FOWELL, John (1623-77), of Washbourne, Harberton, Devon.

John Fowell is to be distinguished from his namesake cousin, the son of Edmund Fowell*, because both John Fowells appear to have gone to the Middle Temple.18MTR ii. 982; iii. 1078. In June 1643, ‘John Fowell’, a member of the Plymouth committee, reported to Parliament on the attacks launched on the town by Sir Ralph Hopton*, but this is more likely to be a mistake for Edmund, the town clerk there, than either of the two Johns.19Bodl. Nalson XI, f. 276. The first certain indication of what John Fowell was doing in the civil war comes at the end of August 1643, when John the son of Sir Edmund, a student at the Middle Temple, is noted as applying to Parliament for a pass to visit Geneva.20CJ iii. 222b. The pass was granted, and the destination speaks loudly of the Fowells’ conservative, Calvinist, puritanism. Thereafter, Fowell disappears from public view until after the New Model army had pushed into Devon in the last months of 1645.

In January 1646, a regiment was raised from the four hundreds of the county in the South Hams by ‘Col. Fowel’. This is more likely to have been John Fowell than either his father or Edmund Fowell*. The notional military experience of John Fowell’s father, as colonel of the Plymouth town regiment, probably suggests that it was he rather than his namesake, son of the Plymouth town clerk, who was in military command. The regiment was a county regiment, not a regular regiment of the New Model, but Fowell’s commission was granted by Sir Thomas Fairfax*. A number of the gentry declared themselves willing to raise regiments, but Fowell’s was the only one to be mobilized in the South Hams. An excitable press reported how ‘the countrymen expressed much joy and professed all willingness to serve, every man, and to quit their princely cage for old English country liberty’.21Moderate Intelligencer no. 48 (29 Jan.-4 Feb. 1646), 280 (E.320.11). Fowell’s regiment consisted of 1,000 men and was intended to keep the royalists out of the South Hams; it was then deployed in the siege of Exeter, augmenting the main army.22Perfect Diurnal no. 131 (26 Jan.-2 Feb. 1646), 1053 (E.506.4); Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 99. Once Exeter surrendered in April 1646, Fowell’s regiment was superfluous and he must have resigned his commission by 1647. The ‘John Fouell’ in the parliamentarian army in 1647 who remained on active service at least until 1650 must have been another.23CJ vii. 710b, 711a.

Fowell was named to the Devon commission of the peace in 1652, but his membership did not survive the interruption of the Rump Parliament by Oliver Cromwell*. He recovered his place in 1657, but did not attend a meeting of quarter sessions before 1658.24Devon RO, QS order bk. 1/9. When the pre-1653 arrangements for elections were restored, he was elected to sit for Ashburton in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament on the family’s interest in that area. He was named to only two committees. One was the important committee for privileges, with his kinsman Edmund Fowell and a number of other fellow Devonians (28 Jan.); the other was the committee examining the case of the exiled Thomas Howard, 23rd earl of Arundel, as to whether he should be allowed to enter the country and whether or not he was a protestant.25CJ vii. 594b, 632a. Unlike his kinsman, who spoke volubly and to good effect in this Parliament as a respected legislator, John Fowell is not known to have made any speeches at all.

Like Edmund Fowell, John Fowell added his name to the address to the Speaker in January 1660 which called for the return of the Secluded Members.26Som. RO, DD Baker 9/3/3. He was returned again for Ashburton both to the Convention and the Cavalier Parliament. He won the approval of George Monck*, 1st duke of Albemarle, acquiring a reversion of the vice-admiralship in 1661 and the office itself in 1666.27Vice Admirals of the Coast, 13. His brief civil war military experience was tacitly recognized in 1661 when he was made governor of Dartmouth, a post he kept until his death. He was active in the court interest during the Dartmouth by-election of 1667.28CSP Dom. 1666-7, pp. 379, 438, 440, 450, 459, 473. He was active as a vice-admiral of the coast in recruiting seamen for the navy in 1672, notionally for use against the French.29CSP Dom. 1671-2, pp. 346, 383, 402, 456. He inherited Fowelscombe and the baronetcy from his father in 1674, but died only three days after his mother, in January 1677.30CSP Dom. 1676-7, p. 500; HMC Buccleuch, i. 324. Fowell’s son, Sir John Fowell, sat for Totnes in 1689 and 1690 and died unmarried in 1692.