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Thomas SMYTHE

Thomas SMYTHE[1, 2]

Male 1558 - 1625  (67 years)

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  • Name Thomas SMYTHE  [3
    Born 1558  [1, 3
    Gender Male 
    FamilySearch ID L6JD-DKC 
    Reference Number 92021 
    _UID EDDD55C1E4AA4442993D81B0101269D25831 
    Died 4 Sep 1625  Ashford, County Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 3
    Buried Saint John The Baptist Church, Sutton-At-Hone, County Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Person ID I29309  Carney Wehofer 2024 Genealogy
    Last Modified 2 Jan 2023 

    Father Sir Thomas "Customer" SMYTHE,   b. Abt 1525, Corsham, Wiltshire, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 7 Jun 1591, Westenhanger, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age ~ 66 years) 
    Mother Alice JUDD,   b. 25 Jun 1535, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Bef 21 Jun 1593, London, England Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 57 years) 
    Married Abt 1553  England Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    Family ID F2477  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • Name Prefix: Sir
      Sir Thomas Smythe (1558-1625) - The son was therefore the namesake of a very powerful and well connected family. He also must have been quite brilliant. The deeds of both father and son seemed to ge combined but the son did have several notable accomplishments which can be attributed to him. In 1588, he lent ?31,000 to Queen Elizabeth and raised the necessary funds for her to finance the English fleet which would destroy the Spanish Armada.

      He was the Governor (Director) of the very successful and famous East India Company which contributed vast revenues to England after 1609. He was a member ofthe Levant Company, organized the Bermuda and Hudson Companies. He incorporated the Turkey Company in 1581, was a member of the Russian Company in 1587, succeeded his father as Master of Customs in 1591, sent exploratory ships to East India.

      In 1596, he was knighted for bravery by Lord Essex at Cadiz, and served as sheriff of London from 1600-1601.

      Smythe also served with Essex in Ireland in 1599, and was an acknowleded friend of his. This friendship would lead Smythe to the Tower of London with Essex in 1600 because he apparently had pledged to support Essex in London with 1,000 men, but apparently reniged at the last moment. While Essex was beheaded, Smythe was released. Smythe became the Governor of the East India Company at this time, and the new King James I knightedSir Thomas Smythe at the Tower of London in 1603. He was soon appointed to many commissions, was generally recognized as the best business man in England, and made Treasurer of the London Company of Virginia.

      Sir Thomas Smythe is buried in St. John the Baptist Church at
      Sutton-at-Hone,Kent. It is located aboutone mile east of the M-25 (the
      beltway around London). The effigy of Sir Thomas in alabaster exhibits
      a family likeness to that of his father (The Customer) in Ashford. As
      you enter the church, you see a mound of soil on each side,and according
      to the Vicar,contains the remains of plague victims. It is believed by
      some that Sir Thomas died of the plague also. Marie Gay



      Washington map Society member Douglas McNaughton recently traveled to the
      Canadian north in an effort to retrace the last voyage of Henry Hudson and to
      reconcile it with a mysterious Dutch chart that appeared immediately after
      the return of Hudson's mutineers to England.

      By Douglas McNaughton

      On September 1611 the bark Discovery sailed in among an English fishing
      fleet off the Southwest coast of Ireland like a ghost ship. At first no
      fisherman would venture anywhere near the tattered vessel in answer to the
      mournful cries of her meager crew. The ship had last been seen in April 1610
      when it left England under the command of Henry Hudson, master navigator and
      explorer. Twenty-two men, including Hudson and his son John, had left
      England. A year later onlysix souls called from the Discovery's deck for
      help, and the group did not include Hudson, his son, or any of his
      experienced Arctic seamen.
      For centuries many thought Hudson made TABVLA NAVTICA, but practically
      nothing from Hudson's voyage appears on this map (the first printing appeared
      in a 1611 book by Hessel Gerritsz). The Dutch text on the verso states that
      the mutiny occurred on the west coast of the (Hudson) bay at around 63
      degrees. This location was independently confirmed in 1612 by the voyages of
      Captains Button and Ingram, who sailed across the bay with two of the
      surviving mutineers. More than 250 years later, English historians began to
      create different locations for the mutiny, some seven hundred miles away, as
      part of the Victorian mythology about Hudson.
      The six survivors claimed to be innocent victims of a bloodless mutiny led by
      a hungry passenger who had taken over the ship and forced Hudson into another
      boat in the icy Northwest Passage. The survivors said that during the mutiny
      they were either asleep or [3]

  • Sources 
    1. [S104] http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/3778/ancestor.html, (http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/3778/ancestor.html).

    2. [S429] GEDCOM File : ~AT6343.ged.

    3. [S22] Myrlene Jack.

    4. [S1160] FamilySearch Family Tree (http://www.familysearch.org), The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ((http://www.familysearch.org)), accessed 2 Jan 2023), entry for Thomas "Customer" SMYTHE, person ID LJG2-J9F. (Reliability: 3).