Richard Bellingham

Infobox Governor
name = Richard Bellingham


order =
office = Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
term_start = 1641
term_end = 1642
1654 – 1655
1665 – 1672
lieutenant =
predecessor = Thomas Dudley (1641)
John Endecott (1654 & 1665)
successor = John Winthrop (1642)
John Endecott (1655)
John Leverett (1672)
birth_date = 1592
birth_place = Boston, Lincolnshire, England
death_date = December 7, 1672
death_place = Boston, Massachusetts
party =
spouse =
profession =
religion =

Richard Bellingham (1592 - December 7, 1672) was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Richard Bellingham was probably born in Boston, England, the son of William Bellingham and Frances Amcotts. He became a lawyer, and represented his town as Member of Parliament in 1628 and 1629, while also serving as city recorder. He immigrated to the Puritan colonies in 1634, and settled in. In 1641, Bellingham was involved in a small scandal for officiating at his own second marriage ceremony, and in 1665, he ignored a summons by Charles II to return to England. Bellingham pacified the angered sovereign by sending over a ship full of masts as a gift (New England was a valuable source of timber for the Royal Navy). He died in Boston, Massachusetts in 1672 during a term as governor.

Though known as a hard, obdurate, and sometimes eccentric man, he was apparently well-respected in the colony. He was immortalized as a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", as was his sister, Anne Hibbins, who would be executed as a witch in 1656.

Richard Bellingham married in England, as his first wife, Elizabeth Backhouse. After her death, he married Penelope Pelham, the granddaughter of the 2nd Lord de la Warre.

External links

[http://www.mass.gov/statehouse/massgovs/rbellingham.htm official Massachusetts Governor biography]