Featuring:
Important events that set the context for Poole’s development, especially in England, Europe and Newfoundland;
Key dates and events in the lives of the featured three mariners; Button, Bennett and Rogers; and
Periods of hostility and war in England and elsewhere; developments in Poole; and in the economic condition. (See banners across the page)
1565
Thomas Button is Born
1568
Elizabeth I grants charter to Poole
Picture of extract of Elizabeth 1st Charter to Poole – courtesy of Poole History Online Town and County of Poole created (including Admiral and Admiral’s Court); one of only 16 such locations in the country.
1574
Just 1373 people lived in Poole.
1577
French and Spanish piracy troubling Elizabeth’s diplomacy
1578
Elizabeth I appoints Commissioners to deal with problems in Poole’s waters – Mayor, recorder and four others
Francis Rogers of Poole implicated in piracy; brother Sir Richard Rogers protects him.
1580
Drake returns to Plymouth after circumnavigation of world
1581
43 pirate vessels seized by Royal Navy ships off Dorset
1583
Gilbert claims Newfoundland
for Queen Elizabeth I
Nine pirates hanged on Studland beach
1584
Sir Walter Raleigh founds Virginia
1585 – 1600
Poole’s Newfoundland interests grow
Poole’s herd of cows led out onto heath every day
Poole’s port imports exceed exports
1585
Button enters naval service
1586
Privy Council hands powers of country to Poole to defend its waters
1588
Poole cannot afford to donate to Armada fleet
Drake defeats the Spanish Armada1596
English fleet sacks Cadiz
1600 – 1612
Poole’s tobacco pipe trade begins
Seasonal fishing camps in Newfoundland
1600
French fur traders establish colony in Canada
1603
Elizabeth I dies, James I crowned
1604
England makes peace with Spain
1605
Gunpowder Plot
1608
Henry Hudson searches for the North West Passage
1611
Henry Hudson marooned by mutineers
1612
Button commands search for North West Passage
Pirate Eston raids Newfoundland fishery
1612 – 1638
Newfoundland important to Poole but piracy a problem, convoys tried but some years no boats go out
1613
Button returns to England
1614
Mainwaring (English Barbary pirate) raids Newfoundland fishery
1615
Coal: a cheaper substitute for firewood
1616
Button knighted
1618 – 1648
Thirty Years’ war involving most European states
1618
Calvert attempts settlement in Avalon, Newfoundland
1620
Button sails in Algiers raid
Pilgrim Fathers’ Mayflower arrives at Cape Cod
Poole has four Inns, 18 alehouses
1624
Tobacco gains popularity
1625
James I dies; Charles I crowned
1626
Poole’s first pipe clay coastal shipping recorded
1628 – 1670
Growth in pipe clay movements by sea from Poole
Tension between early settlers (planters) and fishermen in Newfoundland
1630
England makes peace with France and Spain
1632
‘Fame’ wrecked in Swash Channel
1634
Button dies (68)
Charles I re-introduces Ship Money taxes to support the national defences
1640
Massachusetts Bay colonists grow rich on cod fishing
1641
First sugar factory built in Barbados
1642
Poole takes the side of Parliament in the civil wars
1643
Royalists attack Poole but are defeated
1644
Battle of Marston Moor; victory for Oliver Cromwell
1645
Henry Harding’s perambulation – The ‘Beating’ of the Bounds Ceremony in Poole
1649
Charles I beheaded
1651
English civil wars end
1653
Oliver Cromwell proclaimed Lord Protector
George Fox founder of Quakers visits Poole, several merchants are Quakers
Rum instituted aboard warships to replace beer
1656
War between England and Spain
1660
Poole’s Coastal shipping grows
Charles II and the monarchy restored
1660 – 1685
Government policy for settlement to begin in Newfoundland
Poole’s Coastal shipping grows
Charles II and the monarchy restored.
1665
English fishery processing described by Yonge
Black Death strikes and 60,000 Londoners die
1666
‘The Great Fire of London’
1670
Settlement accepted in Newfoundland
Growth in demand for Poole’s clay, from London by sea
John Bennett born in Poole
1672
Royal Company founded by England to exploit African slave trade
1676
Slaves purchased in Africa, sold for 10 times as much in America
1679
Woodes Rogers is born
1680 – 1720
Europe enters 40 years period of economic difficulty.
1684
‘The word America’ appears in writing for the first time
1685
Charles II dies
1688
The Glorious Revolution’ William of Orange sent for, to be king
Elizabeth Hyde and her husband pass messages between Mary in the Hague and Prince William of Orange in north Dorset on his march to London
1690
Rogers family moves to Bristol
Dramatic rise in New World Piracy1691
Bennett family moves to Barking
1692 – 1700
Open hostility with French in Newfoundland.
Poole trade suffers.
Population of London said to be 550,000.
1694
Peter Jolliffe receives gold medal from King for capture of French privateer
Bank of England chartered1695
William Thompson also gets gold medal
Bennett sails to Virginia
1696 – 1698
Sir William Whestsome provides protection to Newfoundland convoys and fishery.
4000 people on Newfoundland English shore.
1698
Sir Peter Thompson born (died 1770)
Parliament opens the slave trade to British merchants
1700
Death of Carlos II, king of Spain, causes war of the Spanish Succession
1701
Pirate William Kidd hanged in London
1702
Death of William II; succeeded by Queen Anne, last monarch of the House of Stuart.
1704
British forces capture Gibraltar.
87 High Street built.1707
England and Scotland united to form Great Britain
1708
Bennett sails to Archangel, Russia. Rogers sets off around the world
1711
Rogers returns a national hero.
British troops attack French in Canada1712
Bennett sails in the Cape.
1713 – Onwards
Treaty of Utrecht declared , peace reigns in Europe, international trade flourishes, piracy falls away.
Purbeck stone shipped from Poole in increasing quantity.
1713
Treaty of Utrecht declared, Newfoundland becomes a British colony.
1714
Death of Queen Anne; King George I crowned
1715
Death of Louis XIV of France
1717
John Bennett dies at age 47
1718
Bank of England issues Bank notes.
Rogers sets off for Nassau with 150 men at arms
1719
Edward Teach ‘Blackbeard’ killed in North Carolina
1721
Rogers returns penniless from the Bahamas
1726
The first school established in Newfoundland
1727
End of Piracy’s ‘Golden Age’
Quakers object to slave trade1728
Rogers goes out again to Bahamas as Royal Governor
1732
Rogers dies aged 53 in New Providence Nassau, Bahamas.