Thomas Foley, 2nd Baron Foley FRS (1703 – 8 January 1766), was the eldest son of Thomas Foley, 1st Baron Foley, and inherited the vast Great Witley estate on his father's death in 1733, including ironworks at Wilden and Shelsley Walsh. 2013 04 19 Whitly Court 03

His father had dreamed of rebuilding the

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

, close to the family mansion of

Witley Court Witley Court, in Great Witley, Worcestershire, England, is a ruined Italianate architecture, Italianate mansion. Built for the Baron Foley, Foleys in the seventeenth century on the site of a former manor house, it was enormously expanded in the ...

, but died before doing so. This was undertaken by his widow Mary and son, and completed in 1735. The building was designed by James Gibbs. It was transformed in 1747, when Lord Foley bought decorative features of the chapel at

Cannons A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during t ...

, Lord Chandos' palace at

Edgware Edgware () is a suburban town in northwest London. It was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex east of the ancient Watling Street in what is now the London Borough of Barnet but it is now informally considered to cover a wider area, inc ...

. He then employed mould-makers to reproduce its plasterwork, making the church one of the finest

baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

churches in Britain. Unlike his father and three younger brothers, Lord Foley did not sit in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

. He never married. On his death, his estates devolved on his distant cousin Thomas Foley of Stoke Edith, for whom the title Lord Foley was revived in 1776. The new Lord Foley referred in this will to his predecessor as his "great benefactor". In 1740 he was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

. In about 1740, he bought the Manor of

Great Malvern Great Malvern is an area of the civil parish of Malvern, Worcestershire, Malvern, in the Malvern Hills District, Malvern Hills district, in the county of Worcestershire, England. It lies at the foot of the Malvern Hills, a designated Area of O ...

in Malvern from Lord Mountfort. His successors continued to be its

Lord of the Manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

through the 19th century. Also published in 2008 by

Kessinger Publishing Kessinger Publishing, LLC is an American print-on-demand publishing company located in Whitefish, Montana, that specializes in rare, out-of-print books. In 2009, the company produced 190,175 titles and was reported to be the third-largest prod ...

. . page 12.

References

''Burkes Peerage'' 1703 births 1766 deaths English ironmasters Fellows of the Royal Society Thomas People from Malvern Hills District 2 {{UK-baron-stub