The most famous owner of the Merchant's House

Sea captain and merchant

The most famous owner of 33 St Andrews Street has to be William Parker, an Elizabethan adventurer, sea captain and merchant. He was certainly living in the house in 1608 to 1609 and most probably modernised an older house using the profits from his privateering ventures against the Spaniards in the Caribbean.

Parker was probably the master of the Mary Rose, the victualling ship of Sir Francis Drake’s squadron, in the fleet against the Armada in 1588.

Independent adventurer

His first known independent adventure was in November 1596 when he sailed his ship, the Prudence, to Jamaica and Mexico. He sack and looted Puerto de Cavallos but was driven off by the Spaniards from the town of Campeche on Easter Day 1597.

In November 1600 he again took the Prudence and with two other vessels sailed to the West Indies, sacking St Vincent in the Cape Verde Islands on the way. After several adventures they captured two frigates belonging to the Spanish treasure fleet with 10,000 gold ducats on board. Parker then returned to Plymouth in May 1601 and in September of that year became Mayor.

Settling in Plymouth

Although he remained actively involved in patrolling the water between Ushant and the Scilly Isles, from this time on he seems to have settled in Plymouth as a merchant. He took an interest in the colonising of Virginia and was one of the promoters of the Plymouth Company for the colonisation of the North American coast, founded under the Charter from King James I in April 1606.

His final adventure was as second-in-command of a fleet voyaging to the East Indies in 1618. This expedition was led by Thomas Dale who wrote that Parker was 'unfit for his work being old and corpulent'. Parker sent a letter from the Cape of Good Hope in June 1618 asking that £100 be paid to his wife. He died on the voyage going to Bantam, Java, on 24 September 1618.