Edward Wingfield

Lore & Background

After four months as President, 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.

In Their Own Story

Captain John Smith wrote in his General Historie that, when in 1605–06 the Jamestown expedition was making no progress, Wingfield got it moving: 'Captain Bartholomew Gosnold (Wingfield's second cousin), one of the first movers of this plantation, having many years solicited many friends, but found small assistance; Gosnold at last prevailed with some gentlemen, Capt John Smith, Mr Edward-Maria Wingfield, Mr Reverend Robert Hunt, and diverse others, who depended a year upon his projects, but nothing could be effected, till by their great charge and industry, it came to be apprehended by certain of the Nobility, Gentry and Merchants, so that His Majesty by his letters patents, gave permission for establishing Councils, to direct here; and to govern, and to execute there.' Wingfield was involved in fundraising and was one of the biggest backers of the venture, with family friends, Sir Thomas Gates, Sir William Waad (Lieutenant-Governor of the Tower of London), Sir Thomas Smythe (Treasurer of the Virginia Company), John Martin, Sr., Sir Oliver Cromwell and Captain John Ratcliffe. Barbour wrote: 'John Smith was unaware, always, of the importance of the lever – the legal and financial backing that got the voyage going.'

Reader's Guide

Wingfield's early life included soldiering in the Netherlands alongside his brother, Captain Thomas Maria Wingfield, for at least four years, fighting as a foot company commander (commander of 100 pike-wielding soldiers) for the Dutch Republic against Spanish invaders, including in 1586 at the Battle of Zutphen. In the first half of 1588 he was taken prisoner together with Sir Ferdinando Gorges at or near Bergen-op-Zoom, and was held in Spanish captivity with him, first at Ghent and then at Lille until on 5 September 1588 when ransoms were demanded. He and Gorges were released no earlier than June 1589 as part of a prisoner exchange. In the 1590s, Captain Wingfield was garrisoned at Drogheda, Ireland – where commanders reported for pay, rations and munitions to the Clerk of the Cheque & Muster-Master, Colonel Sir Ralph Lane, the former Deputy Governor of Sir Walter Ralegh's ill-fated 1584–86 Roanoke Colony. In 1593, Wingfield was a member of parliament for Chippenham, Wiltshire, one of five Wingfield family MPs – a seat obtained for him by his neighbour, Anthony Mildmay of Apethorpe, probably encouraged by Wingfield's cousin, Sir Robert Cecil.

Did You Know?

• Wingfield was one of the shareholders to sail with the 1606 Virginia expedition, alongside other shareholders such as Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
• He was elected President of the Jamestown council on 14 May 1607, but deposed on 10 September 1607.
• He was sent back to London on 10 April 1608 to answer charges of atheism and Spanish sympathies, but cleared his reputation.