The Orys and Cook Family Tree » Andrew Branfill (1641-1709)

Personal data Andrew Branfill 

• He was born on February 13, 1641 in Dartmouth, Devon, England.Source 1

  NAME: Andrew Brainfield GENDER: Male BAPTISM DATE: 13/02/1641 (13 Feb 1641) BAPTISM PLACE: Saint Savior,Dartmouth,Devon,England FATHER: William Brainfield FHL FILM NUMBER: 917192 HOUSEHOLD MEMBERS: Name
  Andrew Brainfield
  William Brainfield

• Profession: on 1690S Ships Captain in the slave trade..Source 1
• He died in the year 1709 in Upminster, Essex, England, he was 67 years old.Source 1

  http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D3373426 Link re will details

• He is buried on July 28, 1709 in Upminster, Essex, England.

  NAME: Capt Andrew Branfill
  DEATH DATE: 1709
  BURIAL DATE: 28/07/1709 (28 Jul 1709)
  BURIAL PLACE: Essex England
  SOURCE DESCRIPTION: Register of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials; Service of Church: Registers of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials; Incumbent; Upminster, St Laurence; Parish Records;1543-1787

• Probate on August 22, 1709.Source 2

  http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D696542 Link to probate details
  
  Name: Andrea Branfill
  [Andrew Branfill]
  Residence: Mile End, Middlesex, England
  Probate Date: 22 Aug 1709
  Death Year: Abt 1709

• This information was last updated on November 6, 2020.

Household of Andrew Branfill

(1) He is married to Sarah Foster.

They got married on September 21, 1671 at St. Dunstan in the East, London, he was 30 years old.

County Middlesex Place (Links to more information) Stepney Church name (Links to more information) St Dunstan Register type (Links to more information) Transcript Marriage date 21 Sep 1671 Groom forename Andrew Groom surname BRANFILL
Groom occupation Mariner Groom abode Ratcliff Bride forename Sarah Bride surname FOSTER Bride condition maiden
Notes L.L. (Guide: "L=Licence" and "L.B.L.=Licence, Bishop of London") Transcribed by Pat Lawrence File line number 144

Name: Andrew Brunfill Gender: Male Marriage Date: 21 Sep 1671 Marriage Place: Stepney, Middlesex, England Spouse: Sarah Foster FHL Film Number: 597245 Reference ID: yr 1670-1678

(2) He is married to Demaris Aylett.

They got married about 1681.Source 1

Child(ren):

1. Champion Branfill  1683-1738 

Notes about Andrew Branfill

For 200 years, the Branfill family owned Upminster Hall, now a golf club headquarters.
Andrew Branfill, a ship’s captain from Stepney, bought the estate in 1686, for ¹7,400. The Hall was let as a farmhouse, but he reserved part of the mansion for use as a rural retreat and an office for collecting rents.
Legend says Branfill was born at Dartmouth in Devon around 1640. He went to sea as a boy, captained his own ship at 19, and moved to London.
His surname was also spelt Branfil, Bramfill, Brandfield and Brownfill. They weren’t strong on spelling in those days.
In 1681, he married Damaris Aylett, from Kelvedon Hatch near Brentwood. Her family were gentry, who’d fought for Charles I in the Civil War.
Captain Branfill was going up in the world. Hence he needed a country home, near her family.
Branfill’s ship was called Champion. Andrew and Damaris called their son Champion. The name was handed down through the generations. It’s remembered in Upminster’s Champion Road and Branfill Road.
Legend says Branfill operated on the west African coast. The papers of the Royal African Company, recently published for 1681-88, confirm what historians have grimly suspected – he was a slave trader.
The company ran the English slave trade, providing goods which sea captains traded for prisoners captured in local African wars.
They sailed the Atlantic to sell their human cargo in Barbados, to sugar planters who needed replacements for the slaves they’d worked to death.
The Triangular Trade was completed by shipping sugar back to London. The company split the huge profits with the captains.
The African coast was unhealthy. Branfill sold his goods quickly, dumping surplus stock at low prices, thus making room on board for more slaves.
In 1681, he reported, “I am now in good health, praised be God for itt, and have all my slaves on board”.
In 1682 there was a revolt among slaves awaiting shipment at Accra, now Ghana’s capital.
Angered by their disobedience, the company’s agent handed the ringleaders (“the four greatest rogues”) to his toughest sea captain – Andrew Branfill. Included in the cargo were “four woemen”.
Branfill did not retire after purchasing Upminster Hall. In 1686 he was at Sekondi in modern Ghana, delivering barrels of beer to a company agent.
“One of your casks is leakt out, which I canot help”, he reported. You didn’t argue with Andrew Branfill.
We hear of him at other places – Anomabu, now a Ghanaian beach resort, and Tantumquery, a national heritage site.
Later that year, Upminster’s squire took aboard 15 slaves at Ouidah in Benin.
A healthy slave could be sold for ¹21 in Barbados. Branfill probably spent 30 years people trafficking in west Africa.
That’s how he got the ¹7,400 to buy Upminster Hall.
When Andrew Branfill died in 1709, he was buried in Upminster’s parish church. Only important and respected people were buried inside churches.
Erasing Branfill from the map wouldn’t change the past. Anyway, the local primary school commemorates a family who were part of Upminster for 200 years.
But there may be Havering residents who are descended from his victims. I hope Upminster will find some way of setting the record straight, telling the shameful true story of Andrew Branfill.

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C5627135 A link re court case in 1714.

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N13658300 Link to family deeds 1591 - 1766 and Estate papers 1781 - 1798

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/N13993288 Link re deeds c1150-19th cent, estate papers 1580-1874, family papers 15th-19th cent Branfill and Braund families

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