Thomas Cornwallis

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Thomas Cornwallis (c. 1605–1675), was one of the first Commissioners of the Proprietary Colony of Maryland and Captain of the colony’s military during the early years of settlement. In 1638, in a naval engagement with Virginian colonists, he captured Kent Island for Maryland.

Thomas was probably the second son of Sir Charles Cornwallis of Beeston, Norfolk (d. 1629), an ambassador and brother of Elizabeth Cornwallis and Sir William Cornwallis of Brome, the direct ancestor of Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis. Thomas was the brother of the author William Cornwallis. As the second son, he could not hope to inherit his father’s land. The Cornwallis family were Roman Catholic Recusants and therefore George Calvert’s project of an autonomous colony in the New World for English Catholics appealed to him. In 1634 he accompanied Leonard Calvert to what was then ‘Virginia’ and became a Commissioner to the Governor. This put him in a powerful advisory position to Leonard Calvert. In 1635 Cornwallis fought the Virginian colonist William Claiborne over the jurisdiction of Kent Island, and captured it in 1638. In 1643 he defended the colony against a Native American attack. In 1644, however, Richard Ingle sailed into Chesapeake Bay with his ship Reformation and fired on St. Mary’s City. Cornwallis’ land was occupied and many of the buildings he had constructed were destroyed. As a result of these losses and his loss of influence in the colony, Cornwallis returned to England, where he died at some point after 4th March 1675.