Rev. John Robinson (1575 – 1625), a clergyman at St Andrew’s Church in Norwich in 1604, was the pastor of the “Pilgrim Fathers” in Leiden, before they sailed to America on the Mayflower. The Pilgrims reached the coast of what is now Massachusetts on December 21, 1620. They named their little settlement “Plymouth” after the city that they had sailed from in England. More settlers from Leiden arrived over the next few years, one of Robinson’s sons amongst them, but Robinson himself died in Leiden in 1625.
Norfolk's American Connections 