Early Life
Richard Bellingham, the son of William Bellingham and Frances Amcotts, was born in Lincolnshire, England, in about 1592. The family was apparently well to do; they resided in a manor at Bromby Wood near Scunthorpe. He studied law at Brasenose College, Oxford, matriculating on 1 December 1609. In 1625 he was elected Recorder (the highest community legal post) of Boston, a position he held until 1633. He represented Boston as a member of Parliament in 1628 and 1629. He was first married to Elizabeth Backhouse of Swallowfield, Berkshire, with whom he had a number of children, although only their son Samuel survived to adulthood.
In 1628 he became an investor in the Massachusetts Bay Company, and was one of the signers of the land grant issued to it by the Plymouth Council for New England. His name also appears on the royal charter issued for the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. In 1633 he resigned as recorder of Boston and began selling off his properties. The next year he sailed for the New World with his wife and son; Elizabeth died not long after their arrival in Boston, Massachusetts.
Read more about this topic: Richard Bellingham
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Innocence is lovely in the child, because in harmony with its nature; but our path in life is not backward but onward, and virtue can never be the offspring of mere innocence. If we are to progress in the knowledge of good, we must also progress in the knowledge of evil. Every experience of evil brings its own temptation and according to the degree in which the evil is recognized and the temptations resisted, will be the value of the character into which the individual will develop.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)