IN THE YEAR 1613. 
37 
In 1615, Fotherby was alone in the charge of the 
vessel detailed for discovery. 5 Being unable to pene¬ 
trate the ice north of Spitzbergen, he swept round by 
the coast of Greenland; and, meeting with the Island 
of Jan Mayen, rebaptized it with the ubiquitous name 
of Sir Thomas Smith. He corrected some of Hudson’s 
observations in that quarter, and made a map of his 
course, which Purchas failed to insert. As he is not 
mentioned again, he probably died without making an¬ 
other voyage; leaving papers to which Purchas had 
access, and which he used to such extent as he found 
convenient for his purpose. 
The name of Fotherby is a rare one in England, and 
limited, so far as we have discovered, to one stock, seated 
in the counties of Lincoln and Kent. John Fotherby, 
of Burton Stather in Lincolnshire, had two sons (Mar¬ 
tin and Bobert), whose children appear as of Kent. 
Martin had two sons, — Charles, Archdeacon of Canter¬ 
bury ; and Martin, Bishop of Salisbury. 6 As the arch¬ 
deacon is said to have had ten children, — of whom 
only one son and four daughters survived at his death 
in 1619, — it is possible that Bobert Fotherby, the 
navigator, may have been one of the deceased sons, 
and named for his father’s uncle. The evidences of 
classical as ’well as mathematical culture which his nar¬ 
ratives exhibit indicate a careful education and refined 
habitudes, that accord with such a supposition. As a 
5 Purchas, vol. iii. p. 728. Barrow, evidently by accident, has the name of Baffin, 
instead of Fotherby, in his reference to this voyage. In the years 1615 and 1616, 
Baffin was with Bylot at the west of Greenland. The error is repeated by Beechey. 
6 Berry’s County Genealogies (Kent), p. 268. 
