Thomas Heaphy the Elder was a British watercolourist, known also for his portraits.

Heaphy was born in London on 29 December 1775. His father, John Gerrard Heaphy, was a merchant of Irish background, with a French wife. Heaphy was articled at an early age to R. M. Meadows the engraver, and attended a drawing-school run by John Boyne near Queen Square, Bloomsbury.

Heaphy was a successful painter. He devoted much of his fortune to developing land in the neighbourhood of what is now Regent's Park, and a portion of St. John's Wood owes its origin to him. This took him temporarily away from painting. He then established the Society of British Artists, of which he was elected the first president, and to its first exhibition, in 1824, contributed nine works, but he resigned his membership the following year. In 1831 he went to Italy, where he remained until the middle of the following year, and made copies of famous pictures by the old masters. After his return to England he painted little.

Heaphy died at 8 St. John's Wood Road, 23 October 1835, and was buried in Bunhill Fields.