Bartholomew Gosnold

Bartholomew Gosnold (1571 – 22 August 1607) was an English barrister, explorer and privateer who was instrumental in founding the Virginia Company in London and Jamestown in colonial America. He led the first recorded European expedition to Cape Cod. He is considered by Preservation Virginia (formerly known as the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities) to be the "prime mover of the colonization of Virginia". Early life and family Gosnold was born in Grundisburgh in Suffolk, England, in 1571, and his family seat was at Otley Hall, Otley, Suffolk. His parents were Anthony Gosnold of Grundisburgh and Dorothy Bacon of Hessett. Henry Gosnold, the judge and friend of Francis Bacon, was his cousin. Bartholomew had a younger brother Anthony, born sometime between 1573 and 1578, who accompanied him to Virginia as well as a cousin also named Anthony Gosnold who was still living in Virginia in 1615. In 1578, the will of Bartholomew's great-grandmother Ann Doggett (Bacon) Gosnold shows five sisters to Bartholomew and Anthony. Gosnold graduated from Jesus College at the University of Cambridge and studied law at the Middle Temple. It was probably at Cambridge that he met John Brereton a friend who accompanied him on his 1602 voyage to New England, becoming the first Englishmen to land on that coastline. He was also a friend of Richard Hakluyt and sailed with Walter Raleigh. He married Mary Goldinge, daughter of Robert Goldinge of Bury St Edmunds and his wife Martha Judd, at Latton, Essex, in 1595. Mary's mother, Martha, was daughter of Sir Andrew Judd a wealthy London merchant who, among other offices, was Lord Mayor of London, 1550–51. More importantly for Gosnold's story, Sir Andrew Judd was also grandfather to Thomas Smith, one of the founders of the Virginia Company. "Bartholomew's marriage, which has the appearance of one arranged with foresight, brought together a young man of high standing among the landed gentry and a young lady whose antecedents were found chiefly among the wealthier merchants of the city of London." Together, Bartholomew and Mary Gosnold had seven children, six of whom were baptized at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, between 1597 and 1607.