James Lancaster (1554(?)–May 1618) was an English navigator, statesman, and pioneers of the British Indian trade and empire. In early life, he fought and traded in Portugal. On the roth of April 1591 he started from Plymouth, with Raymond and Foxcroft, on his first great voyage to the East Indies; this fleet of three ships is the earliest of English oversea Indian expeditions. Reaching Table Bay (August 1 1591), and losing one ship off Cape Corrientes on the 12th of September, the squadron rested and refitted at Zanzibar (February 1592), rounded Cape Comorin the following May, and reached the Malay Peninsula in June.

After a later crossing to Ceylon, the crews insisted on returning home. The return voyage was disastrous with only twenty-five officers and men having reappeared in England in 1594. Lancaster himself reached Rye on May 24 1594; in the same year he led a military expedition against Pernambuco, without much success; but his Indian voyage, like Ralph Fitchs overland explorations and trading, was an important factor in the foundation of the East India Company. In 1600 he was given command of the company's first fleet (which sailed from Torbay towards the end of April 1601); he was also accredited as Queen Elizabeth's special envoy to various Eastern potentates. Going by the Cape of Good Hope (1st of November 1601) Lancaster visited the Nicobars (from the 9th of April 1602), Aceh and other parts of Sumatra (from the 5th of June 1602), and Bantam in Java. An alliance was established with Aceh, a factory established at Bantam and a commercial mission despatched to the Moluccas. The return voyage from February 20 to September 11 1603 was speedy and prosperous, and Lancaster (whose success both in trade and diplomacy had been brilliant) was rewarded with a knighthood in October 1603.

Lancaster continued to be one of the chic directors of the East India Company until his death in May 1618. Most of the voyages of the early Stuart time both to India and in search of the Northwest Passage were undertaken under his advice and direction. In July 1616, Lancaster Sound , north-west of Baffin Bay (74° 20' N.), was named by William Baffin after Sir James.