John Tradescant the elder

Who was John Tradescant the elder?

John Tradescant the elder, father of John Tradescant the younger, was an English naturalist, gardener, collector and traveller, probably born in Suffolk, England. He began his career as head gardener to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury at Hatfield House, who initiated Tradescant in travelling by sending him to the Low Countries for fruit trees in 1610/11. He was kept on by Robert's son William, to produce gardens at the family's London house, Salisbury House. He then designed gardens on the site of St Augustine's Abbey for Edward Lord Wotton in 1615-23.

Later, Tradescant was gardener to the royal favourite George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, remodelling his gardens at New Hall, Essex and at Burley-on-the-Hill. John Tradescant travelled to the Nikolo-Korelsky Monastery in Arctic Russia in 1618, to the Levant and to Algiers during an expedition against the Barbary pirates in 1620, returned to the Low Countries on Buckingham's behalf in 1624, and finally went to Paris and the Ile de Rhé with Buckingham.