Which English sea captain led the first English voyage to the East Indies in 1591?

The English sea captain who led the first English voyage to the East Indies in 1591 was James Lancaster.

Lancaster sailed from Torbay on 10 April 1591 with the ships Penelope, Marchant Royal and Edward Bonaventure. The expedition was financed by the Levant Company and aimed to reach the Indian Ocean by rounding the Cape of Good Hope, while also challenging Portuguese and Spanish commercial power.

The voyage reached Table Bay in August 1591, rounded the Cape of Comorin and arrived in the Malay Peninsula. Lancaster’s crews traded, raided Iberian shipping and spent time at Penang. The return journey was catastrophic: disease, hunger and ship losses reduced the expedition to only 25 surviving officers and men by the time it reached England in 1594.

This expedition predates the English East India Company, founded in 1600. Lancaster later commanded the company’s first voyage, which departed in 1601 aboard the Red Dragon. That later role can cause confusion, but the 1591 pioneering voyage was also his command. Richard Chancellor and Martin Frobisher belonged to other English exploration ventures.