History - Mary Newman

One of the most famous traditions associated with the ancient borough of Saltash is the marriage of Sir Francis Drake to Mary Newman, a Saltash girl.

Mary Newman became the first wife of Francis Drake (not yet Sir Francis) on the 4th of July 1569, when she was seventeen years old and he was probably twenty-nine. (The exact year of his birth is not known.) The ceremony took place across the Tamar, at St Budeaux, which was then in the same parish as Saltash.

A cottage in Culver Road, dating from the 1450s, is reputed once to have been the home of Mary Newman, but there is no contemporary evidence for this, Mary's name being first recorded in connection with the cottage in a work of fiction not written until 1865. However, as a result of the pageants masterminded by Col. W P Drury (the well-known author and playwright) and performed in Saltash during the 1930s, the link became well-established in the minds of local people, saving the cottage from the widespread demolition of old property at Waterside that occurred between 1957 and 1961.

"Mary Newman’s Cottage" (a Grade 2 listed building open to the public) is a rare example of 15th century domestic architecture, little altered over the centuries, with a reconstructed Tudor herb garden and furnished with artefacts dating from that period. Whether or not Mary herself ever lived there, this simple white cottage, furnished as it would have been in medieval times, and tucked away in a little street close to the water, gives us a clear insight into what her early life could have been like.

Much of Mary's married life must have been spent waiting for her husband to return from his various ocean voyages. Possibly the longest separation came when, in November 1577, Drake departed on his perilous journey around the world. Almost three years later, on the 26th of September 1580, he returned, his ship laden with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. On landing, Drake sent for Mary and travelled with her to London for an audience with the Queen.

Hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth, Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth aboard his ship the Golden Hind on the 4th of April 1581, and became the Mayor of Plymouth.

Mary, however, had little time in which to enjoy her new position in society; she contracted smallpox and died, childless, on the 25th of January 1582, being buried at St Budeaux where she had been married only a dozen years before.

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