415 years ago this month, 104 English men and boys landed in North America and established

a settlement they called James Town in Virginia, named after James I and Elizabeth I respectively.

Over the course of the 17th century a third of a million men, women and children left England

for America. But in Virginia it all started from very small beginnings and there was every chance

that this venture, like all the previous English attempts at settlement in the so-called new world

before it, would fail. And in fact, it almost did. To learn about the first few years of James Town,

I'm joined by Dr. Misha Ewan, the curator for inclusive history at Historic Royal Purses. Dr.

Ewan completed her PhD at University College London and subsequently held a whorlsworth research

fellowship at the University of Manchester and visiting fellowships at Yale University,

the Huntington Library and the Fogger Shakespeare Library. Her first book, The Virginia Venture,

American Colonialization and English Society, 1580 to 1660, will be published this coming September.

Dr. Ewan, it is a real pleasure to welcome you on to not just the tutors and it's great fun that we

can talk about this anniversary. I mean, 450 years might not be one of the big ones, but I think it's

still worth mentioning. So we're thinking about the settlement of James Town, but it wasn't the

first attempt, was it the English had made to settle in North America? Can you remind us what

they had attempted to do before that? Yes, so during the reign of Elizabeth I, Satellers had attempted

to establish a permanent settlement in Ronoke, which is in what is present day North Carolina.

In 1587, a hundred men, women and children had established a settlement there, but that failed,

and it's that group of Satellers that came down in history known to us as the lost colonists of Ronoke.

And there'd also been other more exploratory ventures into places like Newfoundland and other parts

of the Eastern Coast of North America in the late 16th century, but none of these had resulted in

any kind of permanent settlement. So in that sense, James Town in 1607 was completely unique,

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