(1529 - 1610/1611)
Navigator, astronomer, merchant and cartographer Anthony Jenkinson was born in Market Harborough, Leicestershire; the son of an owner of inns. After training for a mercantile career, he was appointed Captain-General of four ships of the Muscovy Company (which held a monopoly on trade between England and Muscovy). He travelled to Russia in 1557-58 with the then Ambassador, Osip Nepea, to explore trading routes. He spent four months in North Russia, before travelling on to Moscow. In 1562 his ‘Nova Absolutaque Russiae, Moscoviae, et Tartartiae Descriptio’, engraved by Nicholas Reynolds, was published. It is the earliest known surviving map engraved by an Englishman. Most of the map was used in Abraham Ortelius’ ‘Teatrum Orbis Terrarum’.
