Background
Thomas West De La Warr was born on July 9, 1577 at Wherwell, Hampshire, England. He was the son of Thomas West, second or eleventh Baron De La Warr, and Anne, the daughter of Sir Francis Knollys.
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Thomas West De La Warr
Edit ProfileEducation
Thomas matriculated at Queen’s College, Oxford, March 9, 1591/2, but left without having taken a degree.
Career
After traveling in Italy, Warr returned to England in 1596.
In the following year he was elected to Parliament for Lymington. After serving with distinction in the army in the Low Countries, he was with his cousin, the Earl of Essex, in Ireland in 1599, and was there knighted by Essex on July 12. He was implicated in the Essex rebellion, imprisoned in the Counter in Wood St. , London, in February 1600/1, and subsequently fined 1, 000 marks.
West’s father died March 24, 1601/2 and he was created M. A. of Oxford on August 30, 1605.
De La Warr was named as a grantee in the second charter to the Virginia Company of London.
As an initial step the Company appointed Sir Thomas Gates lieutenant-general and Sir George Somers admiral. They sailed from England with eight ships and a pinnace, carrying five hundred colonists, in June 1609. The vessel upon which Gates and Somers embarked was wrecked at Bermuda and they were forced to remain there until two pinnaces had been built to carry them to the mainland. It was not until May 1610 that they reached Virginia, where they found the colonists in a deplorable condition and decided to abandon the colony and take them back to England.
Meanwhile, on February 28, 1609/10, the Company had appointed De La Warr first governor and captain general for life of the Colony of Virginia. He sailed from England at the head of an expedition of three ships and 150 colonists on April 1, 1610, arriving at Cape Henry on June 5, at Point Comfort on the following day, and at Jamestown on June 10 just in time to save the colony, the inhabitants of which Gates had already embarked on vessels for the return voyage to England. De La Warr dispatched Somers to Bermuda for supplies and Gates to England for help. He caused Fort Henry and Fort Charles at the mouth of the river and a third fort at the falls to be erected. De La Warr had arrived in Virginia in the summer season. The company he brought with him suffered severely from the effects of the heat and he himself became ill.
He appointed Capt. George Percy as deputy governor, until Sir Thomas Dale should arrive in the colony, and on March 28, 1611, sailed for the island of “Mevis” [Nevis?] in the West Indies to recuperate, but was driven from his course to the Western Islands, whence, upon his recovery, he returned to England, arriving in June 1611. There he published The Relation of the Right Honourable the Lord De-la-Warre, Lord Governour and Captaine Generali of the Colonie, planted in Virginia (London, 1611), and worked to win support for the colony. He was planning a second voyage to Virginia as early as December 1616, but it was not until March 1617/18, that he sailed from England with 200 men. The vessel touched at Terceira in the Azores where De La Warr and his crew were feasted. Immediately afterward they became ill, and it was suspected that they had been poisoned. De La Warr died on June 7, 1618. Lady De La Warr survived her husband and was named executrix of his will. To provide for her five daughters, she petitioned for and was granted on September 13, 1619, a pension of £500 per annum to be paid by the farmers of the customs of Virginia for thirty-one years. This was renewed in 1634 but lapsed during the period of the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, and the Protectorate. A new grant of £200 per annum was made to Jane West, a daughter, in 1662.
Achievements
Connections
On November 25, 1596 he married Cecilia, the daughter of Sir Thomas Shirley, at St. Dunstan’s in the West, London. De La Warr left seven children, of whom Henry, born October 3, 1603, succeeded to the title.
References
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Born
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Died
June 7, 1618 (aged 40) -
Nationality
American