Thomas Cranston

{{Short description|American judge}}

{{for|the Irish chess player|Thomas George Cranston}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Thomas Cranston

| office = Associate Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court

| term_start = 1762

| term_end = 1764

| office2 = Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1710|10|30}}

| birth_place = Newport, Rhode Island

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1785|05|19|1710|10|30}}

| death_place = Newport, Rhode Island

| resting_place = Common Burying Ground
Newport, Rhode Island

| father = Samuel Cranston

| image = Hon._Thomas_Cranston.jpg

}}

Thomas Cranston was an associate justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court from August 1763 to May 1764,[https://books.google.com/books?id=3C4tAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA208 Manual - the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations] (1891), p. 208-13. and served as Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives at the time that Cranston, Rhode Island was created in 1754. Historians believe either Cranston or his grandfather (or father) Samuel Cranston may be the namesake of Cranston, Rhode Island because the first page of the first town record book of Cranston bears the inscription "the gift of Thomas Cranston to the town called Cranston."Steven Frias, Cranston and Its Mayors: A History (The History Press, 2011) pg. 10-20"Representative Men and Old Families of Rhode Island" published in 1909, http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/k/o/t/Steve-A-Kottmeyer/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0488.html