Captain James Cook (7 November 172814 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia in particular.
He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge that influenced his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. ==Early life and family== James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 (NS) in the village of Marton in Yorkshire and baptised on 14 November (N.S.) in the parish church of St Cuthbert, where his name can be seen in the church register.
In 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where his father's employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for him to attend the local school.
In 1741, after five years' schooling, he began work for his father, who had been promoted to farm manager.
Cooks' Cottage, his parents' last home, which he is likely to have visited, is now in Melbourne, Australia, having been moved from England and reassembled, brick by brick, in 1934. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved to the fishing village of Staithes, to be apprenticed as a shop boy to grocer and haberdasher William Sanderson.
After passing his examinations in 1752, he soon progressed through the merchant navy ranks, starting with his promotion in that year to mate aboard the collier brig Friendship.
He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755.
In 1755, within a month of being offered command of this vessel, he volunteered for service in the Royal Navy, when Britain was re-arming for what was to become the Seven Years' War.
Despite the need to start back at the bottom of the naval hierarchy, Cook realised his career would advance more quickly in military service and entered the Navy at Wapping on 17 June 1755. Cook married Elizabeth Batts, the daughter of Samuel Batts, keeper of the Bell Inn in Wapping and one of his mentors, on 21 December 1762 at St Margaret's Church, Barking, Essex.
In October and November 1755, he took part in Eagle's capture of one French warship and the sinking of another, following which he was promoted to boatswain in addition to his other duties.
His first temporary command was in March 1756 when he was briefly master of Cruizer, a small cutter attached to Eagle while on patrol. In June 1757 Cook formally passed his master's examinations at Trinity House, Deptford, qualifying him to navigate and handle a ship of the King's fleet.
His first temporary command was in March 1756 when he was briefly master of Cruizer, a small cutter attached to Eagle while on patrol. In June 1757 Cook formally passed his master's examinations at Trinity House, Deptford, qualifying him to navigate and handle a ship of the King's fleet.
With others in Pembroke's crew, he took part in the major amphibious assault that captured the Fortress of Louisbourg from the French in 1758, and in the siege of Quebec City in 1759.
With others in Pembroke's crew, he took part in the major amphibious assault that captured the Fortress of Louisbourg from the French in 1758, and in the siege of Quebec City in 1759.
Throughout his service he demonstrated a talent for surveying and cartography and was responsible for mapping much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege, thus allowing General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack during the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Cook's surveying ability was also put to use in mapping the jagged coast of Newfoundland in the 1760s, aboard .
Throughout his service he demonstrated a talent for surveying and cartography and was responsible for mapping much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege, thus allowing General Wolfe to make his famous stealth attack during the 1759 Battle of the Plains of Abraham. Cook's surveying ability was also put to use in mapping the jagged coast of Newfoundland in the 1760s, aboard .
It was a copy of the H4 clock made by John Harrison, which proved to be the first to keep accurate time at sea when used on the ship Deptford's journey to Jamaica in 1761–62.
Despite the need to start back at the bottom of the naval hierarchy, Cook realised his career would advance more quickly in military service and entered the Navy at Wapping on 17 June 1755. Cook married Elizabeth Batts, the daughter of Samuel Batts, keeper of the Bell Inn in Wapping and one of his mentors, on 21 December 1762 at St Margaret's Church, Barking, Essex.
He surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767.
He surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767.
He surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767.
During the 1765 season, four pilots were engaged at a daily pay of 4 shillings each: John Beck for the coast west of "Great St Lawrence", Morgan Snook for Fortune Bay, John Dawson for Connaigre and Hermitage Bay, and John Peck for the "Bay of Despair". While in Newfoundland, Cook also conducted astronomical observations, in particular of the eclipse of the sun on 5 August 1766.
This acclaim came at a crucial moment in his career and the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages. In these voyages, Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe.
He surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767.
During the 1765 season, four pilots were engaged at a daily pay of 4 shillings each: John Beck for the coast west of "Great St Lawrence", Morgan Snook for Fortune Bay, John Dawson for Connaigre and Hermitage Bay, and John Peck for the "Bay of Despair". While in Newfoundland, Cook also conducted astronomical observations, in particular of the eclipse of the sun on 5 August 1766.
He surveyed the northwest stretch in 1763 and 1764, the south coast between the Burin Peninsula and Cape Ray in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767.
This result was communicated to the Royal Society in 1767. His five seasons in Newfoundland produced the first large-scale and accurate maps of the island's coasts and were the first scientific, large scale, hydrographic surveys to use precise triangulation to establish land outlines.
Captain James Cook (7 November 172814 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia in particular.
Cook's maps were used into the 20th century, with copies being referenced by those sailing Newfoundland's waters for 200 years. Following on from his exertions in Newfoundland, Cook wrote that he intended to go not only "farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go". ==First voyage (1768–1771)== On 25 May 1768, the Admiralty commissioned Cook to command a scientific voyage to the Pacific Ocean.
