William Randolph

William Randolph (1650-1711), Thomas Jefferson's great-grandfather, was baptized 7 November 1650 in Morton Morell, Warwickshire, England, a small village situated midway between Warwick Castle and Edgehill. He was the fourth of seven children of Richard Randolph (1620-c1671) and Elizabeth Ryland (1625-c1669).

William's father (bapt. 24 February 1621/2) was born in Little Houghton, Norths., where his grandfather, also William, was steward and servant to Edward, Lord Zouche, a councilor for the Virginia Company of London. William's mother was of Warwickshire, to which place the Randolphs removed sometime before 1647, when Richard and Elizabeth's first child was born at Morton Morrell. The family remained in the heart of Parliamentarian Warwickshire through the end of the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth, and much of the Protectorate.^[1] At some point after William's seventh birthday, 1657, when his last sibling was born and his grandfather William buried (both in Morton Morrell), the family moved to Dublin, Ireland, where his mother died c1669, followed by his father c1671. ^[2]

William's uncle, Henry Randolph (bapt. 27 November 1623, Little Houghton, Norths.), emigrated to Virginia c1642. It is known that Henry visited Ireland and England between 1669 and 1670, at which time he may have encouraged his nephew to join him in Virginia. Henry died in Henrico County, Virginia, in 1673.^[3]

William first appears in Virginia records as witness to a deed on 12 February 1672. In 1674 he qualified for his first land patent by claiming headrights for importing twelve people. Around 1676, he married Mary Isham, a widow of some means, daughter of Henry Isham from Northamptonshire. Mary bore William ten children, of which nine survived to adulthood (Mary, William, Henry, Elizabeth, Isham, Thomas, Richard, John, and Edward), an astonishingly high number given seventeenth-century child survival rates.^[4] In addition to dozens of grandchildren and hundreds of great-grandchildren--among whom are Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall (1755-1834), Edmund Randolph (1753-1813), John Randolph of Roanoke, Sir John Randolph (c1693-1737), Richard Bland (1710-1776), and Peyton Randolph (c1721-1775)---he was responsible for importing 168 indentured servants and slaves into Virginia. ^[5]

Although primarily a tobacco planter and transatlantic merchant--several of his sons and grandsons would boost the family's commercial operation by becoming ships captains--William served in the House of Burgesses, was elected Speaker of the House for one term, clerk of the House of Burgesses, and for four years was Attorney General of the colony (a post that members of his family would hold for most of the eighteenth century). He was recommended for appointment to the Virginia Council in 1705 but never received the position. ^[6]

William died at his home, Turkey Island, on the James River, on 21 April 1711. ^[7]

Although William has been variously described as a carpenter who started off in Virginia by building barns, one of the "high loyalists in the Civil Wars," and as a member of the wealthy English gentry, there is no evidence for any of those claims. In fact, the evidence that does exist makes the first unlikely and rules out the others. ^[8]

Footnotes

1. ↑ Roberta Lee Randolph, The First Randolphs of Virginia (1961), 17-18, 22-23; Clifford Dowdey, The Virginia Dynasties: The Emergence of Robert "King" Carter and the Golden Age (1969), 135; Terry Slater, A History of Warwickshire (1997), 76-80; Publications of the Harleian Society 87, 176-177.
2. ↑ Margaret D. Sankey, "Randolph, William (1650-1711)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 46 (2004), 23-24. It is possible, even likely given the historical circumstances, that the Randolphs moved to Dublin as part of Oliver Cromwell's program to repopulate the city and revive its trade. Ireland's population--Catholic and Protestant alike--and its economy were devastated by the wars and plague between 1641 and 1652. Dublin had been especially hard hit, losing half its population. Parliament, through an Act of Settlement in 1652, offered advantages, such as property and the freedom of the city, to Protestant tradesmen, artificers, and merchants who would move there. The project was particularly successful in boosting the Protestant merchant community, especially after 1655 when economic conditions began to improve. There is some slight evidence that William's father, Richard, could have been a merchant-mariner, trading with Barbados in 1659. See T.C. Barnard,Cromwellian Ireland: English Government and Reform in Ireland 1649-1660 (2000), 77-80; James S. Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland (1999), 225-227; Samuel R. Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate 1649-1656, vol. 3 (1965), 79,82. For Richard Randolph, see Registers of Servants Sent to Foreign Plantations, Bristol, 1654-1686 (www.virtualjamestown.org)
3. ↑ Cowden, Randolph Prosopography, 62; Brainerd, Ishams in England and America, pp.86-87
4. ↑ Cowden, 51-52
5. ↑ Cowden, p.57
6. ↑ Cowden, p.57; The Commonplace Book of John Randolph of Roanoke, Special Collections, Swem Library, CWM
7. ↑ Wright and Tinling, eds., The Secret Diary of William Byrd, p.333
8. ↑ Cowden, 49; 4 March 1737, Virginia Gazette; Oxford DNB