LOVELL, John.

It has not been established which of a number of west-country namesakes was the Dartmouth MP. Though he would have been old by Elizabethan standards, and very old to have represented a borough for the first time, it is tempting to identify the Member as the second son of William Lovell (d.1524), of Tarrant Rawston by Elizabeth, da. of William Twynihoe of Frome, Som. He married Editha, wid. of John Warner, and had by her two sons and three daughters.1Genealogist, n.s. iii. 97; Hutchins, Dorset, i. 325.

This man was a sea captain whose family held property at Chaldon, Dorset, from the 2nd Earl of Bedford. If he was the man returned, he can only have attended the first session of the 1563 Parliament as in 1565-6 he sailed on a slaving voyage to Guinea (taking Francis Drake with him), returning to Plymouth only by September 1567. No later reference to him has been found.2PCC 53 Pyckering, 43 Wrastley, 40 Bakon; VCH Dorset, ii. 28 n; PRO Lists and Indexes, xxi. 125; J. A. Williamson, John Hawkins of Plymouth, 93-9; Cal. Proc. Chancery Q. Eliz. iii. 304.