Thomas Willoughby, 1st Baron Middleton
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Thomas Willoughby, 1st Baron Middleton (9 April 1672 – 2 April 1729), was a Tory politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1698 and 1711 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Middleton as one of Harley's Dozen.
Willoughby was born at Middleton Hall, Middleton, Warwickshire, the second son of Francis Willughby and his wife Emma Barnard, daughter of Sir Henry Barnard, merchant, of London and Bridgnorth, Shropshire. His father, who preferred to use this aberrant spelling of the family name, was a mathematician and naturalist but died shortly after his son's birth.[1]
In August 1676, Willoughby's mother married Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet, MP, and the family moved to Wanstead in Essex. His elder brother, Francis, decided Willoughby should go to Cambridge and he was admitted at St Catharine's College, Cambridge on 10 July 1683. He subsequently transferred to Jesus College, Cambridge on 4 May 1685,[2] where he was under the tutorship of Dr Man. In 1688 on the early death of his brother, Francis, he succeeded to the baronetcy, and inherited the estates at Middleton, Warwickshire and at Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire.[3]
Willoughby was living in London in the winter of 1688 to 1689, where he contracted smallpox. On recovery, he decided to live at Wollaton Hall and continued there his studies under Dr Man. He was added to the Nottinghamshire commission of the peace in April 1689. In 1690 the Earl of Danby, warden of Sherwood Forest, appointed him to the post of Chief forester and keeper of the walk of Langton Arbor, Sherwood Forest.[1] On 9 April 1691, he married Elizabeth Rothwell, daughter of Sir Richard Rothwell, 1st Baronet.[3] In 1692 he became Deputy Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 30 November 1693.[4]
