William Vaughan (Welsh writer and colonial investor)

Sir William Vaughan (c. 1575 – August 1641) was a Welsh writer in English and Latin, who promoted colonization in Newfoundland.

He was the son of Walter Vaughan (died 1598) and was born at Golden Grove (Gelli Aur), Llanfihangel Aberbythych, Carmarthenshire, Wales – the estate of his father, through whom he was descended from an ancient prince of Powys. He was brother to John Vaughan, 1st Earl of Carbery (1572−1634) and Henry Vaughan (1587−1659), a well-known Royalist leader in the English Civil War. William was educated at Jesus College, Oxford, where he matriculated on 4 February 1592, and graduated BA on 1 March 1595, MA on 16 November 1597. He supplicated for the law degree of BCL on 3 December 1600, but before taking its examination he went abroad, travelled in France and Italy, and visited Vienna, where he proceeded LlD, being incorporated at Oxford on 23 June 1605.

In 1616 he bought a grant of land, the southern Avalon Peninsula (from Calvert to Placentia Bay) of the island of Newfoundland, from the London and Bristol Company. In 1617 he sent Welsh colonists to Renews to establish a permanent colony, which he called Cambriol; it eventually failed. The colonists were ill-equipped, without an experienced leader, and had built for themselves mere shacks for shelter for the winter. In 1618 Vaughan sent out a second batch of settlers under the command of Richard Whitbourne, whom he appointed governor for life of the undertaking.

...
Wikipedia