Beilby Thompson was a British landowner and politician, the son of Beilby Thompson (died 1750) and Sarah Dawes (d. 1773). The Thompsons were a prominent Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 family; Beilby senior was High Sheriff of Yorkshire

High Sheriff of Yorkshire

The High Sheriff of Yorkshire was an ancient High Sheriff title originating in the time of the Angles, not long after the invasion of the Kingdom of England, which was in existence for around a thousand years. A list of the sheriffs from the Norman conquest onwards can be found below...

 in 1730 and the son of Henry Thompson

Henry Thompson (1659-1700)

Henry Thompson was an English landowner and politician.The eldest son of Sir Henry Thompson, a wine merchant of York, he inherited his father's estate of Escrick in 1683. He had already lived there for some time during his father's life, and remodeled the old house between 1680 and 1690...

, MP.

On his father's death in 1750, Beilby, still a boy, inherited the family estate of Escrick

Escrick

Escrick is a village and civil parish in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England. It is equidistant between Selby and York on what is now the A19 road....

, under the tutelage of his mother. He attended Cambridge between 1759 and 1764. Urged by Rockingham

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham

Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, KG, PC , styled The Hon. Charles Watson-Wentworth before 1733, Viscount Higham between 1733 and 1746, Earl of Malton between 1746 and 1750 and The Earl Malton in 1750, was a British Whig statesman, most notable for his two terms as Prime...

 to stand for York (the seat once held by his grandfather) in 1768, his mother objected on grounds of expense. He was instead elected Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Hedon

Hedon (UK Parliament constituency)

Hedon, sometimes spelt Heydon, was a parliamentary borough in the East Riding of Yorkshire, represented by two Members of Parliament in the House of Commons briefly in the 13th century and again from 1547 to 1832.-History:...

 and held that seat until 1780, then for Thirsk

Thirsk (UK Parliament constituency)

Thirsk was a parliamentary borough in Yorkshire, represented in the English and later British House of Commons in 1295, and again from 1547. It was represented by two Members of Parliament until 1832, and by one member from 1832 to 1885, when the constituency was abolished and absorbed into the new...

 until 1784. In 1790, he again represented Hedon, until 1796.

He gradually bought up and relocated the village of Escrick

Escrick

Escrick is a village and civil parish in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England. It is equidistant between Selby and York on what is now the A19 road....

 to move it away from his manor house. Upon his death in 1799, Escrick

Escrick

Escrick is a village and civil parish in the Selby district of North Yorkshire, England. It is equidistant between Selby and York on what is now the A19 road....

 passed to his brother Richard (d. 1820), High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1801, and then to their nephew Paul Beilby Lawley

Paul Thompson, 1st Baron Wenlock

Paul Beilby Lawley Thompson, 1st Baron Wenlock , born Paul Beilby Lawley, was an English nobleman and Whig politician, the youngest son of Sir Robert Lawley, 5th Baronet and Jane Thompson....

, who assumed the surname of Thompson.