Mathew Baker

Mathew Baker (1530–1613) is one of the most renowned Tudor shipwrights, and the first to put the practice of shipbuilding down on paper.

The first list of 'Master Shipwrights' appointed 'by Patent' by Henry VIII of England included 'John Smyth, Robert Holborn, Richard Bull and James Baker,' in 1537.

James Baker is responsible for many of the designs and the construction of King Henry's fleet.

James designs the means of mounting cannon in a ship's lower levels, rather than on the top deck, an idea credited to King Henry.

Having been apprenticed to his father James and having grown up in the surroundings of the dockyard, Mathew is appointed 'Master Shipwright' in 1572.

As John Hawkins's reformed naval administration begins to bring discipline to the craft of shipbuilding, Mathew Baker becomes perhaps the greatest ship designer of Tudor times, known to have built, among other ships, the Dreadnought, the Vanguard, the Merhonour and the Repulse.

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