COLBY, Sir Thomas, 1st Bt. (c.1670-1729), of Colby House, Kensington.

Sir Thomas Colby, presumably of the East Anglian family of that name,Norfolk Archaeology, i. 98; ii. 494; is sometimes confused with his namesake and relative, a commissioner of victualling under Queen Anne. He inherited fortunes both from his father, an army clothier, and through his mother. After serving as a commissioner of transports for nearly 13 years, he was transferred to the navy office in December 1717, with special responsibility for the transport service,Cal. Treas. Bks. x. 145; xxxii. 149. and created a baronet in 1720. Brought in by the Administration for Rochester at a by-election in 1724, he was ‘prevailed on to decline’Sir John Jennings to Walpole, 30 July 1727, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss. in 1727 in favour of a local man, David Polhill. Resigning his navy office in January 1728, he died 23 Sept. 1729, having

killed himself in the middle of the night when he was in a very profuse sweat, the effect of a medicine which he had taken for that purpose, and walking downstairs to look for the key of the cellar which he had inadvertently left on a table in his parlour; he was apprehensive that his servants might seize the key and rob him of a bottle of port wine.W. King, Anecdotes, 36.