Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham, KB, PC (c. 1695 – 30 September 1770), of Newby, Yorkshire, was a British diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1727 and 1761.

[1] He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1712, gained a scholarship in 1714, and graduated B.A.

[1] At the 1727 British general election he was returned as Member of Parliament for the pocket borough of Thirsk on the Frankland interest,[3] after his eldest brother, for whom the seat had originally been intended, resigned his pretensions to him.

During 1741 he sought to make peace between the empress Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great, but in vain, and in 1748 he represented his country at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle.

[4] In 1754 Robinson was appointed Secretary of State for the Southern Department and Leader of the House of Commons by the prime minister, the Duke of Newcastle, and it was on this occasion that Pitt made the famous remark to Fox, "the duke might as well have sent us his jackboot to lead us."