Sir Thomas Hales, 3rd Baronet

Sir Thomas Hales, 3rd Baronet (c. 1695 – 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.

He subsequently also represented Camelford, Grampound, Hythe and East Grinstead, being an MP for most of the last forty years of his life.

[2] The only break in his Parliamentary career came in 1741: at the notoriously corrupt rotten borough of Grampound, his opponents had contrived a disagreement over who was the rightful Mayor and therefore returning officer for the constituency.

[2] Hales held the lucrative post of Clerk of the Board of Green Cloth to the Prince of Wales from about 1719 until 1727, and to the King from his accession in 1727 until 1760.

On the accession of George III in 1760 he lost his posts in the Royal Household, and successfully applied to Prime Minister Newcastle for a pension in recompense, although he was granted only £600 a year in place of the £800 he had asked for.