William Strachey

William Strachey
Esquire[1]
Born4 April 1572
DiedAugust 1621 (aged 49)
Burial placeSt Giles' Church, Camberwell
Occupation(s)Adventurer, chronicler, secretary
Notable workTrue Reportory (1610), The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia (1619)
Spouse(s)Frances Forster
Dorothy (surname unknown)
Children2
Parent(s)William Strachey
Mary Cooke
FamilyJohn Strachey (geologist) (great-grandson)
Signature

William Strachey (4 April 1572 – buried 16 August 1621) was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America. He is best remembered today as the eye-witness reporter of the 1609 shipwreck on the uninhabited island of Bermuda of the colonial ship Sea Venture, which was caught in a hurricane while sailing to Virginia. The survivors eventually reached Virginia after building two small ships during the ten months they spent on the island. His account of the incident and of the Virginia colony is thought by most Shakespearean scholars to have been a source for Shakespeare's play The Tempest.

  1. ^ Fausz, J. Frederick. “An ‘Abundance of Blood Shed on Both Sides’: England’s First Indian War, 1609-1614.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 98, no. 1, 1990, pp. 3–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4249117. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.