Sir Francis Drake was an English privateer, navigator, naval hero, politician and civil engineer of the Elizabethan period. He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe (1577 to 1580). Since he left no descendants, the Drake Estate was passed on to his younger brother Thomas.
Sir Francis Drake 1st baronet (1588-1637), son and heir of Thomas Drake, was MP for Plympton, and later Bere Alston and High Sheriff of Devon. The estate was passed down the generations within the Drake family until Sir Francis Henry, 5th baronet, died on 10 February, 1794, without issue. In his will, he bequeathed the Drake estates to his nephew, Francis Augustus Eliott, 2nd Lord Heathfield, son of his sister Anne Pollexfen. He died unmarried in 1813, and the estate was claimed by his nephew, son of his sister Anne, Thomas Trayton Fuller, who took the additional names of Eliott and Drake by royal license.
The 2nd Lord Heathfield died childless so the Drake Estate was passed once again to a nephew, Sir Francis George Augustus Fuller-Eliot-Drake, a captain in the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards.
Sir Francis George Augustus Fuller-Elliott-Drake and John " Mad Jack" Fuller were 1st cousins 2 times removed.
LINE OF INHERITANCE
Admiral Sir Francis Drake
Thomas Drake
Sir Francis Drake 1st Bart
Sir Francis Drake 2nd Bart
Sir Francis Drake 3rd Bart
Sir Francis Henry Drake 4th Bart
Sir Francis Henry Drake 5th Bart
Sir Francis Augustus Eliott, 2nd Lord Heathfield
Sir Thomas Trayton Fuller Eliott Drake 5th Bart
Sir Francis George Augustus Fuller Eliott Drake
Elizabeth Beatrice Fuller Eliott Drake
Captain Richard Owen Tapps-Gervis-Meyrick
(last member of Drake family to live at Buckland Abbey)