For its part, the Royal Society agreed that Cook would receive a one hundred guinea gratuity in addition to his Naval pay. The expedition sailed aboard , departing England on 26 August 1768.
At that time the collection consisted of 115 artefacts collected on Cook's three voyages throughout the Pacific Ocean, during the period 1768–80, along with documents and memorabilia related to these voyages.
Voyages of discovery: Captain Cook and the exploration of the Pacific (Univ of California Press, 1989). ==External links== Captain Cook Society Captain Cook historic plaque, Halifax ===Biographical dictionaries=== ===Journals=== The Endeavour journal (1) and The Endeavour journal (2), as kept by James Cook – digitised and held by the National Library of Australia The South Seas Project: maps and online editions of the Journals of James Cook's First Pacific Voyage, 1768–1771.
The purpose of the voyage was to observe and record the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun which, when combined with observations from other places, would help to determine the distance of the Earth from the Sun.
Cook and his crew rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific, arriving at Tahiti on 13 April 1769, where the observations of the transit were made.
He then voyaged west, reaching the southeastern coast of Australia on 19 April 1770, and in doing so his expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered its eastern coastline. On 23 April, he made his first recorded direct observation of indigenous Australians at Brush Island near Bawley Point, noting in his journal: "...
He stopped at Bustard Bay (now known as Seventeen Seventy) on 23 May 1770.
Continuing north, on 11 June a mishap occurred when Endeavour ran aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef, and then "nursed into a river mouth on 18 June 1770".
The voyage then continued and at about midday on 22 August 1770, they reached the northernmost tip of the coast and, without leaving the ship, Cook named it York Cape (now Cape York).
He returned to England via Batavia (modern Jakarta, Indonesia), where many in his crew succumbed to malaria, and then the Cape of Good Hope, arriving at the island of Saint Helena on 30 April 1771.
The ship finally returned to England on 12 July 1771, anchoring in The Downs, with Cook going to Deal. ===Interlude=== Cook's journals were published upon his return, and he became something of a hero among the scientific community.
Cook's son George was born five days before he left for his second voyage. ==Second voyage (1772–1775)== Shortly after his return from the first voyage, Cook was promoted in August 1771 to the rank of commander.
In 1772, he was commissioned to lead another scientific expedition on behalf of the Royal Society, to search for the hypothetical Terra Australis.
Cook's expedition circumnavigated the globe at an extreme southern latitude, becoming one of the first to cross the Antarctic Circle on 17 January 1773.
Furneaux made his way to New Zealand, where he lost some of his men during an encounter with Māori, and eventually sailed back to Britain, while Cook continued to explore the Antarctic, reaching 71°10'S on 31 January 1774. Cook almost encountered the mainland of Antarctica but turned towards Tahiti to resupply his ship.
On his return voyage to New Zealand in 1774, Cook landed at the Friendly Islands, Easter Island, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia, and Vanuatu. Before returning to England, Cook made a final sweep across the South Atlantic from Cape Horn and surveyed, mapped, and took possession for Britain of South Georgia, which had been explored by the English merchant Anthony de la Roché in 1675.
For presenting a paper on this aspect of the voyage to the Royal Society he was presented with the Copley Medal in 1776.
After dropping Omai at Tahiti, Cook travelled north and in 1778 became the first European to begin formal contact with the Hawaiian Islands.
After his initial landfall in January 1778 at Waimea harbour, Kauai, Cook named the archipelago the "Sandwich Islands" after the fourth Earl of Sandwich—the acting First Lord of the Admiralty. ===North America=== From the Sandwich Islands, Cook sailed north and then northeast to explore the west coast of North America north of the Spanish settlements in Alta California.
Cook's two ships remained in Nootka Sound from 29 March to 26 April 1778, in what Cook called Ship Cove, now Resolution Cove, at the south end of Bligh Island.
In a single visit, Cook charted the majority of the North American northwest coastline on world maps for the first time, determined the extent of Alaska, and closed the gaps in Russian (from the west) and Spanish (from the south) exploratory probes of the northern limits of the Pacific. By the second week of August 1778, Cook was through the Bering Strait, sailing into the Chukchi Sea.
By early September 1778 he was back in the Bering Sea to begin the trip to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands.
Captain James Cook (7 November 172814 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia in particular.
He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, and an ability to lead men in adverse conditions. Cook was attacked and killed in 1779 during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific while attempting to detain the ruling chief of the island of Hawaii, Kalaniʻōpuʻu, to reclaim a cutter taken from one of his ships after his crew took wood from a burial ground.
He became increasingly frustrated on this voyage and perhaps began to suffer from a stomach ailment; it has been speculated that this led to irrational behaviour towards his crew, such as forcing them to eat walrus meat, which they had pronounced inedible. ===Return to Hawaii=== Cook returned to Hawaii in 1779.
Cook attempted to kidnap and ransom the King of Hawaiʻi, Kalaniʻōpuʻu. The following day, 14 February 1779, Cook marched through the village to retrieve the king.
