George Shelvocke

George Shelvocke (baptised 1 April 1675 – 30 November 1742) was an English Royal Navy officer and later privateer who in 1726 wrote A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea based on his exploits.

It includes an account of how his second captain, Simon Hatley, shot an albatross off Cape Horn, an incident which provided the dramatic motive in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

[11] The self-justifying version of events given by Shelvocke in the book A Voyage Round the World by Way of the Great South Sea was disputed by some who had accompanied him on that expedition, in particular by his captain of marines, William Betagh.

[14] His chest tomb (since removed) in the churchyard of St Nicholas, Deptford, London, by the east wall eulogised "a gentleman of great abilities in his profession and allowed to have been one of the bravest and most accomplished seamen of his time.

"[13] A wall tablet in the chancel commemorates his son, also George Shelvocke, who died in 1760 and accompanied his father on the journey round the world before becoming Secretary of the General Post Office and a Fellow of the Royal Society.