Jonas Poole

Jonas Poole (bap. 1566 – 1612) was an early 17th-century English explorer and sealer, and was significant in the history of whaling. Although Henry Hudson has often been dubbed the "father of English whaling," Poole, whose 1610 voyage led to the establishment of the English whaling trade, deserves the title.

He served aboard vessels sent by the Muscovy Company on sealing voyages to Bear Island in 1604, 1605, 1606, 1608, and 1609. In 1607 he was among the sailors sent to the New World to establish Jamestown, in particular being one of the two dozen colonists led by Captain Christopher Newport that explored the upper James River in a pinnace as far as the falls near present-day Richmond, Virginia in late May of that year. In 1606 he was given command of a 20-ton pinnace. In 1608 he piloted the ship Paul, and in 1609 he was master of the ship Lioness.

In 1610 Poole was again sent to Bear Island to hunt walrus, as well as search for a passage towards the North Pole. He was given command of the 70-ton Amity, with a crew of fourteen men and a boy. He bypassed Bear Island altogether, sailing straight for Spitsbergen. While Barentsz had only spent a few weeks exploring Spitsbergen and Hudson less than a month, Poole spent nearly three months (May–August) exploring the west coast and hunting walrus, polar bear, and reindeer there. On 6 May he came within sight of a mountain on the south coast of Spitsbergen, which he named Muscovy Company’s Mount (modern Hornsundtind). He sailed north and sent a skiff into a small fjord. They returned with a piece of reindeer horn, resulting in Poole giving the fjord the name Horn Sound (Hornsund).

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