The following persons served as Governor of the Isles of Scilly, off the coast of Cornwall. The governor was a military commission made by the monarch in consultation with the Admiralty in recognition of the islands' strategic position. The office of governor was pre-eminent in military law but not in civil law, where the magistracy was vested in the proprietor, who had a leasehold from the Duchy of Cornwall for the islands' land area. Usually the proprietor served as governor, although, according to Robert Heath, a Major Bennett was governor for a short time before proprietor Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin was commissioned on 7 July 1733. The proprietor/governor was non-resident, delegating the military functions to a lieutenant-governor and the civil functions to a council of twelve residents. [1]
An early governor of Scilly was Thomas Godolphin, whose son Francis received a lease on the Isles in 1568. The Godolphins were styled Governors of Scilly and they and their Osborne relatives held the position until 1831, when George Osbourne, 6th Duke of Leeds surrendered the lease and the islands returned to direct rule from the Duchy of Cornwall. In 1834 Augustus Smith acquired the lease from the Duchy for £20,000 and created the title Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly. The lease remained in his family until it expired for most of the isles in 1920 when ownership reverted to the Duchy of Cornwall. Today, the Dorrien-Smith family holds the lease for the island of Tresco. [2]
Baron Godolphin is a title that was created three times: first in the Peerage of England, next in the Peerage of Great Britain, and then in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
Francis Godolphin, 2nd Earl of Godolphin,, styled Viscount Rialton from 1706 to 1712, was an English courtier and politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons between 1695 and 1712, when he succeeded to the peerage as Earl of Godolphin. Initially a Tory, he modified his views when his father headed the Administration in 1702 and was eventually a Whig. He was a philanthropist and one of the founding governors of the Foundling Hospital in 1739.
Augustus John Smith was a British politician and philanthropist who served as Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly for over thirty years from 1834 until his death in 1872, as well as serving as Member of Parliament for Truro from 1857 to 1865. As Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly, he introduced numerous reforms to the islands, including improvements to education, tenancy structures and employment. He built his home on the island of Tresco, and started the Tresco Abbey Gardens. He was succeeded as Lord Proprietor by his nephew, Thomas Smith-Dorrien, after his death in 1872.
Cromwell's Castle is an artillery fort overlooking New Grimsby harbour on the island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly. It comprises a tall, circular gun tower and an adjacent gun platform, and was designed to prevent enemy naval vessels from entering the harbour. The castle was built in two phases; Sir Robert Blake constructed the tower between 1651 and 1652 in the aftermath of the Parliamentary invasion of the islands at the end of the English Civil War, and Master Gunner Abraham Tovey added the gun platform during the War of Jenkins' Ear around 1739. The tower fell into disuse soon afterwards, and in the 21st century is managed by English Heritage and open to visitors.
Francis Godolphin is the name of:
The Isles of Scilly are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. One of the islands, St Agnes, is over four miles further south than the most southerly point of the British mainland at Lizard Point.
Sir Francis Godolphin (1540–1608) was an English politician, knight, and Member of Parliament.
William Godolphin may refer to:
Sir Francis Godolphin MP, of Godolphin in Cornwall, was an English nobleman, landowner, politician, and Member of Parliament. His chief claim to fame is that he was the dedicatee of Hobbes' Leviathan.
Sir William Godolphin, of Treveneage in Cornwall, was an English Member of Parliament. He was the younger son of Thomas Godolphin, Captain (governor) of the Scilly Isles, a member of one of Cornwall's leading families, and his wife Katherine Bonithon; his older brother, Sir Francis, who took over the governorship of the Scillies from their father, was also an MP and Vice-Warden of the Stannaries. Sir William represented Helston, at that period the Godolphin family borough, in the Parliament of 1586–7. He married Jane Gaverigan on 11 December 1587, only shortly before his death. His son, Francis, was MP for St Ives in the Long Parliament.
Sir William Godolphin (1567–1613), of Godolphin in Cornwall, was an English knight, soldier, and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1604 to 1611.
Tamarisk, or Tamarisk House, is a house belonging to the Duchy of Cornwall, on St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly, in the United Kingdom off the coast of Cornwall.
Francis Godolphin, 2nd Baron Godolphin was a British politician and peer.
Sidney Godolphin, 14 January 1610 (baptised) to 8 February 1643, was a minor poet and courtier from Cornwall who sat in the House of Commons between 1628 and 1643. He served in the Royalist army during the First English Civil War and was killed in a skirmish near Chagford in Devon on 8 February 1643.
Anthony Buller (1613–1679) was an English soldier and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1659 and 1660. He fought in the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War.
Major Arthur Algernon Dorrien-Smith was Lord Proprietor of the Isles of Scilly from 1918 to 1920.
The Old Blockhouse, also known as the Dover Fort, is a 16th-century fortification on the island of Tresco in the Isles of Scilly. It was built between 1548 and 1551 by the government of Edward VI to protect the islands against French attack.
Robert Arthur Smith-Dorrien-Smith is a British businessman and politician. He is also the current leaseholder of Tresco, an island of the Isles of Scilly.
The Isles of Scilly Town Hall is a municipal building in Hugh Town, on the Isles of Scilly, in England. The building, which serves as the offices of Council of the Isles of Scilly, is a Grade II listed building.