Thomas Foster, M.P

FOSTER, Thomas (1720-65), of Egham, Surr.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964 Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency Dates

BOSSINEY 12 May - 11 Dec. 1741

BOSSINEY 18 Mar. 1742 - 1747

DORCHESTER 1761 - 20 Oct. 1765

Family and Education

b. 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.1 His sis. m. W. M. Burt. suc. fa. 1731.

Offices Held

Biography

Foster had considerable estates in Jamaica, but seems to have lived permanently in England.

In Shelburne’s list of constituencies for the general election of 17612 there is a note under Dorchester: ‘Mr. Foster, West Indian, opposes present Member’. He was returned without a poll. He appears in Henry Fox’s list of Members favourable to the peace preliminaries, December 1762, but little seems to have been known about him, and in all the lists for this period he is classed as ‘doubtful’. His only reported votes were with Opposition over general warrants, February 1764. There is no record of his having spoken in the House. He died 20 Oct. 1765.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes

1.Gent. Mag. 1741, p. 331; Caribbeana, iii. 375.

2. Lansdowne mss.