Michael Locke (merchant)
Michael Lok, also Michael Locke, (c.1532 – c.1621) was an English merchant and traveller, and the principal backer of Sir Martin Frobisher's voyages in search of the Northwest Passage. Family Michael Lok was born in Cheapside in London, by his own account in 1532. He was one of the nineteen children, and the youngest of the five surviving sons of Sir William Lok (1480–1550), gentleman usher to Henry VIII and mercer, sheriff and alderman of London, by his second wife, Katherine Cooke (d.1537), daughter of Sir Thomas Cooke of Wiltshire. One of his sisters was the Protestant exile, Rose Lok (1526–1613). His father, Sir William Lok, was the great-great-great-grandfather of the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704). Career He was kept at school until 1545, when he was thirteen, at which time he was sent by his father to Flanders and France 'to learn those languages and to know the world' He spent seven years in Flanders 'following the trade of merchandise', which Williamson sugg ...
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Martin Frobisher
Sir Martin Frobisher (; c. 1535 – 22 November 1594) was an English seaman and privateer who made three voyages to the New World looking for the North-west Passage. He probably sighted Resolution Island near Labrador in north-eastern Canada, before entering Frobisher Bay and landing on present-day Baffin Island. On his second voyage, Frobisher found what he thought was gold ore and carried 200 tons of it home on three ships, where initial assaying determined it to be worth a profit of £5.20 per ton. Encouraged, Frobisher returned to Canada with an even larger fleet and dug several mines around Frobisher Bay. He carried 1,350 tons of the ore back to England, where, after years of smelting, it was realized that the ore was a worthless rock containing the mineral hornblende. As an English privateer, he plundered riches from French ships. He was later knighted for his service in repelling the Spanish Armada in 1588. Early life Martin Frobisher was probably born in 1535 or 1536, ...
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