A Family Tale from Tudor Exeter to the Eastern Shore of Virginia:

The Chappell and Bagwell Families
with Maggie Rice on Thursday, 13 February 2025
at 7pm at Leonardo Hotel Exeter [Jurys Inn Exeter Hotel]

Our speaker was introduced as having enjoyed a long and successful career as a teacher and school administrator. She worked for two years in London before moving to the United States in 1968 to attend graduate school at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and had taught in three different early-years settings within the university and gained a master’s degree in early childhood education. On returning to the UK, Maggie served as the head teacher of a nursery school in Hull; Devon County Advisory teacher for under-fives; an Under Eights Inspector with Devon Social Services and a college lecturer and childcare centre manager.

Maggie explained that she had inherited family papers and family trees relating to the Chappell and Bagwell families and this had sparked her interest in researching further. Her talk covered each of the families in turn.

Part 1. The Chappell family in Exeter.

William (born 1530) and Thomas (born 1544) Chappell were brothers. With their cousin John they were part of a strong civic community, and each would become a leading citizen during the reign of Elizabeth I. They were also successful merchants, merchant adventurers, members of the Company of Weavers, Tuckers (Fullers) and Shearmen and involved in the wool and cloth trade and in shipping in Exeter and Topsham. They served as Bailiffs, Sheriffs, Churchwardens, and Receivers in charge of the City’s finances. Their families lived in the wealthy parishes of St Petrock and St Olave.

Evidence of the family was found in family wills in Chittlehampton and Exeter and in church records in the parishes of St Petrock, St Olave, St Mary Arches, and St Michael and All Angels, Alphington, and inventories of the Exeter Orphans’ Court.

William was a Freeman of the City of Exeter and Member of the Company of Merchant Adventurers and traded various goods such as a cargo of figs, seke (dry wine) on the ships ‘Michael of Excester’, ‘Bartholomew of Exmouth’, the ‘Mary Martyn’, and the ‘Christopher’.

Exeter was important as a centre of trade and especially in wool and cloth. Members of the Guild of Weavers, Tuckers and Shearmen used to meet at Tuckers Hall in Fore Street which was granted a coat of arms in 1564.

William was Mayor of Exeter in 1569 and 1579. He married Christian Chambre on 2 June 1554 in St Petrock’s Church. The couple had eleven children, five of whom survived into adulthood: Thomas, Grace, Richard, Nicholas and Elizabeth. The family had a house in High Street and another in the country. Maggie had obtained a description of the High Street house from the records of the Orphans’ Court, with valuations of the goods and chattels. The house in the country was called ‘Brockhill’ in the village of Broadclyst and William also owned land in other parts of Devon, where he grew corn and owned a number of oak trees. William died in 1579, and his will showed that he had become a wealthy landowner with properties in Broadclyst, Sidbury, Winslade at Clyst St George, Larkbeare in the parish of St Leonard’s, Southernhay, a stable and garden in St Pancras, and also St Petrock. He also left a considerable sum of money.

Thomas Chappell joined William in the family business, and became an active merchant and was admitted to the Liberties of the City in July 1566. Thomas and his wife Thomazine’s first home was in the parish of St Petrock before they moved to the parish of St Olave. They also had a house in the country. His will was dated 22 August 1589, and he was also a wealthy man by the time he died in 1590.

Part 2. The Exeter Bagwell Family

Maggie provided a brief overview of Devon’s Explorers, involving Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and Sir Richard Grenville. In 1584 Roanoke Island, West Virginia, was discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh, and John White became the Governor of the Roanoke colony. Subsequently the colony disappeared, and became known as the ‘Lost Colony’. [Lack of space for this write-up prevents a full explanation of the ‘Lost Colony of Roanoke’ but see the Wikipedia article on this subject for much more information and a mention of the Sea Venture.] (Quoting heavily from Maggie’s book The Henry Bagwell Story, English Adventurer, Virginia Planter, 1589-1663), Henry Bagwell was born in Exeter in October 1589, the second son of David Bagwell (merchant of Exeter), and Joan Chappell daughter of Thomas Chappell. From his home city of Exeter, he left to travel to Virginia’s Eastern Shore. In 1609 Henry was one of the passengers on the Sea Venture. This ship was part of a fleet bringing supplies and colonists to a struggling settlement known as James Fort (later Jamestown, England’s first permanent colony in the New World). The Sea Venture became separated from the fleet in a huge storm and was wrecked on the reefs of the island of Bermuda. After surviving for nine months, the passengers built two smaller boats and eventually reached Virginia in May 1610. Henry went on to own land in one of the new settlements and became a planter, a burgess, and clerk of the first County Court of Northampton, Virginia, a vestryman, and tobacco inspector, and was nominated for the role of sheriff.

At this point in Maggie’s talk, three members of the audience – Rod Northcott, Neil Ward and Maggie’s husband Ray - read out accounts of the storm on the morning of 24 July St James’s Day as though they were ‘Voices of the Past’ as William Strachey (Rod), Sylvester Jourdaine (Neil), and Sir George Somers Raine (Ray).

The talk continued with an account of ‘Bermuda to Jamestown’.

Bermuda

“Henry and all 150 passengers and the ship’s dog survive. There are deaths, mutinies, marriages and births, as well as major disagreements between Somers and Gates about how to proceed. They survived by catching fish and slaughtering wild pigs. They built two smaller ships (pinnaces) from the salvaged timber and local cedar wood. They were named Patience and Deliverance”.

Jamestown

“After nine months on Bermuda the ships left the island and arrived on the American coast, arriving at Jamestown on 23 May 1610. They found only 60 survivors”.

This was followed by Voices of William Strachey and Silvester Jourdain, two passengers on the Sea Venture, who wrote accounts of the voyage.

Maggie gave accounts of Jamestown to the Eastern Shore and then Life on the Eastern Shore with a map of the Chesapeake Bay area.

Henry’s Role on the Eastern Shore (Accomack) 1629-1630

Henry was one of four burgesses elected to represent Accomack at the established General Assembly held in Jamestown. All legal matters affecting the settlers on the Eastern Shore were settled here. In 1632 Henry served a second term and was appointed as the first Clerk of the monthly court and served for the periods 1632-37 and 1638-40. In 1633 Henry’s assets were noted at a court hearing and valued in pounds of tobacco. By 1636 Henry had married a widow called Alice Stratton who already had three children. Henry and Alice added another three children of their own. Henry’s legacy as Clerk was an important role in the emerging society of the Eastern Shore, and as the founder of the Bagwell family in America. He is celebrated as a Jamestown qualifying ancestor by the Jamestown Society of Virginia.

The talk concluded with some of Maggie’s reflections on John Chappell (cousin of William and Thomas Chappell), who left money to the poor in Alphington and Chittlehampton in his will of 1610. Maggie also pondered the history of Thomas Chappell (merchant of Exeter, married Catherine Courtenay) who may have been the parents of William and Thomas! Maggie also mentioned William Bagwell of Topsham, who may have been the older brother of Henry Bagwell.

The talk ended with a photo of a beautiful sunset in the Accomack area, when Maggie and Ray visited a couple of years ago.

Sue Jackson/ Maggie Rice (ed. Judith Hosking)