Thomas Foley (1616-1677)

Thomas Foley was the eldest son of the second marriage (to Alice Brindley) of Richard Foley (1588 – 1657), a prominent Midlands ironmaster. He took over his father's business and made great profits from it in the 1650s and 1660s, which he used to buy estates. He then handed his business over to his sons, another Thomas Foley, Paul Foley, and Philip Foley. He built Witley Court. In the late 1660s, he founded a bluecoat school at Stourbridge know as Old Swinford Hospital, which he endowed in his will.