Stephen Borough

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Stephen Borough (including Steven and Burrough , Burrowe or Borrows * 25. September 1525 in Northam , Devonshire ; † 12. July 1584 in Chatham , Kent ) was an English navigator and explorer who in 1556 as the first Western Europeans the Kara Strait reached.

In 1553 he sailed as a master of the Edward Bonaventure with his younger brother William under the command of Richard Chancellor . The ship was one of three an expedition led by Hugh Willoughby , which was looking for a northern sea route to India and Cathay on behalf of English merchants . The ships were soon separated in the storm. Borough managed to sail as far as the mouth of the Northern Dvina in the White Sea . From here Chancellor traveled overland to the court of Ivan the Terrible in Moscow and made his first direct trade contacts. The crew of the other two ships died during the winter on the Murman coast .

In 1556, the Muscovy Company , which had now been founded, equipped another voyage of discovery that was to look for the Northeast Passage . The command of this expedition with the Serchethrift was given to Stephen Borough, who was again accompanied by his brother. In the mouth of the Kola River , he took a two-week break and joined a fleet of Pomorian ships that sailed to the Pechora estuary to hunt walruses . Here he continued his way alone, came to the coast of Novaya Zemlya and landed on the island of Waigach . There he found a pomor who was ready to show him the way to the mouth of the Ob in the Kara Sea . The Kara Strait was filled with sea ​​ice , so that Borough postponed the attempt to cross it until the coming year and sailed to Cholmogory for the winter . Here, however, he was instructed to return to England instead and on the lookout for three lost Company ships. Among them was Edward Bonaventure , commanded by Chancellor . Borough found out that one of the ships, the Bona Confidentia , had sunk off Lapland . He only found out about Chancellor's shipwreck and death off Scotland in London.

During this expedition he also met the indigenous people of the Kola Peninsula , the Sami , and in 1557 wrote down the first known word list of a Sami language . It was published by Richard Hakluyt in 1589 .

In 1560 Borough led the Swallow and two other merchant ships to Russia. On the way back he brought Antony Jenkinson , who had made an extensive trip to the Caspian Sea for the company , back to England. The following year he brought him back to Russia, from where Jenkinson went to Persia . In 1563 Queen Elizabeth I appointed Stephen Borough chief pilot of the royal ships on the River Medway . He remained in the service of the Queen until his death in 1584 and was buried at Chatham.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Borough, Steven . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 4 : Bishārīn - Calgary . London 1910, p. 268 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  2. ^ William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 2 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 713 f . (English, limited preview in Google Book Search - no page viewing).
  3. ^ William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 1 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 95 f . (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  4. ↑ John Abercromby: The earliest list of Russian Lapp words . In: Suomalais-ugrilaisen Seuran Aikakauskirja . tape 13 , no. 2 , 1895, p. 1-8 .
  5. ^ JA Wagner: Historical Dictionary of the Elizabethan World: Britain, Ireland, Europe and America. 1999, p. 37.
personal data
SURNAME Borough, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Burrough, Stephen; Burrowe, Stephen; Burrow, Stephen; Borough, Steven; Burrough, Steven; Burrowe, Steven; Borrows, Steven; Burrow, Steven
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English navigator and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1525
PLACE OF BIRTH Northam , Devonshire
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1584
Place of death Chatham , Kent