Sir Percival Willoughby (died 23 August 1643) of

Wollaton Hall Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan country house of the 1580s standing on a small but prominent hill in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, England. The house is now Nottingham Natural History Museum, with Nottingham Industrial Museum in the outbuildings ...

, Nottinghamshire was a prominent land owner, businessman, and entrepreneur involved during his lifetime variously in mining, iron smelting, and glass making enterprises in

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...

. He was also an important investor in the

Newfoundland Company The London and Bristol Company came about in the early 17th century when English merchants had begun to express an interest in the Newfoundland fishery. Financed by a syndicate of investors John Guy, himself a Bristol merchant, visited Newfoun ...

. He was the eldest son of Thomas Willoughby of Bore Place, Chiddingstone, Kent and educated at

Furnival's Inn Furnival's Inn was an Inn of Chancery which formerly stood on the site of the present Holborn Bars building (the former Prudential Assurance Company building) in Holborn, London, England. History Furnival's Inn was founded about 1383 when Wil ...

and

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

(1579). He married Bridget Willoughby, his second cousin, the daughter of Sir Francis Willoughby, builder of

. She, as co-heiress of her father, inherited Wollaton Hall. Sir Percival sold all the lands he had inherited from his father in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

to pay off some of the enormous debts the construction of the Hall had entailed. Sir Percival and his wife Lady Bridget eventually occupied the new building but in later generations it was never the principal home of the Willoughby family. Middleton Hall in Warwickshire was the family's usual residence. Willoughby was knighted by

King James I James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until ...

on 20 April 1603 at

Worksop Worksop ( ) is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is located east-south-east of Sheffield, close to Nottinghamshire's borders with South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, on the River Ryton and not far from the nor ...

. On 21 June he hosted

Anne of Denmark Anne of Denmark (; 12 December 1574 – 2 March 1619) was the wife of King James VI and I; as such, she was Queen of Scotland The monarchy of the United Kingdom, commonly referred to as the British monarchy, is the constitutional fo ...

and her children

Prince Henry Prince Henry (or Prince Harry) may refer to: People *Henry the Young King (1155–1183), son of Henry II of England, who was crowned king but predeceased his father *Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal (1394–1460) *Henry, Duke of Cornwall (Ja ...

and Princess Elizabeth at Wollaton Hall. Shortly afterwards was returned as

member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

and Tamworth in King James' first parliament, choosing to sit for Nottinghamshire. He was returned again and sat for Tamworth in 1614. Percival Willoughby's business partner,

Huntingdon Beaumont Huntingdon Beaumont (c.1560–1624) was an English coal mining entrepreneur who built two of the earliest wagonways in England for trans-shipment of coal. He was less successful as a businessman and died having been imprisoned for debt. Beaum ...

, was responsible for constructing the

Wollaton Wagonway The Wollaton Wagonway (or Waggonway), built between October 1603 and 1604 in the East Midlands of England by Huntingdon Beaumont in partnership with Sir Percival Willoughby, has sometimes been credited as the world's first ''overground'' wagonwa ...

Newfoundland

Willoughby was drawn into the Newfoundland Company venture by

John Slany John Slany, Slaney or Slanie, etc. (died 1632),Will of John Slany, Merchant Taylor of London (P.C.C. 1632, Audley quire). was an English merchant and ship builder of Shropshire origins who became Master of the Merchant Taylor's Company in 1620, and ...

, to whom he was heavily in debt. Appointed to the council which managed the company's affairs in 1610, he sent his third son

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the Ap ...

Cuper's Cove Cuper's Cove, on the southwest shore of Conception Bay on Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula was an early English settlement in the New World, and the third one after Harbour Grace, Newfoundland (1583) and Jamestown, Virginia (1607) to endure for lo ...

in 1612 along with

Henry Crout Henry Crout ( fl. 1612 – 1617) was a settler and explorer, most likely from Devon in the English West Country. He became an investor in the London and Bristol Company and acted as Sir Percival Willoughby's agent and guardian to his son Thomas at t ...

and six apprentices. The orders to the party were to leave the colony and develop Willoughby's own tract which was all that land north of a line drawn between

Carbonear Carbonear is a town on the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It overlooks the west side of Conception Bay and had a history long tied to fishing and shipbuilding. Since the late 20th century, its economy has changed to emphasi ...

and Heart's Content on the Bay de Verde Peninsula. This also included the rich fishing grounds around

Baccalieu Island Baccalieu Island or Bacalhoo Island () is a 5 km2 uninhabited island at the northern extremities of Conception Bay in Subdivision 1G, near the community of Red Head Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It is separated from the island ...

Bartholomew Pearson Bartholomew Pearson ( fl. 1612 – 1632) yeoman, settler, born in Wollaton, Nottingham, England was one of the group of English settlers of John Guy's colony at Cuper's Cove, Newfoundland who had arrived in 1612, two years after the colony was ...

and a surveyor named Olney had made the trip to

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

to access its mineral and agricultural potential. Willoughby's main interest lay in the mining potential of Bell Island and was very critical of his party's lack of exploration on the island upon their return to England. Willoughby's partnership in 1618 with Thomas Rowley and William Hannam to give them half of his tract for a nominal fee had turned sour. Willoughby's entitlement to the land was becoming increasingly harder to maintain as he could not find anyone to settle on it. Then in 1631 he entered into a partnership with

Nicholas Guy Nicholas Guy (fl. 1612 – 1631) was one of the first settlers at the London and Bristol Company's Cuper's Cove, colony in Newfoundland, and was the father of the first English child born in Newfoundland and subsequently all of the country o ...

, who at the time was living in Carbonear. His grandson was

Francis Willughby Francis Willughby (sometimes spelt Willoughby, la, Franciscus Willughbeius) FRS (22 November 1635 – 3 July 1672) was an English ornithologist and ichthyologist, and an early student of linguistics and games. He was born and raised at M ...

of Wollaton.

References

The Family of Willoughby

Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation

Baccalieu ''Crossroads for Cultures''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Willoughby, Percival Year of birth missing 1643 deaths People from Wollaton Knights Bachelor English businesspeople Newfoundland Colony people English MPs 1604–1611 English MPs 1614