06/09/2026
NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE'S AMERICAN LEADER
Brumby Hall and nearby Manton are closely associated with Richard Bellingham, who became Governor of Massachusetts Bay.
Brumby came into the family of Richard Bellingham by the marriage of his father into the Wisley family and is detailed in Richard’s will of 1577 – he was then living at Manton. Richard had the manor house at Brumby and left Brumby Wood to his son John specifically ‘for the maintenance of Trent bank’. He left his warren at Brumby, Scunthorpe and Frodingham to his brother Thomas for life. His will’s ‘supervisors’ were from the Tyrwhitt family – known Catholic sympathisers. By 1583 John was receiving instructions from the Commissioners of Sewers to repair the important causeway across the Carrs from Brumby.
The famous Richard Bellingham was born c 1592 as the son of William Bellingham and Frances Amcotts – another famous Lincolnshire family; William’s residence is usually given as Manton. This would be a likely birthplace though some claims have been made for Boston. He studied law, then moved to Boston (Lincs) with his family where he became ‘Recorder’ in 1625 – a senior legal official. From 1628 he played a leading role in the Massachusetts Bay Company.
Richard Bellingham left for New England in 1634 – at the tail end of the ‘Great Migration’ from Lincolnshire and even after John Cotton had managed to slip away. But Bellingham had a lot to lose – and his process of liquidating his assets had been started in 1633. Yet he had also suffered a major loss in a legal battle with Lord Greville with £800 damages.
He immediately took on high office in Massachusetts and took his own second wedding service; this was controversial as the young lady was nearly thirty years younger and sought by another. He was also important in the story of the Massachusetts Bay Company.
Bellingham seems to have had a difficult relationship with John Winthrop though the balanced view of the ODNB is that he was a ‘competent and respected leader.’ Other historians though have seen him as argumentative and his record on religious persecution is very questionable, especially regarding Quakers and also Baptists. He voted for the banishment of Lincolnshire’s Anne Hutchinson, who he must have known from Boston since she and her husband were close to John Cotton.
Nathaniel Hawthorne also chose to make Bellingham an important figure in ‘The Scarlet Letter’, the famous New England novel. He also included ‘a reputed witch-lady’ sister for Bellingham who was later executed as a witch in 1656, Mrs Hibbins. She was a real person but only his ‘sister’ in the style of the times: she was the second wife of the man who had married Bellingham’s sister, Hester, who had died in England in 1634.
