Nicholas Wadham (1531–1609)

Nicholas Wadham (/ˈwɒdəm/) of Merryfield in the parish of Ilton, Somerset and Edge in the parish of Branscombe, Devon was co-founder of Wadham College, Oxford, albeit posthumously and with his wife Dorothy Wadham, who, outliving him, saw the project through to completion in her late old age. He was Sheriff of Somerset in 1585.

Wadham was probably born at Merryfield, Ilton a moated and fortified manor house, built around 1400 by his ancestor Sir John Wadham, Justice of the Common Pleas in the reign of King Richard II, in the parish of Ilton, near Ilminster, Somerset.

He was the only surviving son of John Wadham (d.1578) of Merryfield and Edge, by his wife Joan Tregarthin (d.1583), daughter and co-heiress of John Tregarthin of Cornwall, and widow of John Kelloway of Cullompton, Devon.

Wadham's grandfather, Sir Nicholas Wadham (died 1542), was a member of parliament in the English Reformation Parliament of 1529, Sheriff of Devon, Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, Sheriff of Wiltshire, Captain of the Isle of Wight at Carisbrooke Castle, Vice Admiral to Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and, with his uncle Sir Edward Wadham, accompanied King Henry VIII to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520.

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