Anthony Jenkinson: From Meerkat Harborough to Moscow

The Leicester Mercury's report on Meerkat Harborough quotes Bernard Bresbode from the town's civic society:

"It is an interesting idea. A community donation would also certainly be welcome."

He said a Russian connection may not be a million miles from the truth, as in Tudor times Harborough-born merchant Anthony Jenkinson travelled there and set up trading links.

Mr Besbrode said: "It could well be that a form of twinning could have been established then between Harborough and a Russian village."

Anthony Jenkinson was born here in 1529 and made four trips to Muscovy and beyond. You can read extracts from The Voyage of Master Anthony Jenkinson, made from the city of Mosco in Russia, to the city of Boghar in Bactria, in the year 1558: written by himself to the Merchants of London of the Muscovy Company on the web.

Jenkinson became lord of the manor of Sywell in Northamptonshire and is buried at Teigh in Rutland. The family later moved to Oxfordshire and one of Anthony's descendants, Robert Banks Jenkinson, became prime minister as Lord Liverpool.

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