Thomas Graves, 1st Baron Graves (ca. 1725-1802) was a British Admiral and colonial official.

In the first year of the Seven Years War, Graves failed to confront a French ship which gave challenge. He was tried by court-martial for not engaging his ship, and reprimanded.

Graves became Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland in 1761 and given the duty of convoying the seasonal fishing fleet from England to the island. In 1762 he learned that French ships had captured St. John's, Newfoundland. Graves, Admiral Alexander Colville and Colonel William Amherst retook the port city.

With the end of the Seven Years War, Labrador came under his responsibility as French fishing fleets returned to the French Shore and St. Pierre and Miquelon. Graves strictly enforced the treaties to the extent that the French government protested. Graves' governorship ended in 1764.

He returned to active service during the American War of Independence and became commander-in-chief of the North American squadron in 1781 when Marriott Arbuthnot returned home.

During the American War of Independence his fleet was defeated by the Comte de Grasse in the Battle of the Chesapeake at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay on September 5th, 1781 leading to the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown

With the French Revolutionary Wars, Graves was second in command to Admiral Richard Howe at the British victory over the French at the Battle of the Glorious First of June 1794. Graves became a full admiral and was awarded an Irish peerage.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online