 The Elizabethan navigator , Sir Francis Drake was born in the nearby town of Tavistock and was the mayor of Plymouth . He was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world and was known by the Spanish as El Draco meaning " The Dragon " after he raided many of their ships . He died of dysentery in 1596 off the coast of Puerto Rico . In 2002 a mission to recover his body and bring it to Plymouth was allowed by the Ministry of Defence . His cousin and contemporary John Hawkins was a Plymouth man . Painter Sir Joshua Reynolds , founder and first president of the Royal Academy was born and educated in nearby Plympton , now part of Plymouth . William <unk> born in Kingsbridge set up his successful porcelain business in the city and was a close friend of John Smeaton designer of the Eddystone Lighthouse . On 26 January 1786 , Benjamin Robert Haydon , an English painter who specialised in grand historical pictures , was born here . The naturalist Dr William Elford Leach FRS , who did much to pave the way in Britain for Charles Darwin , was born at Hoe Gate in 1791 . 
