FOLEY
,
Sir
THOMAS
(
1757
-
1833
),
admiral
;
b. at
Ridgeway
,
Llawhaden, Pembs.
,
entered the navy
in
1770
, was at the relief of
Gibraltar
in
1780
, in the actions off
Toulon
(
1793
), at the
battle of Cape S. Vincent
(
1797
), and led the
British
line at the
battle of the Nile
(
1798
). He was again with
Nelson
at
Copenhagen
(
1801
), but ill-health kept him out of the fighting which culminated at
Trafalgar
.
Knighted
in
1815
, he became
admiral
in
1825
, and d.
9 Jan. 1833
at
Portsmouth
, where he was
commander-in-chief
. His naval career is fully described in
D.N.B.
; it remains to deal here with his
Welsh
associations. He was descended from a
John
Fawley
or
Foley
,
architect
to the
bishop of S. Davids
, and ‘
constable of Llawhaden castle
,’ who was granted the estate by the
bishop
(
Adam
Houghton
) in
1383
. A
Foley
was
constable of Llawhaden
during the
Owain Glyn Dŵr
rising; and several of the family are said to have been killed at the
battle of Colby Moor
(close by) in
1645
. The
admiral
was the second of the three sons of
JOHN
FOLEY
of
Ridgeway
(who had m. a
Herbert
of
Court Henry, Carms.
), and had an uncle,
THOMAS
FOLEY
(
captain R.N.
, d.
1758
), who was with
Anson
on his voyage round the world,
1740-4
. The eldest son of
John
Foley
, and the heir of
Ridgeway
, was
JOHN
FOLEY
, a friend of
Richard
Fenton
's, but dead by
1811
when
Fenton
(q.v.)
published his
Tour
. When
captain
Foley
(as he then was) m. in
1802
, he bought the estate of
Abermarlais, Carms.
, rebuilt the mansion, and made it his home; though he d. childless, another branch of the family occupied it far into the
19th cent.
— a
Foley
was
sheriff of Carmarthenshire
in
1870
.
Bibliography:
-
The Red Dragon
, v, 97 ff., 193 ff.;
-
Richard Fenton
,
A Historical Tour through
Pembrokeshire
, (
1903
ed.), 54, 171, 175;
-
James Buckley
,
Genealogies of the Carmarthenshire
Sheriffs
, 1770
;
-
Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D.,
F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor
