Mick Harper wrote: we emphasise the importance of West Country gentry families in various activities, notably long distance seafaring
Some notes for tangential activity:
Musbury - Ash, for many generations the seat of the Drake family. It was the birthplace of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) whose mother was Elizabeth Drake. - therefore literally the birthplace of a new dynasty that was to be of great importance in British history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musbury
John Drake, although making his home at Mt. Drake, where both he and his son jointly presented to the living of the Musbury Church, was a ship-owner and trader at Exmouth.
http://www.xroyvision.com.au/drake/history/hist10.htm
Walter Raleigh grew up in Hayes Barton, a hamlet between Exmouth and East Budleigh.
In 1569, Raleigh left for France to serve with the Huguenots in the French religious civil wars.
Raleigh proceeded to finish his education in the Inns of Court.
In 1575, he was registered at the Middle Temple.
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Walter_Raleigh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Temple
From 1568, La Rochelle became a centre for the Huguenots, and the city declared itself an independent Reformed Republic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Rochel ... f_Religion
Roger Conant, founder of Salem, Massachusetts and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was born in East Budleigh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Budleigh
Lots of connections!
Edit re Raleigh:
In 1575, he was registered at the Middle Temple. At his trial in 1603, he stated he had never studied law.
If he never studied law at the Middle Temple, presumably he was receiving a different kind of training?
KT?