Edward Popham

Edward Popham (1610–1651) was a General at Sea during the English Civil War.

Edward Popham was son of Sir Francis Popham and supported parliament in the English Civil War. He was elected M.P. for Minehead in 1644. He commanded a force in Somerset and Dorset. He was appointed a commissioner for the immediate ordering of the navy in 1648 and commanded in the Downs and North Sea during 1649. In 1650 he joined Robert Blake at Lisbon in blockading Prince Rupert.

Edward Popham, the fifth and youngest son of Sir Francis Popham, and his wife Anne (née Dudley), was probably born about 1610, his brother Alexander, the second son, having been born in 1605. In 1627 Edward and Alexander Popham were outlawed for debt, their property being assigned to their creditors; but the age of even the elder of the brothers suggests that the debtors must have been other men of the same name, the Edward being possibly his cousin, the man who represented Bridgwater in parliament from 1620 to 1626.

In 1636 Edward Popham was serving as lieutenant of the HMS Henrietta Maria in the fleet under the Algernon, Earl of Northumberland, and in March 1637 was promoted to be captain of the Fifth Whelp. The Whelps were by this time old and barely seaworthy; most of them had already disappeared, and in a fresh breeze off the coast of Holland, on 28 June 1637, this one, having sprung a leak, went down in the open sea, giving Popham with the ship's company barely time to save themselves in the boat. Seventeen men went down in her. After rowing for about fifty miles, they got on board an English ship which landed them at Rotterdam; thence they found their way to Helvoetsluys, where an English squadron of ships of war was lying. In 1639 Popham commanded a ship, possibly the Rainbow, in the fleet with Sir John Penington in the Downs, and was one of those who signed the narrative of occurrences sent to the Earl of Northumberland.

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