Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, PC, FRS (23 July 1666 – 28 April 1732) was an English Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1705 to 1710.

His career ended when he was convicted of corruption on a massive scale and he spent the later years of his life in retirement at his home, Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire.

Sir Richard Levinge, 1st Baronet, a leading figure in Irish public life for three decades, was his first cousin.

[3] Together they had two children: Parker was returned as Whig Member of Parliament for Derby at the 1705 English general election and was appointed QC and serjeant-at-law and knighted on 9 July 1705.

Being one of the leading Whig lawyers in the House of Commons, he was deeply involved in the moves to impeach Dr Sacheverell.

He defended Whig propagandists and harried Tory publicists, including Defoe and Swift, on the slightest suspicion of favouring the Pretender.

In June 1714 he was given evidence of the recruiting activity of Jacobite agents which resulted in a price being placed on the Pretender's head.

His support for the Hanoverian succession was appreciated by King George I who reappointed him lord chief justice in 1714, and raised him to the peerage as Baron Parker of Macclesfield in 1716, in which year he purchased, and then commenced to restore, Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire, which was to be the seat of the house of Macclesfield for the next 300 years.