Hales was a follower of the Duke of Dorset, and a supporter of Walpole and the Pelhams. He sat on Dorset’s interest at Hythe and East Grinstead.
On the accession of George III he lost his place in the Household, and applied to Newcastle for a pension. On 11 Mar. 1761 Newcastle noted about Hales: ‘Two sons and four daughters. Hopes to have £800 per annum amongst them till something may fall to provide for some of them.’ And on 19 Mar.: ‘Pension for Sir Thomas Hales’s children. £600 for his son.’ He was given a pension of £600, and applied for the first half-yearly instalment on 25 Nov. 1761: ‘There is now’, he wrote to Newcastle, ‘half a year due of the small sum your Grace promised me in lieu of so large a one which I was so hardly deprived of.’ He received two payments of £300 from Newcastle, on 17 Feb. and 27 Apr. 1762.1Namier, Structure, 221, 478, 479; Add. 32930, f. 30. He died 6 Oct. 1762.