Nicholas Wadham (1472–1542)
English politician
Sir Nicholas Wadham (before 1472 – 5 March 1542) was an English landowner, courtier, politician, and civil and military administrator from Somerset. His inherited landholdings over three counties included Merryfield in Ilton in Somerset, Catherston Leweston in Dorset, and Edge in Branscombe in Devon.
Origins
Born by 1472, he was the first son of Sir John Wadham (died 1481), of Merryfield, and his wife Elizabeth Stucley, daughter of Hugh Stucley (died 1457) and his wife Catherine Affeton (died 1467). His paternal grandparents were Sir John Wadham (died 1440), grandson of the judge Sir John Wadham (died 1412), and his wife Elizabeth Popham (died 1476).
Career
His first public appointment was as Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset in 1498, followed by a term as Sheriff of Devon in 1501. By 1503 he was attached to the royal court as an esquire of the body and, on 18 February 1504, he was knighted.
From 1509 to 1520 he was Captain of the Isle of Wight, responsible for the island's defence, and although he is not known to have fought in the French and Scottish campaigns of 1512 and 1513, as a commissioner of array for Hampshire from 1511 he held musters on the mainland at Southampton in 1512 and Portsmouth in 1514. As well as military preparations, he was involved in financial preparations as a commissioner for subsidy in both Hampshire and Somerset in 1512 and for Somerset alone in 1514, 1515, and 1524.
A second term as Sheriff of Devon followed in 1514, with appointment as a justice of the peace for Hampshire in 1515 and a year as Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1516. In 1520 he accompanied King Henry VIII to his meetings with King Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold and with the Emperor Charles V. Made a JP for Dorset in 1521, both Sir Nicholas and his uncle, Sir Edward Wadham, were jurors in Bristol at the indictment for treason in May 1521 of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7026371. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1472, 1542, 1481 and 1457.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nicholas Wadham (1472–1542)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.