Record

Authorised form of nameNicholson; Francis (1655 - 1728)
Dates1655 - 1728
Place of birthDownholme Park, near Richmond, Yorkshire
Date of birth12 November 1655
Place of deathLondon
Date of death05 March 1728
DatesAndPlacesBurial:
Parish of St George, Hanover Square, Westminster
OccupationSoldier
ActivityCareer:
Page to the Marchioness of Winchester; Commission in army as Ensign (09 January 1678), Lieutenant (06 May 1684), Captain of a company of Foot for New England (1686); Lieutenant- Governor of New York (1686-1689) when, after an uprising, he took ship for England; Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, where he founded a number of schools and the College of William and Mary (1690-1694); Governor of Maryland (1694-1698); Governor of Virginia (1698-1705); fought against the French in Canada and Acadia [Nova Scotia]; Governor of Acadia (1712-1715); Brigadier-General (1720); Governor of South Carolina (1720-death); retired to England (1725) but kept his position; left the bulk of his property to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospal; his executors were Abel Ketelby (FRS 1720) and Kingsmill Eyre (FRS 1726)
Honours:
Possibly Kt 1720, although this is not corroborated by Dalton or Shaw
Membership categoryFellow
Date of election04/12/1706
RSActivityRoyal Society roles:
Council (1719, 1725, 1727)
RelationshipsProbably the natural son of Charles Powlett, Marquess of Winchester and later 1st Duke of Bolton
SourceSources:
Bulloch's Roll; DNB; Dalton George I, v2, pp53-62
References:
P Fontes da Costa, 'The Culture of Curiosity at The Royal Society in the first half of the eighteenth century', NR 2002 vo l56 pp 147-166
CodeNA3711
Archives associated with this Fellow
RefNoTitleDate
EL/N1/89Letter, from F[rancis] Nicholson to Alban Thomas, dated at Plymouth5 March 1720
MS/390/121Bond of Francis Nicholson to the Treasurer of the Royal Society12 February 1706
EL/N1/90Letter, from F[rancis] Nicholson [to the Royal Society], dated at Charles Town, South Carolina6 November 1721
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