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Sir Edward Maria Wingfield, of Stoneley Priorye
m. Bef 1550 - Sir Edward Maria Wingfield, of Stoneley PrioryeAbt 1550 - 1631
Facts and Events
Research Notes
- Caution: Wikipedia claims he died in Manchester, New Hampshire with no sources provided as of May 2016.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Edward Maria Wingfield, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
- the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia
Edward Maria Wingfield, sometimes hyphenated as Edward-Maria Wingfield (1550 in Stonely Priory, near Kimbolton – 1631) was a soldier, Member of Parliament, (1593) and English colonist in America. He was the son of Thomas Maria Wingfield, and the grandson of Richard Wingfield.
Captain John Smith wrote that from 1602 to 1603 Wingfield was one of the early and prime movers and organisers in "showing great charge and industry" in getting the Virginia Venture moving: he was one of the four incorporators for the London Virginia Company in the Virginia Charter of 1606 and one of its biggest financial backers. He recruited (with his cousin, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold) about forty of the 104 would-be colonists, and was the only shareholder to sail. In the first election in the New World, he was elected by his peers as the President of the governing council for one year beginning 13 May 1607, of what became the first successful, English-speaking colony in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia.
After four months, on 10 September, because "he ever held the men to working, watching and warding", and because of lack of food, death from disease and attack by the "naturals" (during the worst famine and drought for 800 years), Wingfield was made a scapegoat and was deposed on petty charges. On the return of the Supply Boat on 10 April 1608, Wingfield was sent back to London to answer the charge of being an atheist, and one suspected of having Spanish sympathies. Smith's prime biographer, Philip L. Barbour, however, wrote of the "superlative pettiness of the charges... none of the accusations amounting to anything." Wingfield cleared his reputation, was named in the Second Virginia Charter, 1609, and was active in the Virginia Company until 1620, when he was 70 years old.
He died in England in 1631, ten weeks before fellow Jamestown settler John Smith, and was buried on 13 April at St Andrew's Parish Church, Kimbolton.
----- [Note: Birthdate = 1550 is estimated from the following: E150/102, p.3 Exchequer Copy (English), Lists & Indexes XXIII, PRO Kew, copy of 142/111 p.81, 1557 (Latin), Chancery Copy of Inquisitions Post-Mortems etc, Series II, Vol. III, 4 & 5 Philip & Mary: "Thomas Mary Wingfield died 15 August last past and Edward Wingfield is his proper son and heir and that he is of the age of seven years at the time this inquisition was taken." (VCH Huntingdonshire - Victoria County History of Hunts - Vol. III, p.81, London, 1936, eds. Granville Proby & Inskip Ladds quote two incorrect sources).]
- WINGFIELD, Edward Maria (c.1550-c.1614), of Stoneley, Hunts., in The History of Parliament.
[Note: gives death date = 1614, which is likely incorrect based on a documented burial date of 13 Apr 1631.]
- Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography. (New York, New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co., c1915)
1:33, s.
Wingfield, Edward Maria, first president of the council of Virginia, of "Stoneley Priorye" in Huntingdonshire, was born about 1560, of a very distinguished family and was a soldier in Ireland and the Netherlands. He was active in procuring the charter of 1606, and his name is one of the first of the incorporators, which appear in that paper. He was appointed by the Council in England one of the local Council in Virginia and on May 14, 1607, he was elected at Jamestown by this body their first president. His experience was unfortunate. The colony was at once assailed by the Indians, and the president was among the foremost in repelling the attacks, "having an arrow shot clean through his beard." Then followed a pestilential sickness which prostrated everybody in the fort. Added to this the constitution of the Council under the charter offered a premium to wranglings and dissensions, for a mere majority controlled everything and could remove the president or any of the members. Wingfield was blamed by the others for what could not be prevented, by any president, and the most trivial objections were made against him to justify his deposition from the presidency. It was charged that he was a Catholic, because he did not bring a Bible with him, that he monopolized the liquors and other provisions, etc., all of which Wingfield vigorously denies in his statement, and shows that he made many sacrifices out of his own private stores for the good of the colony. He was, nevertheless, removed both from the Council and his office as president, September 10, 1607. He was kept a prisoner on shipboard till Newport's arrival in January, 1608, and April 10, 1608, he returned with Newport to England. He afterwards wrote an account of his stay in Virginia, which was discovered and published not many years ago, and it gives us a very different idea of the man from that so long current on the authority of John Smith, who was his bitter personal enemy. He never returned to Virginia.
- ↑ Burial Recorded.
Kimbolton Parish Church of St.Andrew's. "Burials, 1604-1900" in Copy of "Bishop's Transcript, Diocese of Lincoln, of Kimbolton"
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13th April 1631, Edward Maria Wingfield, Esquire buryed.
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[Note: Kimbolton Parish Church of St. Andrew's was in Huntingdonshire, now (2016) Cambridgeshire. Denomination was Protestant, part of Church of England.]
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