Sir Thomas Pym Hales, 4th Baronet ( – 18 March 1773), of

Beakesbourne Bekesbourne is a village near Canterbury in Kent, South East England. The village is centred ESE of the city's cathedral and its centre stretches less than 1 km from its railway station to the A2 road to the south. Amenities The parish ch ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, was an English

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

. Hales was the eldest son of

Sir Thomas Hales, 3rd Baronet Sir Thomas Hales, 3rd Baronet ( – October 1762), of Beakesbourne in Kent, was an English courtier and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons for 37 years between 1722 and 1762. Hales was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hales, 2nd Baronet ...

, a long-serving Member of Parliament who held a series of lucrative posts in the Royal Household. He succeeded to his father's baronetcy on 6 October 1762. Earlier the same year, he had entered Parliament as member for Downton, a

pocket borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...

under the control of his brother-in-law Lord Feversham. He initially supported the government, but in February 1764 he voted with the opposition over the use of general warrants in the Wilkes case, and seems to have been henceforth regarded as of doubtful loyalties. He did not stand for re-election in 1768, but returned to the Commons at a by-election at

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

in January 1770, as the government-backed candidate, and remained its MP for the remaining three years of his life. He married Mary Heyward, daughter of Gervase Heyward of

Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

, in 1764, and they had five daughters: * Mary Anne Hales (born 1765) * Jane Hales (born 1766), married Henry Bridges (1769–1855), who later changed his name to Brook * Elizabeth Hales (born 1769), married John Calcraft of Rempston * Harriet Hales (born 1770) * Caroline Hales (1772–1853), married Colonel the Hon. William John Gore (1767–1836) When Sir Thomas died in 1773, the baronetcy passed to his younger brother,

Philip Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...

References

*
Hales genealogy
*Robert Beatson, ''A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament'' (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807

* Lewis Namier & John Brooke, ''The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754–1790'' (London: HMSO, 1964) , - 1773 deaths 1720s births Baronets in the Baronetage of England Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Dover Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies British MPs 1761–1768 British MPs 1768–1774 People from Bekesbourne {{England-GreatBritain-MP-stub