East London adventurer set sail into the great unknown

3:24pm Thursday 11th September 2008

By Claire Hack

Campaigners led by William Wilberforce succeeded in getting the slave trade abolished in 1833. But as CARL BROWN finds out, one notable Leyton resident was working to free hundreds of European slaves as early as the 17th century.

Waltham Forest and the surrounding area is inextricably linked to the abolition of the slave trade.

William Dilwyn, who founded the anti-slavery committee led by William Wilberforce, lived at Higham Lodge in Walthamstow, and Sir Thomas Buxton, the Liberal MP who read the final speech in Parliament which led to the abolition, is buried at St John’s Church in Church Lane, Leytonstone.

But a less-known connection to anti-slavery concerns Sir Thomas Roe, a diplomat in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

Sir Thomas was born in the village of Low Leyton (as Leyton was then called, to distinguish it from Leytonstone), in 1580 or 1581 to a wealthy family connected with the City of London.

Sir Thomas’ grandfather had previously been Lord Mayor and it was probably the family's connection that enabled the Oxford-educated young Sir Thomas to become Esquire to the body of Queen Elizabeth, a rank in the gentry below that of a knight.

The young Leytonian continued to find royal favour following the Queen’s death in 1603, and was knighted by her successor James I.

Sir Thomas became a close friend of Henry, Prince of Wales, who was a close acquaintance of Sir Walter Raleigh, whom he visited during his imprisonment in the Tower of London.

Henry, inspired by Raleigh’s tales of adventures, sent Sir Thomas on a voyage of the West Indies. Sir Thomas instead found the coast of South America, becoming the first man from Europe to sail upon the Amazon. He later made two further voyages to the area.

In 1614, Sir Thomas entered Parliament and it was not long before he went on his travels again. This time, he was appointed Lord Ambassador to the Court of Great Mogul (the chief ruler of India) to help cement the East India Company.

But it was what he saw on another voyage in 1621 that shocked Sir Thomas and helped to shape his political views.

On the way he saw evidence of the depredations of Barbary pirates, who sometimes ventured as far as the shores of England and Ireland to plunder and pillage.

The pirates also captured and enslaved mariners from harbours along the north coast of Africa, including English seamen.

While at the embassy Sir Thomas, mindful of the captives’ plight, helped secure the liberation of about 800 of the English slaves.

On his voyage home Sir Thomas’ ship was attacked by Maltese gallies and he was wounded.

But he survived, and lived until 1644, spending his last years in the House of Commons.

He is buried in St Mary’s Church, in Woodford High Road, where he was by then Lord of the Manor.

One of his contemporaries wrote of Roe: “Those who knew him well have said that there was nothing wanting in him towards the accomplishment of a scholar, gentleman or courtier; that also as he was learned, so he was a great encourager and promoter of learning and learned men.

“His spirit was generous and public, and his heart was faithful tohis prince.”

Historian W H Weston in The Story of Leyton and Leytonstone, written in the 1920s, described Sir Thomas as one of ‘the pioneers of the British Empire’.

He added: “In his character and work Roe carried on the great tradition of Elizabethan times.

“He ranks with such men as Drake, Raleigh, Gilbert and the other great Elizabethan adventurers who first carried their country’s flag across trackless seas and into unknown lands.”