Augustine Warner

Who was Augustine Warner?

Augustine Warner, was born in Norwich, Norfolk, to Thomas Warner and Elizabeth Sotherton. He was the progenitor of the Augustine Warner Family, who arrived in Virginia in 1628 at the age of seventeen, one of a group of thirty-four brought in by Adam Thoroughgood. His first land acquisition came 7 years later when he patented 250 acres.

Continuing the typical pattern of seventeenth-century success in Virginia as a merchant, investor in land, and statesman, he rose through the colonial hierarchy to become a member of the House of Burgesses in 1652 and then in 1659 a member of the King's Council, which he held until his death. About 1657, he moved across the York River to Gloucester County, where he settled and built the first house at Warner Hall.

Augustine Warner died in 1674, at sixty-three, and was succeeded at Warner Hall by his only son, Augustine Warner, Jr.. After his English education in London and at Cambridge, the younger Augustine Warner returned to Virginia, and soon, by 1666, became a member of the House of Burgesses, and then Speaker of the House in 1676. In 1677 he took his seat on the King's Council, but his career was cut short by his early death in 1681 at the age of thirty-nine.