Background
He was born in 1572 at Thompston, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom, son of William Pory of Butters Hall.
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book
John Pory's Lost Description of Plymouth Colony in the Earliest Days of the Pilgrim Fathers, Together with Contemporary Accounts of English Colonization Elsewhere in New England and in the Bermudas
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John Pory
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Education
After being graduated B. A. (1591/92) and M. A. (1595) at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, he studied "cosmographie and forren histories" (c. 1597 - 1600) under Richard Hakluyt. In 1610 he was incorporated M. A. at Oxford.
Career
He translated and published A Geographical Historie of Africa, Written in Arabicke and Italian by John Leo, a More (1600), adding notes and other original matter. From 1605 through 1610, during which period he represented Bridgewater in Parliament, he resided in London; but he had a wandering foot which his earlier studies had doubtless quickened, and in 1611 he obtained license to travel.
The next seven years he spent chiefly abroad, in Ireland, Europe, and the East, as a traveler or as an attaché in several embassies. He was ever a copious correspondent, and his gossipy, graphic, and detailed, if sometimes turgid, letters to various distinguished acquaintances have provided valuable information for subsequent historians. Although a patentee under the royal charter of 1609, he first landed in Virginia on April 19, 1619, having been appointed secretary of state for the colony by the London Council through the influence of Gov. George Yeardley, who had married Pory's first cousin.
When the first legislative assembly of the new world met at Jamestown, July 30, 1619, Pory, already a member of the governor's council, was elected its speaker. Despite impaired health, he filled this role with such industry and skill as to evoke a handsome tribute from Yeardley.
During his remaining residence in the colony he not only made himself useful as parliamentarian and scribe but also conducted several important explorations and voyages of discovery. In June 1621, however, the London Company voted not to renew his commission as secretary, doubtless largely because Yeardley and Sandys suspected him of dividing his allegiance between Rich's faction and their own. In the summer of 1622 he left Virginia in the Discovery for an exploratory trading voyage along the New England coast, but some time after visiting Plymouth was driven off his course and wrecked on the Azores. Captured by the Spaniards, he was reputedly in danger of hanging, but escaped or was released and returned to England.
Late in 1623 the Privy Council chose him to publish in Virginia certain of their recent orders, and likewise appointed him a member of the investigating commission whose report of conditions in the colony immediately preceded the recall of the letters patent of the London Company and the resumption of crown control. He served on the Virginia Commission in July 1624 and continued a member in England of the council for Virginia, but never afterwards returned to America.
He died at Sutton St. Edmund, whither he had retired about 1631.
Achievements
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John Pory is widely considered to have been the first news correspondent in English-language journalism. He produced significant documents about the Jamestown colony in Virginia and the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. Pory's extant correspondence provides researchers with a wealth of detail about London and Court society in the period, he describes, among other things, the last hours of Sir Walter Raleigh, and brawls between nobles at the Blackfriars Theatre.
Works
book
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John Pory's Lost Description of Plymouth Colony in the Earliest Days of the Pilgrim Fathers, Together with Contemporary Accounts of English Colonization Elsewhere in New England and in the Bermudas
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
-
John Pory's Lost Description of Plymouth Colony in the Earliest Days of the Pilgrim Fathers, Together with Contemporary Accounts of English Colonization Elsewhere in New England and in the Bermudas
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
Richard Hakluyt termed Pory his "very honest, industrious, and learned friend".
Connections
He never married.
