Smythe, Thomas, Sir (1558 -1625)

Sir Thomas Smythe, merchant, and governor of the East India Company, was the second surviving son of Thomas Smythe of Ostenhanger in Kent, and Alice, daughter of Sir Andrew Judd. A member of the Haberdashers’ and Skinners’ Companies of the City of London, like his father, on the formation of the East India Company, he was its first Governor. He was Sheriff of London 1599, and was imprisoned for complicity in Essex’s rebellion. He was subsequently released, and knighted by James I, 13 May 1603. He was appointed Receiver for the Duchy of Cornwall 1604, and Special Envoy to the Czar in the same year. He married three times. By his third wife, Sarah, daughter of William Blount, he had three sons, two of whom died during his lifetime. The eldest son Sir John Smythe married and had issue. The line ended with his great-great-grandson, Sir Sydney Stafford Smythe (1705-1778)