FOLEY, Hon. Thomas Henry (1808-1869), of Whitley Court, Worcs., Worcs. of 16 Bruton Street, London, Mdx.

align="left">Foley was born in Hill Street, Mayfair, the eldest son of Thomas, 3^rd Baron Foley, a noted sportsman and lord lieutenant of Worcestershire, 1831-3.1G.E.C., The Complete Peerage, v. 537. The family were direct descendants of the Speaker of that name, and, having ‘from mean beginnings’ amassed a large fortune from the iron industry during the seventeenth century, were one of the leading Whig families in Worcestershire, where they controlled the representation of Droitwich and one of the county seats.2HP Commons, 1820-32, v. 164; Morning Post, 22 Nov. 1869; M.B. Rowlands, ‘Foley family’, Oxf. DNB, xx. 205-9.

Foley had sat for the family seat of Worcestershire since 1830, having come of age the previous year. In spite of his ‘youth and inexperience’, he had successfully defended the seat after a ‘tremendous struggle’ in 1831.3HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 227. He had been a consistent supporter of the reform bills, and when the constituency was divided by the Reform Act, (a detail he had opposed), in 1832 Foley opted to stand for the Western division, to which, by virtue of his residence there, he felt himself more closely connected.4HP Commons, 1820-32, v. 164-5; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 5 July 1832. He refused to give any pledges, but promised to support all measures tending towards civil and religious liberty, and ‘forward that reform of which the Reform Bill has been the first act’.5Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 20 Dec. 1832. He was returned unopposed alongside Lord Lygon without being proposed or seconded, the nomination being considered ‘a mere formality’.6HP Commons, 1820-32, v. 165; Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 20 Dec. 1832.

Foley was a supporter of Lord Grey’s ministry, but his only contribution to the session appears to have been to divide against Daniel O’Connell’s amendment to the address, 8 Feb. 1833, and cast two votes in support of the first and second readings of the Irish coercion bill, 5, 11 Mar. 1833. The following month he vacated his seat on succeeding to his father’s barony.

In May 1833 Foley was sworn of the privy council, and that August succeeded to his father’s place as captain of the gentleman pensioners, in which capacity he continued to serve under successive Whig and Liberal ministries.7Morning Chronicle, 1 June 1833; Morning Post, 31 Aug. 1833; HP Commons, 1820-32, v. 165. He remained a committed member of the Liberal minority in the House of Lords, and promised to represent the interests of Worcestershire in that chamber, seeing no inconsistency between the pursuit of ‘liberal measures’ and the promotion of the agricultural interest.8Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 19 Jan. 1835, 10 Aug. 1837. He was also eager to maintain the connection between his family and the borough of Droitwich, in spite of his cousin’s defeat there in 1835.9Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 15 Jan. 1835. However, although Foley was appointed lord lieutenant of Worcestershire, 12 July 1837, and his father’s life had been insured for £200,000, he remained burdened by debts incurred by his grandfather’s extravagance.10Standard, 26 July 1837; Gent. Mag. (1833), i. 464. An ‘inveterate gambler’, the 2nd baron had ‘by a most rapid course of debauchery, extravagance and gaming’ rendered ‘one of the noblest fortunes in the kingdom abortive’: Complete Peerage, v. 537. In 1838 he was forced to sell his patrimonial estate at Great Whitley to Lord Ward for £668,000, placing his former constituency more firmly under Conservative influence.11Berrow’s Worcester Journal, 18 Jan. 1838; R. Trainor, ‘Peers on an industrial frontier: the earls of Dartmouth and Dudley in the Black Country, c. 1810 to 1914’, in D. Cannadine, Patricians, power and politics in nineteenth-century towns (1982), 70-132, at 75. Thereafter he retired to a much more modest estate at Ruxley Lodge, Claygate, Surrey.

Although Foley was a generous contributor to Liberal party funds, donating £1,000 to fight the East Worcestershire election of 1841,12J. Coohill, Ideas of the Liberal Party. Perceptions, Agendas and Liberal Politics in the House of Commons, 1832-52 (2011), 87-8. his political influence was mainly ‘confined to his being one of the tellers of the Whig party in the House of Lords’, where his ‘amiable and courteous manners’ secured the ‘friendship and esteem of a large number of his peers’.13The Times, 22 Nov. 1869; Morning Post, 22 Nov. 1869.

Foley died ‘after a few hours’ illness at the Hotel Bristol, Paris, while on a tour of the continent in November 1869, and he was interred at Kensal Green cemetery.14Morning Post, 22 Nov. 1869; Standard, 22 Nov. 1869. His personalty was sworn at under £250,000 and by his will, dated 7 Feb. 1854, his estates passed to his eldest son and successor in the barony, Henry Thomas (1850-1905), who oined the Liberal Unionist party in 1886.15HP Commons, 1820-32, v. 165; Complete Peerage, v. 538.