Thomas Forrest, Esq, also known as Thomas Forrest, Gentleman, in the Jamestown Colonists historic lists (May 1572 in Morborne, Huntingdonshire, England – 1641 in St. Mary's City, Maryland), was a gentleman financier in the Virginia Company. At that time, "gentleman" denoted a man of the lowest rank of the English gentry, standing below an esquire and above a yeoman. By definition, this category included the younger sons of the younger sons of peers, knights, and esquires in perpetual succession; thus the term captures the common denominator of gentility (and often armigerousness) shared by both constituents of the English aristocracy: the peerage and the gentry.