Francis Corbin

Francis Corbin (1759/60-May 23, 1821) was a Virginia lawyer, planter and politician, who represented Middlesex County in the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Ratifying Convention and later moved to Caroline County. Early and family life The youngest son of Richard Corbin and his wife Elizabeth (Betty) Tayloe, was born to the First Families of Virginia. Both his paternal and maternal ancestors had emigrated from England and become gentry in the Virginia colony (many serving in the House of Burgesses and some including his father since his childhood on the Governor's Advisory Council and others only holding local office) as they also operated plantations using enslaved labor. He received a private education appropriate to his class. In 1773 his family sent him to England to complete his studies, and he probably attended schools at Canterbury and Cambridge. He was admitted to study law at the Inner Temple on January 23, 1777, but found himself unable to return home during the American Revolution. He petitioned the King in 1779 for financial assistance because his Loyalist father could no longer do so. Career