Robert Rich (Bermuda settler)

Lord Robert Rich (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Richard Rich) (born c. 1585, died 1630) was an English soldier and traveler.

Robert aspired to colonize Virginia, and set out in 1609 to the Jamestown, Virginia settlement. During the journey, a tropical storm caused the ship, the Sea Venture to be run aground on the uninhabited St. George's Island, Bermuda with George Somers, Thomas Gates, William Strachey, Silvester Jourdain and other settlers marooned.

Robert Rich wrote a "verse pamphlet", "Newes from Virginia: the lost flocke triumphant." Along with the writings of William Strachey and Silvester Jourdain, became well known in England by 1610, when Thomas Gates and Christopher Newport retold the saga in London. In 1865 this work was rediscovered in a Viscount Charlemont library in Ireland by Shakespeare researcher John O. Halliwell. Halliwell printed a small amount of copies for distribution.

Raised with a strong pious outlook, he and his brother (Nathaniel Rich, board member of the Somers Isles Company) were allies to the Puritans and to his cousin, Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick.

Robert Rich returned to Bermuda in 1616 or 1617, and died there in 1630.