Sir Hugh Willoughby
(d.1554)

navigator and Knight Bachelor (from 1544)

Died aged unknown

Sir Hugh Willoughby (fl. 1544; died 1554) was an English soldier and an early Arctic voyager. He served in the court of Henry VIII and fought in the Scottish campaign where he was knighted for his valour. In 1553, he was selected by a company of London merchants to lead a fleet of three vessels in search of a Northeast Passage. Willoughby and the crews of two ships died on the voyage while the third vessel Edward Bonaventure, under the command of Richard Chancellor, went on to open a successful, long-lasting trading arrangement with Russia.

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Commemorated on 1 plaque

This tablet is in memory of Sir Hugh Willoughby, Stephen Borough, William Borough, Sir Martin Frobisher and other navigators who in the latter half of the sixteenth century set sail from this reach of the River Thames near Ratcliff Cross to explore the northern seas

King Edward Memorial Park, Shadwell, Tower Hamlets, E1, London, United Kingdom where they set sail