The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions

Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., F.R.S., Pres. R.G.S. , President. The Right Hon. The Lord Stanley of Alderley, Vice-President. Rear-Admiral Sir William Wharton, K.C.B., Vice-President. Commr. B. M. Chambers, R.N. C. Raymond Beazley, M.A. Colonel G. Earl Church. Sir W. Martin Conway. F. H. H. Guillemard, M.A., M.D. Edward Heawood, M.A. Dudley F. A. Hervey, C.M.G. E. F. Im Thurn, C.B., C.M.G. J. Scott Keltie, LL.D. F. W. Lucas. A. P. Maudslay. E. J. Payne, M.A. Howard Saunders. H. W. Trinder. Charles Welch, F.S.A. William Foster, B.A., Honorary Secretary .


OUR Englishmen are known to have visited Angola towards the close of the sixteenth century, namely, Thomas Turner, Andrew Towres, Anthony Knivet and Andrew Battell. All four were taken by the Portuguese out of English privateers in South-American waters, and spent years of captivity as prisoners of war; happy, no doubt, in having escaped the fate of many of their less fortunate companions, who atoned with their lives for the hazardous proceedings in which they had engaged.
Of Andrew Battell’s history we know nothing, except what may be gathered from his “Adventures,” and an occasional reference to him by his friend, neighbour, and editor, the Rev. Samuel Purchas. He seems to have been a native of Leigh, in Essex, at the present day a mere fishing village by the side of its populous upstart neighbour Southend, but formerly a place of considerable importance. As early as the fifteenth century it could boast of its guild of pilots, working in harmony with a similar guild at Deptford Strond, the men of Leigh taking charge of inward bound ships, whilst Deptford provided pilots to the outward bound. Henry VIII incorporated both guilds as the “Fraternity of the Most Glorious and Indivisible Trinity and of St. Clement;” and in the venerable church of St. Clement, at Leigh, and the surrounding churchyard may still be seen monuments erected in honour of contemporaries of Battell who were Brethren of the Trinity House; among whom are Robert Salmon (born 1567, died 1661) and Robert Chester (died 1632). But there is no tombstone in memory of Andrew Battell; and if a memorial tablet was ever dedicated to him, it must have been removed when the church was renovated in 1837. Nor do the registers of the church afford a clue to Battell’s death, for the earliest of these documents only dates back to the year 1684. At the present time no person of the name of Battell lives at Leigh.