John Mucknell (born 1608 in

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appl ...

, London) was an English pirate in the 17th century. A staunch

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

, he was knighted and appointed as a Vice Admiral by the future Charles II, and licensed as a

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

Biography

Mucknell was born to Catholic parents in Stepney, in the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

, and baptised at St Dunstan's Church in September 1608. He and his wife Elizabeth later lived in the neighbouring parish of Poplar. Mucknell became a ship's commander under the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

, a powerful firm trading between England and the

East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around t ...

. By 1643, Mucknell was unhappy with

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

opinions and set sail on the ''John'', a new East India Company 44-gun ship, bound for

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. After marooning his enemies on a small island called

Johanna Johanna is a feminine name, a variant form of Joanna that originated in Latin in the Middle Ages, including an -h- by analogy with the Latin masculine name Johannes. The original Greek form ''Iōanna'' lacks a medial /h/ because in Greek /h/ cou ...

, among the

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in the north end of the

Mozambique Channel The Mozambique Channel (french: Canal du Mozambique, mg, Lakandranon'i Mozambika, pt, Canal de Moçambique) is an arm of the Indian Ocean located between the Southeast African countries of Madagascar and Mozambique. The channel is about long ...

, Mucknell sailed first to

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

and then to the Isles of Scilly. There, Mucknell united and took control of local pirates and the ''John'' became the flagship. There were about 11 ships in the group. Mucknell operated in the English Channel and the Western Approaches between 1644 and 1651.

Legacy

There are three extant first hand accounts from crew members of the ''John''. Todd Stevens, a shipwreck hunter, claims to have found the wreck of the ''John''. English Heritage announced plans to dive the wreck in June 2012. Stevens has written a book on the subject of Mucknell, ''The Pirate John Mucknell and the Hunt for the Wreck of the John''.

References

External links

The ''John'' at Islands Maritime Archaeological Group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mucknell, John 17th-century English people English pirates 17th-century pirates 1608 births Year of death unknown People from Stepney