufacturer of nails) in Dudley, who died in 1600. The MP’s father, Richard, was the first of the family to achieve local eminence. He was mayor of Dudley in 1616, and moved from his native town to Stourbridge in 1630, having bought the manor of Bedcote there. His move was financed by his successfully extending greatly the family ironmaking business in the Dudley area of north Worcestershire.23Palfrey, ‘Foleys of Stourbridge’, 2-4. A story recounted in 1859 by Samuel Smiles in his most famous book, but which is impossible now to verify, is that Richard Foley twice visited Sweden incognito in order to learn more of their advanced iron slitting techniques. Arriving there without means of support, he gained access to the ironworks of his foreign competitors, and won the confidence of the workers there, by his skill in playing the fiddle to entertain them at work. He allegedly made secret drawings of their plant and machinery and used them to innovate at his own works.24S. Smiles, Self-Help (1958), 212-4.

Whatever truth there might be in the story, it is certainly the case that Richard Foley became the leading ironmaster in the Stourbridge area, and held premises in Leaden Hall, London, the metal traders’ quarter, by 1638.25Inhabitants of London, 1638, 177. His business opportunities must have been enhanced by his second marriage, to Thomas Foley’s mother. The Brindley family of Staffordshire were important ironmasters in their own right, and members of the family continued to find employment in the Foley works in the second half of the century.26Stour Valley Iron Works 1668-74 Pt. 1 ed. R.G. Schafer (Worcs. Hist. Soc. n.s. ix), xvii, 64. Richard Foley held the range of parish offices - churchwarden, sidesman, supervisor of highways - in Old Swinford, Stourbridge, and accumulated enough wealth to be able to endow a school in Dudley.27Palfrey, ‘Foleys of Stourbridge’, 4. Despite his wealth and its opportunities for social advancement, he was a disclaimer at the heralds’ visitation of 1634.28Vis. Worcs. 1634 (Harl. Soc xc), 107. Among his extended household in the 1630s were Richard Baxter and James Berry*; Berry conveyed to Baxter the invitation of Foley to become schoolmaster at Dudley in 1638.29Reliquiae Baxterianae, i. 13. While relations between Baxter and Berry later became strained, as Berry became more radical in his religious outlook, a friendship was formed between Thomas Foley, second surviving son of Baxter’s patron, and the minister, which was to persist and was to remain an important element in Foley’s public career.

On the outbreak of the civil war, Richard Foley found himself at the mercy of the royalists once the north of Worcestershire had fallen under their control in September 1642.30Several Occurrences that have lately happened at Warwick, Coventry, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire (1642), 5 (E.115.2). He was certainly no active partisan, but his ironworks were so extensive and valuable to the armies for the ordnance and military equipment they could produce that it was inevitable that whichever party dominated the region would seek to control his output and harness it for military advantage. Foley supplied ammunition, pike-heads, guns, bar-iron and timber to the king’s armies from 1642 at least until 1645. As Dudley was garrisoned for the king, Foley had no choice but to comply with these demands, but an order from Oxford in 1645 to ‘seize upon’ Foley, to make him supply nearly 4,000 pike-heads for the defence of Worcester suggests that the ironmaster was not the most willing of contractors.31CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 4; Royalist Ordnance Pprs. ed. Roy, 36, 428.

What Thomas Foley did in the war remains unclear. The assumption must be that for much of his time he lived in London. Before 1641, he married the daughter of the Kentish Weald gunfounder whose son was in 1652 his business partner. Family and business were so entwined in the relationship between Foley and John Browne and his son George that it is likely that Foley had been apprenticed to his father-in-law. Whether the godly Protestant Foley found his Roman Catholic brother-in-law Thomas Browne an embarrassment is not recorded; John Browne left money to his son payable only on his conversion.32PROB11/213, f. 28. In February 1646, Foley presented himself to the Society of Mineral and Battery Works, requesting a lease of its wire-drawing works at Whitbrook and Tintern in Monmouthshire. John Browne had been granted a lease of the iron works there in 1642, but had been unable to avail himself of the lease because of resistance by the former tenant, Sir John Winter. Foley was granted the lease on similar conditions to previous ones made by the Society, paying £300 a year rent; it seems to have been Foley’s first sole business venture, clinched by his ability to read the political conditions successfully.

