a planter of Barbados and Governor of Jamaica from 1664 to 1670. Modyford was the son of a mayor of Exeter with family connections to the Duke of Albemarle, who emigrated to Barbados as a young man with other family members in 1647, in the opening stages of the English Civil War. He had £1,000 for a down payment on a plantation and £6,000 to commit in the next three years. Modyford soon was dominant in Barbados island politics, rising to be speaker of the house of assembly in Barbados during the reign of Charles II, and factor for the Royal Adventurers Trading to Africa, who had a monopoly in the slave trade to the islands.
