HALES, Thomas Pym (c.1726-73), of Bekesbourne, Kent.

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

1 Feb. 1762 - 1768
20 Jan. 1770 - 18 Mar. 1773

Family and Education

b. c.1726, 1st s. of Sir Thomas Hales, 3rd Bt., and bro. of Sir Philip Hales, 5th Bt.  educ. Wadham, Oxf. 1743. suc. fa. as 4th Bt. 6 Oct. 1762. m. 11 Oct. 1764, Mary, da. of Gervase Heyward of Sandwich, wid. of George Coussmaker of Staple, Kent, 5da.

Offices Held

Biography

Returned at Downton on the interest of his brother-in-law Lord Feversham, Hales supported Administration until February 1764 when he was ‘carried into the minority’1 by Lord George Sackville, and voted with Opposition over general warrants, 6 and 18 Feb. Described as ‘doubtful’ in Rockingham’s list of July 1765, he did not vote against the repeal of the Stamp Act; but in Rockingham’s list of November 1766 and Townshend’s of January 1767 was classed ‘Grenville’, presumably because of Sackville. He voted with Opposition on the land tax, 27 Feb. 1767. There is no record of his having spoken in the House.

Hales did not stand at the general election of 1768, and re-entered Parliament in 1770 as a follower of Administration. At Dover in 1770 he was judged ‘the most acceptable person the court could recommend’:2 he had financial support from the Government and was backed by the Yorke interest. The contest was ‘violent’ and his victory ‘was entirely owing to the votes of the out dwellers, many of whom were brought from a distance at a very heavy expense’.3

He does not appear in any divisions in this Parliament but in Robinson’s first survey on the royal marriage bill he is marked ‘pro, absent, sick’. He died 18 Mar. 1773.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: J. A. Cannon

Notes

  • 1. Walpole to Lord Hertford, 6 Feb. 1764.
  • 2. North to Hardwicke, Add. 35424, ff. 19-20.
  • 3. Hales to C. Yorke, 2 Jan. 1770, and North to Hardwicke, Add. 35639, f. 163.