Thomas Corbett (secretary of the Admiralty)
Thomas Corbett (c. 1687–1751) of Nash, Pembrokeshire, was a British Treasury official and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1734 to 1751. Corbett was the eldest son of William Corbett of Nanteos, Cardiganshire, and Middle Temple and his wife Eleanor Jones, daughter of Colonel John Jones of Nanteos. He was educated at Westminster School in 1701 as a Kings Scholar. Corbett joined the navy as an ordinary seaman in 1704, serving under Admiral Sir George Byng as a clerk from 1704 to 1705, and as a secretary from 1705 to 1709. In 1711, he became Byng's personal secretary and trusted assistant. In 1712, when he was at Utrecht, he tried unsuccessfully to obtain the post of secretary to Lord Strafford. He was appointed a clerk in the Admiralty in 1715, when Byng was re-appointed to the board of the Admiralty and secretary to Greenwich Hospital in 1716. He accompanied Byng during the expedition to Sicily from 1718 to 1720 and afterwards published an account. In 1723, he was promoted chief clerk over the heads of all other staff when Byng was Treasurer of the navy, and was made deputy secretary in 1728, when Byng became first lord.