Sir George Yeardley

Sir George Yeardley , c.1587-1627, British colonial governor of Virginia (1618-21, 1626-27). He was shipwrecked (1609) in the Bermudas but managed to reach Virginia in 1610. In 1616-17 he was acting governor of Virginia and then returned to England, where in 1618 he was appointed governor and knighted. Under Yeardley, acting on instructions of the London Company, the first English colonial representative assembly in the New World was convened (1619) at Jamestown. This and other improvements made him exceptionally popular among the colonists. Relieved at his own request in 1621, he remained in Virginia. In 1626 he replaced Sir Francis Wyatt, who had succeeded him, and governed until his death.

Dasent, Sir George Webbe (1817–96), became professor of English literature at King's College, London, in 1853. He devoted much of his life to the popularization of Scandinavian literature and the interpretation of Icelandic sagas. Among his publications are Prose, or the Younger Edda (1842), dedicated to Carlyle, who had encouraged him, the Grammar of the Icelandic or Old Norse Tongue (1843), Popular Tales from the Norse (1859), and The Story of Burnt Njal (1861).