13 Facts About John Pory

John Pory was educated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; he earned his bachelor's degree in 1592 and his Masters in 1595.

In 1607 John Pory travelled through France and the Low Countries, and was involved in a plan to introduce silkworm breeding to England.

In 1619, John Pory travelled to the barely decade old English colony in Virginia as secretary to the new governor, Sir George Yeardley.

Yeardley convened what would be the first session of the Virginia General Assembly in Jamestown, after he and John Pory agreed upon an agenda and convened to burgesses from each town.

John Pory explored Chesapeake Bay by boat in 1620, but in 1624 returned to England and settled in London permanently.

Early in his career, around 1597, John Pory became an associate and protege of the geographer and author Richard Hakluyt; Hakluyt later termed John Pory his "very honest, industrious, and learned friend".

John Pory was a friend of Sir Robert Cotton, William Camden, Sir Dudley Carleton, and other members their circles.

In London from the early 1620s on, John Pory helped Nathaniel Butter, who was creating news periodicals for the English public.

In some respects, John Pory was the first to do what many modern public figures do, moving among official posts, journalism, and positions in the private sector.

John Pory accumulated a wide range of acquaintances with people in a range of positions and locations, and maintained a vigorous letter-writing correspondence with influential people during his later years.

John Pory describes, among other things, the last hours of Sir Walter Raleigh, and brawls between nobles at the Blackfriars Theatre.

John Pory's maternal uncle Robert Ball was a fellow Cambridge alumni, of Caius College.

The John Pory family sold Butters Hall or Buttort in Thompson, Norfolk, to the Futter family in 1590, after having been a prominent family in the neighbourhood for the whole century.