Walter Raleigh impossible for Raleigh to have discovered the potato in the places he visited. Due to Raleigh's role in the popularisation of smoking, John Lennon humorously referred to him as "such a stupid get" in the song "I'm So Tired" on the "White Album" "The Beatles" (1968). Various colourful stories are told about him, such as laying his cloak over a puddle for the Queen, but they are probably apocryphal. Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh (; (or 1554)29 October 1618), also spelled Ralegh, was an English landed gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy and explorer. He was cousin to Sir
Sir Walter Gilbert, 1st Baronet Sir Walter Gilbert, 1st Baronet General Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert, 1st Baronet, (18 March 1785, Bodmin – 12 May 1853, Stevens' Hotel, Bond Street, London) was an army officer in the British East India Company. He was the third son of the Revd Edmund Gilbert (d. 1816), vicar of Constantine and rector of Helland, Cornwall, and his wife, the daughter of Henry Garnett of Bristol. Like Sir Humphrey Gilbert, he was a member of the Devon family of Gilbert of Compton and he was named after Sir Humphrey's stepbrother Sir Walter Raleigh. He gained a cadetship in the Bengal Infantry