Thomas Forster

Thomas Forster (1683 – October 1738), of Adderstone Hall, Northumberland, was an English landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 to 1716.

The estates had incurred substantial debts, and in 1704 the creditors instituted actions in Chancery to force the heirs to sell them.

He supported the efforts of the Earl of Hertford and James Lowther, both Whigs, in carrying forward a bill to regulate trade on the border with Scotland.

Forster met up with Lord Derwentwater in Northumberland at the head of 300 horse, and proclaimed the Pretender at Warkworth after evading arrest in London on 21 September 1715 on a charge of being ‘engaged in a design to support the intended invasion of the kingdom’.

After an unsuccessful attempt on Newcastle he joined another body of rebels north of the border and a detachment from Mar's army.

The Jacobites moved southwest from Northumberland into Lancashire, but were faced with converging forces of the British Army under Charles Wills and George Carpenter.

[1] Forster was described as follows in the 1716 royal proclamation ordering his arrest:[5] A person of middle stature, inclining to be fat, well shaped except that he has stoops in the shoulders, fair complexioned, his mouth wide, his nose pretty large, his eyes grey, speaks the northern dialect".