John Bampfield

John Bampfield (c. 1586 – c. 1657) of Poltimore House and North Molton, Devon, England, was a Member of Parliament for Tiverton in Devon (1621) and for the prestigious county seat of Devon (1628-9).

Origins
Bampfield was the eldest son and heir of Sir Amias Bampfield (c. 1560 – c. 1626), MP, of Poltimore and North Molton, by his wife Elizabeth Clifton, who was a daughter of Sir John Clifton of Barrington Court, Somerset.

Career
Bampfield matriculated at Exeter College, Oxford on 13 July 1604, aged 18. He was a law student at the Middle Temple in 1607. In 1621 he was elected a Member of Parliament for Tiverton, Devon. He was elected an MP for Devon in 1628 and sat until 1629, when King Charles I decided to rule without parliament for eleven years. In 1631 he founded almshouses in memory of his late wife.

Marriage and children
In 1602 Bampfield married Elizabeth Drake, a daughter of Thomas Drake (d.1605) of Buckland Drake, Devon, and a niece of Admiral Sir Francis Drake (d.1596) of Buckland Abbey, Devon. This was part of a double union in which his sister, Jane Bampfield, married Francis Drake, who was a brother of Elizabeth Drake. Drake and Bampfield then attended Oxford together two years later. By his wife he had children, including:
 * Amias Bampfylde, eldest son, who died in Italy without children.
 * Arthur Bampfield, second son, died without children.
 * Sir John Bampfylde, 1st Baronet (1610–1650), third son and heir apparent, one of Devon's Parliamentarian leaders during the Civil War, who predeceased his father. The heir to his baronetcy and paternal inheritance was his eldest son Sir Coplestone Bampfylde, 2nd Baronet (c. 1633 – 1692).
 * Francis Bampfield (died 1663/4), sixth son, a Nonconformist minister who died in Newgate Prison.
 * Thomas Bampfield (died 1693), eighth son, MP, briefly Speaker of the House of Commons.