John Bampfield

Bampfield was the eldest son and heir of Sir Amias Bampfield (c. 1560 – c. 1626), MP, of Poltimore and North Molton, by his wife Elizabeth Clifton, who was a daughter of Sir John Clifton of Barrington Court, Somerset.

Bampfield matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford on 13 July 1604, aged 18. He was a law student at the Middle Temple in 1607. In 1621 he was elected a Member of Parliament for Tiverton, Devon. He was elected an MP for Devon in 1628 and sat until 1629, when King Charles I decided to rule without parliament for eleven years.[2] In 1631 he founded almshouses in memory of his late wife. [3]

In 1602 Bampfield married Elizabeth Drake, a daughter of Thomas Drake (d.1605) of Buckland Drake, Devon, and a niece of Admiral Sir Francis Drake (d.1596)[4] of Buckland Abbey, Devon. This was part of a double union in which his sister, Jane Bampfield, married Francis Drake, who was a brother of Elizabeth Drake.[3] Drake and Bampfield then attended Oxford together two years later. [4]By his wife he had children, including:

• Amias Bampfylde, eldest son, who died in Italy without children.[5]
• Arthur Bampfield, second son, died without children.[5]
• Sir John Bampfylde, 1st Baronet (1610–1650), third son and heir apparent, one of Devon's Parliamentarian leaders during the Civil War,[1] who predeceased his father.[1][5][6] The heir to his baronetcy and paternal inheritance was his eldest son Sir Coplestone Bampfylde, 2nd Baronet (c. 1633 – 1692).
• Francis Bampfield (died 1663/4), sixth son,[5] a Nonconformist minister[2] who died in Newgate Prison.
• Thomas Bampfield (died 1693), eighth son,[5] MP, briefly Speaker of the House of Commons.

• Venning, Tim & Hunneyball, Paul, biography of Bampfield, John (c.1586-c.1657), of Poltimore, Devon published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, Cambridge University Press, 2010
• Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, pp. 38–41, pedigree of Bamfield of Poltimore