The industry in the Forest of Dean was evidently in poor condition when Foley took over; he asked for the first six months of his tenure to be rent-free in order that he should be able to relieve the workers there.33BL, Loan 16 vol. 2, f. 94. In December 1647, Foley was sufficiently highly regarded by the Society to have acquired a share in it, and was simultaneously admitted to become not only a member but also a deputy-governor. At meetings of the Society he met influential figures such as Chaloner Chute I* and Michael Oldisworth*, former secretary to Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, one of its governors. These contacts helped bring him to the attention of the government after 1649, when it was in a position to build up its armaments.34BL, Loan 16 vol. 2, f. 95. The fact that not ten years previously the Society and John Browne had been denounced by the Kent gentry as monopolists seems not to have influenced Foley’s view of the benefits bestowed by membership.35P. Clarke, English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution: Religion, Politics and Society in Kent 1500-1640 (Hassocks, 1977), 358.

By 1653, Baxter considered Foley to be ‘well known in London’, and he had by then built up his business, centred on iron production and founding as far apart as Snodland in Kent, the west midlands, and Monmouthshire.36R. Baxter, The Worcestershire Petition ... Defended (1653), 15. John Browne’s profile in the civil war had been much like that of Foley’s father: a rather reluctant contractor to the royalists.37SP16/449/1. This proved no significant obstacle to his rehabilitation as a supplier to the parliamentary regimes. Foley inherited contracts with the government from his father-in-law in 1652, and thereafter he and George Browne supplied very large quantities of ordnance to both the army and to the admiralty commissioners. The industry was stimulated by war with the Dutch. Cannon and grenade shells seemed to be a speciality of theirs, and castings were being made by Foley in brass as well as iron. Bills for four-figure sums were presented by him to the government.38CSP Dom. 1652, pp. 597, 598, 604, 606, 615; 1652-3, pp. 486, 503, 539; 1656-7, pp. 394, 441, 456; 1659-60, p. 529. There were set-backs; compared with the booming munitions supply industry under the Rump, Foley’s iron-drawing operation was unsuccessful, and he had to ask the Society of Mineral and Battery Works for a rent rebate in November 1651. In his view, foreign competition was killing the industry.39BL, Loan 16 vol. 2, ff. 106v, 109. The possibility that his reduced rent was granted as a mark of his high standing in the Society cannot be discounted, however.

With the development of his business as a leading contractor to the government, came other openings and rewards. A parallel organisation to the Society of Mineral and Battery Works, sharing the same secretariat, venue and membership, was the Society of Mines Royal, which retained its title even through the 1650s. By January 1653 Foley had acquired a share in it, and at the same time became its treasurer, repeating the pattern of his involvement with the sister society.40BL, Loan 16 vol. 3, ff. 5v. 29v. 38. Both societies continued to try to enforce the monopoly in the arms industry they had been awarded in earlier times, and Foley was prominent in the attempt. By the mid-1650s he was moving in the highest government circles. In May 1654 Foley was authorised to invite Major-general John Lambert*, the second most important politician in England after Oliver Cromwell*, to join the Society of Mines Royal. A month later he was asked to lobby Lambert about the threat from foreign wire imports. In December 1656, Foley was deputed to talk with Treasury Lord Commissioner Bulstrode Whitelocke* about securing the privileges of the Society. 41BL, Loan 16 vol. 2, ff. 110; vol. 3 ff. 5v. 9. Nor were these privileges negligible. In June 1651 it was reported that an officer at the London custom house had refused to seize wire imports on the order of the Society of Mineral and Battery Works, pleading higher orders of the customs commissioners. Foley spoke to the commissioners; in July 1652 the same official was awarded 40s by the Society for seizing wire. When a similar situation arose with the Bristol customs officers, it was Foley who arranged for the Society to provide them with more precise warrants. The Society acted as an agency of government, with Foley as its chief executive.42BL, Loan 16 vol. 2, ff. 106, 108, 110v. 111, 117, 119, 122.

