Jacques Francis was born around 1527 on Arguin Island off the coast of what is now Mauritania, in a region Tudor England knew as Guinea, and was likely trained from a young age as a free diver.
By 1546 Francis was working in England as the lead diver for the Venetian salvage master Piero Paolo Corsi, employed by the Admiralty to recover valuable bronze guns from the wreck of Henry VIII's warship the Mary Rose, which had sunk the previous year in the Solent.
Francis led a small crew, likely also of African divers, using free-diving techniques that required no breathing apparatus, skills that were rare and highly sought after by European mariners of the period.
In 1548 Corsi was accused of theft during a separate salvage operation on the wrecked merchant ship Sancta Maria and Sanctus Edwardus, and Francis was called to testify in his defence at the High Court of Admiralty, becoming the first African known to give evidence in an English court.
Italian witnesses opposing Corsi tried to have Francis's testimony dismissed by branding him a slave and an infidel, but the court accepted his evidence, partly on the basis that he was a paid, free worker rather than a slave.
- Led the 1546 salvage operation to recover Henry VIII's guns from the Mary Rose
- First African known to give evidence in an English court of law, 1548
- Demonstrated advanced free-diving skills requiring no breathing apparatus
- His testimony survives as one of the earliest detailed records of an African life in Tudor England
- Rare skills can secure a place in history even for the undocumented. Francis's diving expertise on the Mary Rose is one of the few reasons his life was recorded at all.
- Legal recognition can precede social equality. The court accepted Francis's testimony as a free man, even as his accusers tried to deny his standing.