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Thomas Whitley (1584–1632) was a colonel in the Virginia Company of London. He was born in Somerset, England, and died in Virginia, United States.
| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies .(June 2015) |
Thomas Whitley (1584–1632) was a colonel in the Virginia Company of London. He was born in Somerset, England, and died in Virginia, United States.
Whitley is first mentioned as a public figure in the Second Charter of Virginia on May 23, 1609, where he is said to be one of the members of the third supply mission to the colony of Jamestown. [1] In 1622 Whitley survived an attack on Jamestown known as the Jamestown Massacre, in which the Powhatan Indians, led by Chief Opechancanough, killed over 347 citizens of the town.
In 1600 Whitley married Elizabeth Farrer and had two children.
The Jamestown settlement in the Colony of Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the James (Powhatan) River about 2.5 mi (4 km) southwest of the center of modern Williamsburg. It was established by the Virginia Company of London as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607 O.S., and was considered permanent after a brief abandonment in 1610. It followed several failed attempts, including the Lost Colony of Roanoke, established in 1585 on Roanoke Island, later part of North Carolina. Jamestown served as the colonial capital from 1616 until 1699. Despite the dispatch of more settlers and supplies, including the 1608 arrival of eight Polish and German colonists and the first two European women, more than 80 percent of the colonists died in 1609–10, mostly from starvation and disease. In mid-1610, the survivors abandoned Jamestown, though they returned after meeting a resupply convoy in the James River.
Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, was an English merchant and politician, for whom the bay, the river, and, consequently, a Native American people and U.S. state, all later called "Delaware", were named. He was a member of the House of Lords from the death of his father in 1602 until his own death in 1618.
John Smith was an English soldier, explorer, colonial governor, Admiral of New England, and author. He played an important role in the establishment of the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America, in the early 17th century. He was a leader of the Virginia Colony between September 1608 and August 1609, and he led an exploration along the rivers of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay, during which he became the first English explorer to map the Chesapeake Bay area. Later, he explored and mapped the coast of New England. He was knighted for his services to Sigismund Báthory, Prince of Transylvania, and his friend Mózes Székely.
The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed proprietary attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583, and the subsequent farther south Roanoke Island by Sir Walter Raleigh in the late 1580s.
The London Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of London, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of North America between latitudes 34° and 41° N.
The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been established in 1619, became a bicameral institution.
The Virginia Company was an English trading company chartered by King James I on 10 April 1606 with the object of colonizing the eastern coast of America. The coast was named Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and it stretched from present-day Maine to the Carolinas. The company's shareholders were Londoners, and it was distinguished from the Plymouth Company, which was chartered at the same time and composed largely of gentlemen from Plymouth, England.
The Plymouth Company, officially known as the Virginia Company of Plymouth, was a division of the Virginia Company with responsibility for colonizing the east coast of America between latitudes 38° and 45° N.
Sea Venture was a seventeenth-century English sailing ship, part of the Third Supply mission to the Jamestown Colony, that was wrecked in Bermuda in 1609. She was the 300 ton purpose-built flagship of the London Company and a highly unusual vessel for her day, given that she was the first single timbered merchantman built in England, and also the first dedicated emigration ship. Sea Venture's wreck is widely thought to have been the inspiration for William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
Discovery or Discoverie was a small 20-ton, 38-foot (12 m) long "fly-boat" of the British East India Company, launched before 1602. It was one of the three ships on the 1606–1607 voyage to the New World for the English Virginia Company of London. The journey resulted in the founding of Jamestown in the new Colony of Virginia.
The First Charter of Virginia, also known as the Charter of 1606, is a document from King James I of England to the Virginia Company assigning land rights to colonists for the creation of a settlement which could be used as a base to export commodities to Great Britain and create a buffer preventing total Spanish control of the North and South American coasts. The land is described as coastal Virginia and the islands near to the coast, and stretches from present-day South Carolina to present-day Maine. The patch of land itself would remain the property of the King, with the London Company and the Plymouth Company as the King's tenants, and the settlers as subtenants. The colony's government at first consisted of a council residing in London. The document designated the London Company as responsible for financing the project, which included recruiting settlers and also provided for their transport and supplies.
Edward Maria Wingfield, sometimes hyphenated as Edward-Maria Wingfield 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.
Sir Thomas Gates (fl.?–1622), was the governor of Jamestown, in the English colony of Virginia. His predecessor, George Percy, through inept leadership, was responsible for the lives lost during the period called the Starving Time. The English-born Gates arrived to find a few surviving starving colonists commanded by Percy, and assumed command. Gates ruled with deputy governor Sir Thomas Dale. Their controlled, strict methods helped the early colonies survive. Sir Thomas was knighted in 1596 by Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex for gallantry at the Capture of Cadiz. His knighthood was later royally confirmed by Queen Elizabeth I.
Francis West was a Deputy Governor of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia.
The Somers Isles Company was formed in 1615 to operate the English colony of the Somers Isles, also known as Bermuda, as a commercial venture. It held a royal charter for Bermuda until 1684, when it was dissolved, and the Crown assumed responsibility for the administration of Bermuda as a royal colony.
The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles is a book written by Captain John Smith, first published in 1629. The book is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, histories of the territory administered by the London Company.
Jamestown, also Jamestowne, was the first settlement of the Virginia Colony, founded in 1607, and served as the capital of Virginia until 1699, when the seat of government was moved to Williamsburg. This article covers the history of the fort and town at Jamestown proper, as well as colony-wide trends resulting from and affecting the town during the time period in which it was the colonial capital of Virginia.
Captain Ralph Hamor (1589-1626) was one of the original colonists to settle in Virginia, and author of A True Discourse of the Present State of Virginia, which he wrote upon returning to London in 1615.
Thomas Forrest, Esq, also known as Thomas Forrest, Gentleman, in the Jamestown Colonists historic lists, 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 shared by both constituents of the English aristocracy: the peerage and the gentry.
The Governor's Council was the upper house of the colonial legislature in the Colony of Virginia from 1607 until the American Revolution in 1776. Consisting of 12 people who, after the 1630s were appointed by the British Sovereign, the Governor's Council also served as an advisory body to the Virginia Royal Governor and as the highest judicial body in the colony.