Portal:Piracy/Selected biography/October 2007



Captain Edward 'Ned' Low (also Lowe or Loe) was a notorious pirate during the latter days of the Golden Age of Piracy, in the early 18th century. A thief and a scoundrel from a young age, he was born into poverty in Westminster, London in around 1690, and moved to Boston, Massachusetts as a young man. Following the death of his wife during childbirth in late 1719, he became a pirate two years later, operating off the coasts of New England, the Azores, and in the Caribbean.

He captained a number of ships, usually maintaining a small fleet of three or four. Low and his pirate crews captured at least a hundred ships during his short career of piracy, burning most of them. Although he was only active for three years, Low is notorious as one of the most vicious pirates of the age, violently torturing his victims. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his work The Green Flag, described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality". His demise, in around 1724, has been the subject of speculation, with many differing theories. (more...)