Vetch's only child, a daughter Alida, born on 25 Dec. 1701, married Samuel Bayard of New York, grandson of Colonel Nicholas Bayard, who was nephew and secretary of Peter Stuyvesant, last Dutch governor of the New Netherlands. Their descendants are numerous.
Vetch's portrait was painted by Sir Peter Lely. It became the property of Mr. James Speyers of New York, with a manuscript journal by Vetch covering the ‘Port Royal period.’ The picture was engraved for the first time as an illustration to Appleton's ‘Cyclopædia of American Biography.’
[Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society for 1884, vol. iv., Halifax, Nova Scotia, 8vo, 1885, contains a Memoir of Samuel Vetch by the Rev. George Patterson, D.D., of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, and also copies of papers connected with Samuel Vetch from the British Museum and Record Office, London; article entitled ‘An Acadian Governor,’ in the International Review for November 1881, by General James Grant Wilson of New York; Gent. Mag. 1732; Journal of the Voyage of the Sloop Mary in 1701, new edit., with introduction and notes by Edmund B. O'Callaghan, Albany, New York, 1866; An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, by Thomas C. Haliburton, Halifax, 1829; History and General Description of New France, by Pierre-François Xavier de Charlevoix, translated with notes by John G. Shea, New York, 1866–72; Parkman's Half-century of Conflict, vol. i.; Archives of Massachusetts, vol. lxxi.; Nicholson's Journal, published originally by authority in the Boston News-letter of November 1710, and reprinted in Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, vol. i.; Report of a Consultation of Sea Officers belonging to the Squadron under the Command of Sir Hovenden Walker, Knt., 25 Aug. 1711 (Record Office); Walker's Journal, London, 1720; Kingsford's History of Canada, vol. ii.; Swift's Journal to Stella; Boyer's History of Queen Anne; Vetch's Journall of a Voyage designed to Quebeck from Boston in New England in July 1711 (Record Office); Calendar of Treasury Papers, vols. 103–227 (1707–20); Nova Scotia Archives; Bradford's New York Gazette, No. 353; Sabine's Lives of the Loyalists.]
VEYSEY or VOYSEY, JOHN, alias HARMAN (1465?–1554), bishop of Exeter, was the eldest child of William Harman of Sutton-Coldfield, Warwickshire (d. 31 May 1470), who married Joan, daughter of Henry Squier of Handsworth, Staffordshire. She survived until 8 March 1523–4. Both of them were buried in the north aisle of Sutton-Coldfield church. The father lived in the old house of Moor or More Hall, and the son was probably born there about 1465. Oxford, he was entered at Magdalen College. In 1482 was elected probationary fellow on 27 July 1486, and actual fellow on 26 July 1487. He took the degree of doctor of laws in 1494.
After leaving Oxford he adopted the patronymic of Veysey or Voysey. Anthony à Wood asserts that he had been educated in infancy by one of that name, probably a member of the family dwelling in Oxfordshire. In 1489 he had a place in the household of Elizabeth of York, consort of Henry VII. He received from Henry VII in 1495, as John Harman, a grant of the free chapel of St. Blaize, standing within the walls of the manor-house at Sutton-Coldfield, which a previous John Harman, perhaps an uncle, had obtained from Henry VI in 1441 or 1442. He was next appointed to the rectory of Clifton Reynes, Buckinghamshire, which he held from 3 March 1495–6 to 1498–9. Afterwards he was, on the presentation of the abbot of St. Werburgh's, instituted to the rectory of St. Mary, Chester, he was archdeacon of Chester from 27 Aug. 1499 to 1515, and he acted from 1498 to 1502 as vicar-general for John Arundel, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and as his chancellor.
Veysey was appointed on 5 Aug. 1503 by Bishop Arundel, when translated to Exeter, to a canonry in that cathedral, and on 19 Nov. 1509 he was confirmed as dean of Exeter, a position which he retained until he was appointed, in 1519, bishop of the diocese. With these posts he held many other preferments, possibly through the patronage of Wolsey, and he read the pope's bull in Westminster Abbey when Wolsey received the cardinal's hat. From 26 April 1507 to 1520 he was vicar of St. Michael's, Coventry, and his name appears as a brother of the Corpus Christi guild in that city until 1518. He was dean of the chapel royal in 1514, and by patent dated 22 Nov. in that year was made canon and prebendary of St. Stephen's, Westminster, holding it until 1518. He was created dean of Windsor by patent on 28 Sept. 1515, holding it until 1519; and from 1516 to 1521 he possessed the deanery of Wolverhampton. He was made registrar of the order of the Garter in 1515, was appointed commissioner in the ‘inquisition of 1517’ on inclosures in Berkshire and six other counties (Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. 1894, viii. 257, 278). He was presented by the king, on 10 July 1518, to the rectory of Meifod in Montgomeryshire.
Through the provision of Leo X, dated 31 Aug. 1519, Veysey was raised to the bishopric of Exeter. The temporalities of the see were restored to him by Henry VIII on 4 Nov. 1519, and he was consecrated by Archbishop Warham at Otford in Kent on 6 Nov.
