Difference between revisions of "Sir John Barham"
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Sir Johnathan Bertrand [[Barham]] was an English nobleman and Sea Captain from Lancashire who first sighted, logged, and recorded the island that was to become the [[Freethinker]] [[Mainland]] on the 17th of July 1654 whilst making sail for South America. | Sir Johnathan Bertrand [[Barham]] was an English nobleman and Sea Captain from Lancashire who first sighted, logged, and recorded the island that was to become the [[Freethinker]] [[Mainland]] on the 17th of July 1654 whilst making sail for South America. | ||
Revision as of 09:23, 13 October 2004
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Sir Johnathan Bertrand Barham was an English nobleman and Sea Captain from Lancashire who first sighted, logged, and recorded the island that was to become the Freethinker Mainland on the 17th of July 1654 whilst making sail for South America.
Born into a family of famous adventurers, Barham soon became involved in similar exploits. Learning to sail in the Irish sea, he reportedly boasted to have survived no less than 'three shipwrecks' before he turned 20. Making his name transporting colonists to the New World and mapping large parts of the African and South American coast, he soon become a favourite of the English Court and also wrote a very self-flattering book detailing his adventures. After discovering what was to become Mainland, his return to England saw his advocacy of returning to establish a base for the navy on the Northern coast. His words were heeded by both the English and the Spanish.
During the course of his career he made no less than a dozen stopovers at Pebble Landing, and soon began to truely like the place, despite the barren landscape, which he slowly began to view as something beautiful rather than desolute, and upon his retirement from the sea, he settled down on an estate several miles west of Pebble Landing. However, during the 'War Of The Mainland' between the English and Spanish colonists, he returned to the ocean to command the small Colonial Navy to some surprising victories in the conflict, and was present at the surrender of Navarre in 1672. He was now a hero in both the Mainland and at home in England.
Unfortunately, eight years later at the age of 67, on 1st April 1680, Barham fell victim to an outbreak of the Plague after visiting Navarre, now the colony's Capital, on business. He was survived by two sons, Jacob and Joshua, and in his will left a considerable some of money to establish a 'School of the Navy' at Navarre. Ten years later, it was completed, and the building survives to this day as the Freethinker Naval College.