Foley capitalised on his business success in London and Kent by building a landed estate in Worcestershire, partly for investment and partly to provide sites for iron working ventures in the county, in the Stour valley and neighbouring area. His first acquisition was Wolverley manor, bought from his father in 1648, which provided him with a site for a forge.43VCH Worcs. iii. 571. In March 1657, Foley was employing Bewdley boats to convey iron wire and wrought iron between there and Chepstow, proof that his Forest of Dean operations were still active.44E190/1249/ 2. Ten purchases of land in Worcestershire by Foley were recorded in the court of common pleas between 1650 and 1660, but only from 1655, when he bought Great Witley manor from Thomas Russell, did Foley have a seat in Worcestershire of a size commensurate with his wealth.45Worcs. Fines 1649-1714, 68; VCH Worcs. iv. 372. When in November 1655, Major-general James Berry* pleaded for Foley, his friend, to be excused the office of sheriff of Worcestershire, he pointed out to John Thurloe* that Foley had ‘no house or conveniency’ in the county, which was at the time not much of an exaggeration.46TSP iv. 211. But throughout the 1650s Foley maintained his interest with Richard Baxter and his Worcestershire association of ministers. Baxter always recognised the debt he owed Foley’s father and the succeeding generation of the family: for finding him his first employment and for providing other forms of help and patronage later in his career. In 1653, Baxter dedicated The Right Method for a Settled Peace of Conscience to Foley and his wife, describing the ironmaster as ‘a special branch’ of the family to whom he owed the opening of his ministry.47Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 98.

By then, Foley had been instrumental in helping Baxter present The Humble Petition of Worcestershire to the Rump Parliament. The petition called on Parliament to fund a learned, godly ministry, and was a clear signal from Baxter and his supporters that they expected a national, state church to continue in the face of challenges from religious radicals. Foley’s co-presenter (and co-dedicatee of Baxter’s Right Method), was Col. John Bridges*, former governor of Warwick Castle and since December 1648 owner of Hurcott manor, Kidderminster, and of the town’s advowson.48VCH Worcs. iii. 172, 175. The Humble Petition was thus presented by Baxter’s recent patron and most prominent church member, and by Foley, his ‘special’ friend and ally. In the light of Foley’s business activities and closeness to government, Baxter’s description of him as ‘well known in London’ seems understated: Baxter’s choice of him was a shrewd political move.

Foley had two further qualifications to commend him as the promoter of Baxter’s petition. First, he was not involved with the Worcester-based county committee with whose members Baxter had been out of sympathy since the surrender of the city to Parliament in the summer of 1646. Baxter thought the committee had been swayed by the Independents in the army, mentioning Richard Salwey* as culpable in this context, and steered clear of them subsequently. Another virtue in Baxter’s assessment of Foley was the record of his household in producing army officers: one colonel and two captains, apparently. Baxter was speaking somewhat figuratively to count the families of Richard Foley and his son as one household, but it hardly weakened his argument that the chief promoters of The Humble Petition had been selected to appeal to a broad base of support both in the county and in London. Baxter’s riposte to his critics unsurprisingly emphasised the point.49The Worcestershire Petition…Defended (1653), 14, 15, 17; Reliquiae Baxterianae, i. 55-6, 64, 67; Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 98.

In the eyes of the protectoral government, Foley’s friendship with Major-general Berry was a qualification for public service that no pleas for exemption by the latter could outweigh, and Foley duly became sheriff in 1655. During his year in office he appointed Baxter to deliver the assize sermon, which inevitable found its way into print.50List of Sheriffs (List and Index ix), 159; Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 291. It must have been recognised that Foley commanded much wealth and a powerful industrial interest in the county. He also evinced a commitment to worldly success that over-rode changes of political climate. Foley was an arms monopolist who sought to maintain his monopoly under successive regimes, from that of Parliament in 1646 through to that of the restored monarchy. Baxter preferred to dwell on providence as accounting for his prodigious wealth: ‘Such worthy persons and such strange prosperity and holy use of it are so rare, and the interest of my poor neighbours in it so great, that I thought meet to mention it to God’s praise and his’.51Reliquiae Baxterianae, iii. 93.

Berry noted that Foley was not usually resident in Worcestershire, and this must have continued through the 1650s, although Foley’s estate was continually being augmented throughout the decade. But by the end of the interregnum, rich beyond the dreams of avarice, Foley had an interest of his own politically, and was well-placed as a candidate in the 1659 election, being both godly and wealthy. There was a contest for the seat: Foley stood with Nicholas Lechmere against John Talbot of Salwarpe and John Nanfan*. Foley and his partner spent £614 in Worcester inns, which at least ensured their election. Among those signing the indenture were royalists such as Samuel Sandys* and Henry Bromley, as well as committeemen like Gervase Buck and William Collins*, suggesting a degree of settlement in Worcestershire would have at least been possible, had the protectorate persisted.52Worcs. Archives, Coventry mss box 13, election indenture 19 Jan. 1659; E.P. Shirley, Hanley and the House of Lechmere (1883), 28.

