Thomas Marmaduke

Thomas Marmaduke was an English explorer, sealer, and whaler in the early 17th century.

Career

In a list dated from September 1600 Marmaduke is mentioned as being a younger brother of the Hull Trinity House. He was master of one of the two Hull interlopers sent to Bjørnøya in 1609. It was claimed that in this year, sailing in the Heartsease, he "discovered" Spitsbergen; although there is no evidence for this claim, and the island had already been discovered by the Dutch in 1596. On this claim the merchants of Hull based their rights to fish for whales in Spitsbergen in subsequent decades.

In 1611, Marmaduke was again sent up, this time in the interloper Hopewell of Hull. He hunted walrus, or "sea morses" (as they were called). In July, Marmaduke met with two shallops of the Mary Margaret, a ship sent by the Muscovy Company to hunt whales, in Horn Sound. Their ship had been crushed by ice in or near Cove Comfortless (Engelskbukta), north of Horn Sound. They led him north to the bay in order to salvage their goods. Later, the Elizabeth, Jonas Poole, master and pilot, sailed into the bay and attempted to shift his cargo to enable him to accommodate the goods of the Mary Margaret, but in doing so his ship capsized, forcing the crew of both the Mary Margaret and the Elizabeth to sail home in the Hopewell. In this year or the next he was claimed to have discovered Jan Mayen and named it Trinity Island. There is no cartographical or written evidence for this alleged discovery.