Thomas Foley, 1st Baron Foley (1673–1733)

Thomas Foley, 1st Baron Foley FRS (8 November 1673 – 22 January 1733) was the eldest son of Thomas Foley (c. 1641–1701) and inherited the Great Witley estate on his father's death. He was Member of Parliament for Stafford from 1694 until his elevation to the peerage in 1712, as one of 12 peers created on the recommendation of the Lord Treasurer, Robert Harley Earl of Oxford, to give him a majority in the House of Lords.

When the lease of ironworks at Wilden and Shelsley Walsh expired in 1708, he took them in hand and they were operated as an estate enterprise by him and successive owners of the estate until 1776.

Thomas Foley married Mary Strode with whom he fathered seven children, five of them predeceasing their parents. His only surviving son was Thomas Foley, 2nd Baron Foley, on whose death the title became extinct, while the estates devolved upon his distant cousin Thomas Foley of Stoke Edith, Herefordshire, for whom the title was revived in 1776.

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