Admiral Sir Thomas Pasley, 1st Baronet was a senior and highly experienced British Royal Navy officer of the eighteenth century, who served with distinction at numerous actions of the Seven Years' War, American Revolutionary War and French Revolutionary Wars. In his youth he was renowned as an efficient and able frigate officer and in later life became a highly respected squadron commander in the Channel Fleet. It was during the latter service when he was awarded his baronetcy after losing a leg at the Glorious First of June, aged 60.

The Glorious First of June, also known as the Fourth Battle of Ushant, was the first and largest fleet action of the naval conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and the First French Republic during the French Revolutionary Wars.