page_title: Thomas Bampfield
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Bampfield / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: St. Stephen's church When the centre of Exeter was bombed in 1942, this church on the High Street was one of the few buildings to survive. http://www.stephenproject.org.uk/brochure/22_briefhistory.htm
context_page_description: Thomas Bampfield or Bampfylde was an English lawyer, and Member of Parliament for Exeter between 1654 and 1660. For a short period in 1659, he was Speaker of the House of Commons.
  He served in the 1660 Convention Parliament that agreed the Restoration settlement, but other than a brief period in 1688, retired from active politics in 1661. A devout Presbyterian, and supporter of Sabbatarianism, like his older brother Francis Bampfield, he published a number of religious works.
  He died in October 1693.
context_section_description: Bampfield attended Exeter College, Oxford, followed by legal training at Middle Temple in 1642; the First English Civil War meant he did not qualify as a lawyer until 1649. In 1654, he was appointed Recorder of Exeter; an important legal position, it led to his election as Member of Parliament for Exeter in the First Protectorate Parliament. It is not clear whether he attended; like many others, he refused to accept Oliver Cromwell's insistence all MPs 'recognise' constitutional limits set out in the Instrument of Government.  
  In 1656, he was re-elected to the Second Protectorate Parliament, and was an active participant; in the Third, he acted as Speaker from 14 April 1659 until it was dissolved on 22 April. He backed the restoration of MPs excluded in 1648, and sat in the Convention Parliament that invited Charles II to resume the throne. 
  However, his opposition to the restoration of Episcopacy in the Church of England, and support for  regulations prohibiting drunkenness and profanity were out of step with the public mood. He lost his position as Recorder in October 1660, and did not stand again for election as an MP. 
  His brother Francis, a former Royalist and Prebendary of Exeter Cathedral, rejected his conservative religious beliefs, and became an advocate of Saturday Sabbatarianism. Evicted from his living after the 1662 Act of Uniformity, he spent the next nine years in Dorchester gaol. By 1667 Thomas was converted to Sabbatarianism by Francis, who set up a Seventh Day Baptist community in prison. 
  Removed as a JP in 1665, Thomas regained some of his former positions in 1688, as the Catholic James II tried to build support among Nonconformists. However, he relinquished them after the 1688 Glorious Revolution. In his last years, he published several works on Sabbatarianism, which elicited responses from mathematician and theologian John Wallis, as well as Baptist minister Isaac Marlow. He died on 8 October 1693, and was buried at St Stephen's, Exeter.
caption: Bampfield was buried at St Stephen's, Exeter
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-TZ3", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image DateTime": "2009:01:22 16:10:31", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "356", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "7768", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5151", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "33/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:01:22 16:10:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:01:22 16:10:31", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "86/25", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "23/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "427", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "28", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "c669822db30d1a923510a22370731612"}