George Peckham (merchant)

Sir George Peckham (died 1608) was an English merchant venturer.

Life

He was third son of Sir Edmund Peckham. George succeeded to the paternal estate at Denham, and was knighted in 1570.

In 1572 he was appointed High Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire. In 1574 he, together with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Richard Grenville, and Christopher Carleill, petitioned the queen to allow them an expedition into unknown lands. In the enterprise, which finally took form in 1583, Peckham alongside Thomas Gerard was the chief adventurer, Gilbert assigning to him large grants of land and liberty of trade. In November 1583 he published A True Reporte.^[1] A major factor behind this plan was to allow Catholics to emigrate following the increase of fines imposed on those who failed to attend Anglican services in 1581.^[2]

Whether by unsuccessful ventures or otherwise, he afterwards became embarrassed in his circumstances, and in 1595 the estate and manor of Denham came to the queen by reason of his debt to the crown. They were conferred on William Bowyer. He died in 1608. He married, in 1554, Susan, daughter and heiress of Henry Webbe. She died in childbed, at the age of seventeen, on 11 December 1555. By a second wife two sons are mentioned: Edmund the elder, who would seem to have predeceased him; and George, who was his heir.

Notes

1. A true reporte of the late discoveries and possession taken . . . of the Newfound-landes . . . Wherein is also breefely sette downe her highnesse lawfull Tytle thereunto, and the great and manifolde commodities that is likely to grow thereby to the whole Realme in generall, and to the adventurers in particular. . . . It is reprinted in Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, iii. 165.
2. Williams, Robert A. (1990), The American Indian in Western Legal Thought, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195050223, OCLC 18948630, 0195050223

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Peckham, George". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.