Richard Cocks

Born in the late 16th century, Richard Cocks was an English merchant who worked for the East India Company. He is remembered above all for serving as the head of the English trading post at Hirado in Japan in the early 1600s.

Cocks arrived in Japan in 1613 with the captain John Saris and spent years trying to build profitable trade under difficult conditions. His journal, often known as the Diary of Richard Cocks, is valued for its detailed account of business, diplomacy, travel, and everyday life during a rare early chapter of contact between England and Japan.

He died in 1624, but his diary has given him a lasting place in history. For many readers, it is his clear, practical, and often very human record of events that makes him such an interesting figure today.