For a first time Member, Foley did reasonably well to be elected to the three committees on which he sat. He was listed 16th out of the 148 named to the committee for elections (28 Jan.); and was a member of the important committee for Irish affairs, named on 1 April. His third appointment was to one investigating the possible abuses of debentures issued on confiscated lands (9 Apr.). Here, Foley’s independent wealth enabled him to sit without compromising himself in any way on a body formed on the principle that no member should have bought lands from the commonwealth.53CJ vii. 594b, 623a, 633b.

In 1660 it was inevitable that Foley should be elbowed out by the longer established county gentry, ‘arrant cavaliers’, in the competition for the county seat, Richard Baxter’s help notwithstanding.54CCSP iv. 642; HMC Laing i. 311. Nevertheless, he was able to sit for Bewdley in the Convention, because of his own industrial interest there, his nearby home, and the puritan presence in the borough. Failing to secure a place in the Cavalier Parliament, he was at least able to support the nonconformist cause by patronage. He bought the advowson of Kidderminster in 1662 from John Bridges, with the condition attached that he should offer the living to Baxter, who had never actually held the vicarage, when it should become vacant. In order to avail himself of this offer, Baxter would have had to conform to the Act of Uniformity, which remained unacceptable to him. By the end of the 1660s, Baxter thought it was the belief of the episcopate that ‘love of Kidderminster’ would make him conform. There were other things Foley could do for the cause, short of appointing Baxter himself: he presented acolytes of his, among them Simon Ford and Joseph Read, to livings in his gift.55Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 156; G. F. Nuttall, Richard Baxter (1965), 62. Foley remained Baxter’s protector throughout the 1660s, sheltering him in his Austin Friars London house for a whole year, and acting as trustee and executor of the minister’s wife.56Reliquiae Baxterianae, i. 106; Cal. Baxter Corresp. i. 98.

In his business affairs, Foley divested himself of much of his industrial empire in 1668, parcelling it out to his three sons. He retired to Great Witley, a house of over 30 bed- and living-rooms.57Worcs. Archives, inventory of Ann Foley, 12 Aug. 1682. He retained his involvement with the two monopoly companies, however, and stayed as treasurer of both until 1676. In 1670 he passed over most of his shares in the companies to his sons.58BL, Loan 16 vol. 2, ff. 156, 165v; vol. 3, ff. 38, 57v. At the same time as he dispersed his business assets, he began to think about endowing charities. Samuel Pepys† recorded in his diary a visit in 1668 by Foley to Christ’s Hospital, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, to see how its lands were settled.59Pepys, Diary, ix. 227. The same year he bought Pedmore manor, which with Old Swinford manor, bought from the Lytteltons in 1661, provided the bulk of the revenue for the hospital at Old Swinford, which he founded in 1670 and which in 1672 housed 60 poor boys.60VCH Worcs. iii. 203, 214, 216; PROB11/357, f. 9. He had also been able to augment the school in Dudley founded by his father.61VCH Worcs. iv. 520. Despite the urging of his opponent, Henry Herbert†, that Thomas Foley junior be kept on the list for sheriff to circumscribe the scope of his ‘nonconformist’ father’s election campaign, he was returned for Bewdley in November 1673, but seems never to have taken his seat. By that time, he was in any case in decline and withdrawing from public life.62Epistolary Curiosities of the Herbert Fam. ed. Warner (1818), 100; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Thomas Foley’. He died on 1 October 1677, the interval between his death and burial on 9 October at Great Witley suggesting perhaps that he died in London or at least somewhere distant from Worcestershire.63Great Witley par. reg. In her own will of 1682, his widow kept faith with the cause by leaving £500 to ‘poor nonconformist ministers’.64Worcs. Archives, will of Ann Foley, 12 Aug. 1682. In purely parliamentary terms, the most distinguished of his descendants was his son, Paul Foley, Speaker of the House of Commons, 1695-8.