Michael Lok

Merchant Lok was an English merchant and traveller known as a patron of Sir Martin Frobisher’s voyages in search of the Northwest Passage, that is, the northwest route to Asia around North America.

Born in Cheapside in London into the family of Sir William Lok, a personal cloth merchant for King Henry VIII, and distant ancestor of the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), Michael became active in foreign trade of textiles.

At the age of 13 Lok was sent to France and Flanders “to learn those languages and to know the world”, and he completed his apprenticeship in Flanders at the Company of Merchant Adventurers. In the next two and half decades, he travelled widely as a merchant and was captain of a ship of one thousand tons trading in the Levant. Lok was also the London agent of the Muscovy Company formed to supervise trade with Russia and to establish trade routes across the north coast of Russia reaching Cathay (China) and India.

During his voyages he met Martin Frobisher and became a sponsor of his expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage. When the Cathay Company was formed in 1577 to mine the riches that were discovered by Frobisher in present day Canada, Lok was named its governor. The ore proved to be worthless, and investors have lost much of the money.

Lok was also the author of the translation of Peter Martyr's Historie of the West Indies, which was published in 1612.