Person    | Male  Born 1540  Died 27/1/1596

Sir Francis Drake

Categories: Exploring, Race Issues, Seriously Famous

Countries: Panama

Sea captain, explorer and pirate. Born in Crowndale, near Tavistock, Devon. He spent his formative years in the house of his cousin Sir John Hawkins and by 1565 was voyaging to Guinea and the Spanish Main. In 1572 he plundered on the Isthmus of Panama and became the first Englishman to see the Pacific Ocean. His famous circumnavigation of the globe took place from 1577 to 1580. He played a leading part in harassing the Spanish Armada as it passed through the English Channel. Died of dysentery at Porto Bello, Panama.

Drake and Hawkins were England's first slavers. As early as 1560 they entered the slave trade, travelled to West Africa to buy men and women for onward transportation to the West Indies where they were sold to the Spanish as slaves.

2023: LBC reported: "Sir Francis Drake Primary School to be renamed over slave trading past following BLM protests".

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Sir Francis Drake

Commemorated ati

Imperial Hotel - statue 06 - Drake

This statue is surely modelled on the Boehm statue of Drake erected at Tavist...

Read More

Sir Francis Drake

Sir Francis Drake In 1581 Queen Elizabeth I commanded that Francis Drake's sh...

Read More

Show all 6

Other Subjects

John Lane

John Lane

Role on the lost expedition: Officer on SS Terror. See John Franklin.

Person, Exploring, Tragedy

1 memorial
Thomas Tadman

Thomas Tadman

Role on the lost expedition: Able seaman on SS Erebus. See John Franklin.

Person, Exploring, Tragedy

1 memorial
Sir Henry Morton Stanley

Sir Henry Morton Stanley

Explorer and journalist, born as John Rowlands at Denbigh, Wales. Illegitimate and brought up in a workhouse, he sailed to America as a cabin boy in 1859. He befriended a trader called Henry Hope S...

Person, Exploring, Journalism / Publishing, Race Issues, Seriously Famous, Africa, USA, Wales

1 memorial
Philip Reddington

Philip Reddington

Role on the lost expedition: Petty officer on SS Erebus. See John Franklin.

Person, Exploring, Tragedy

1 memorial
Frederick Hornby

Frederick Hornby

Role on the lost expedition: Officer on SS Terror. See John Franklin.

Person, Exploring, Tragedy

1 memorial

Previously viewed

Ivy Molly Bolton

Ivy Molly Bolton

Known as Molly. Bolton joined the Fabian Society in 1916, and became private secretary to Beatrice and Sidney Webb. She then became secretary of the Fabian Local Government and Research Bureau, an...

Person, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
George Furness

George Furness

Contractor responsible for the construction of the Northern Outfall Sewer in 1862-3.

Person, Engineering

1 memorial
Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Writer. Born Aldous Leonard Huxley in Godalming, Surrey, the son of Leonard Huxley. He wrote nearly fifty books, the best known of which are: 'Eyeless in Gaza', 'Antic Hay' and 'Brave New World'. I...

Person, Literature, USA

1 memorial