He died of tuberculosis on 22 August 1779 and John Gore, a veteran of Cook's first voyage, took command of Resolution and of the expedition.
The expedition returned home, reaching England in October 1780.
A large aquatic monument is planned for Cook's landing place at Botany Bay, Sydney. One of the earliest monuments to Cook in the United Kingdom is located at The Vache, erected in 1780 by Admiral Hugh Palliser, a contemporary of Cook and one-time owner of the estate.
Henry Roberts, a lieutenant under Cook, spent many years after that voyage preparing the detailed charts that went into Cook's posthumous atlas, published around 1784. Cook's contributions to knowledge gained international recognition during his lifetime.
William Bligh, Cook's sailing master, was given command of in 1787 to sail to Tahiti and return with breadfruit.
Banks subsequently strongly promoted British settlement of Australia, leading to the establishment of New South Wales as a penal settlement in 1788.
Bligh became known for the mutiny of his crew, which resulted in his being set adrift in 1789.
George Vancouver, one of Cook's midshipmen, led a voyage of exploration to the Pacific Coast of North America from 1791 to 1794.
George Vancouver, one of Cook's midshipmen, led a voyage of exploration to the Pacific Coast of North America from 1791 to 1794.
He later became Governor of New South Wales, where he was the subject of another mutiny—the 1808 Rum Rebellion.
A large obelisk was built in 1827 as a monument to Cook on Easby Moor overlooking his boyhood village of Great Ayton, along with a smaller monument at the former location of Cook's cottage.
The site where he was killed in Hawaii was marked in 1874 by a white obelisk set on of chained-off beach.
This land, although in Hawaii, was deeded to the United Kingdom by Princess Likelike and her husband, Archibald Scott Cleghorn, to the British Consul to Hawaii, James Hay Wodehouse, in 1877.
The provenance of the collection shows that the objects remained in the hands of Cook's widow Elizabeth Cook, and her descendants, until 1886.
In 1887 the London-based Agent-General for the New South Wales Government, Saul Samuel, bought John Mackrell's items and also acquired items belonging to the other relatives Reverend Canon Frederick Bennett, Mrs Thomas Langton, H.M.C.
After their arrival in England, King completed Cook's account of the voyage. ==Legacy== ===Ethnographic collections=== The Australian Museum acquired its "Cook Collection" in 1894 from the Government of New South Wales.
The collection remained with the Colonial Secretary of NSW until 1894, when it was transferred to the Australian Museum. ===Navigation and science=== Cook's 12 years sailing around the Pacific Ocean contributed much to Europeans' knowledge of the area.
coin, the 1928 Hawaii Sesquicentennial half-dollar, carries Cook's image.
In 1931, Kenneth Slessor's poem "Five Visions of Captain Cook" was the "most dramatic break-through" in Australian poetry of the 20th century according to poet Douglas Stewart. === Controversy over legacy === The period 2018 - 2021 marked the 250th anniversary of Cook's first voyage of exploration.
Cooks' Cottage, his parents' last home, which he is likely to have visited, is now in Melbourne, Australia, having been moved from England and reassembled, brick by brick, in 1934. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved to the fishing village of Staithes, to be apprenticed as a shop boy to grocer and haberdasher William Sanderson.
In 1935 most of the documents and memorabilia were transferred to the Mitchell Library in the State Library of New South Wales.
Another shuttle, Discovery, was named after Cook's . The first institution of higher education in North Queensland, Australia, was named after him, with James Cook University opening in Townsville in 1970.
Voyages of discovery: Captain Cook and the exploration of the Pacific (Univ of California Press, 1989). ==External links== Captain Cook Society Captain Cook historic plaque, Halifax ===Biographical dictionaries=== ===Journals=== The Endeavour journal (1) and The Endeavour journal (2), as kept by James Cook – digitised and held by the National Library of Australia The South Seas Project: maps and online editions of the Journals of James Cook's First Pacific Voyage, 1768–1771.
Though this view was first suggested by members of Cook's expedition, the idea that any Hawaiians understood Cook to be Lono, and the evidence presented in support of it, were challenged in 1992. ===Death=== After a month's stay, Cook attempted to resume his exploration of the northern Pacific.
Tributes also abound in post-industrial Middlesbrough, including a primary school, shopping square and the Bottle 'O Notes, a public artwork by Claes Oldenburg, that was erected in the town's Central Gardens in 1993.
Also named after Cook is James Cook University Hospital, a major teaching hospital which opened in 2003 with a railway station serving it called James Cook opening in 2014. The Royal Research Ship RRS James Cook was built in 2006 to replace the RRS Charles Darwin in the UK's Royal Research Fleet, and Stepney Historical Trust placed a plaque on Free Trade Wharf in the Highway, Shadwell to commemorate his life in the East End of London.
Also named after Cook is James Cook University Hospital, a major teaching hospital which opened in 2003 with a railway station serving it called James Cook opening in 2014. The Royal Research Ship RRS James Cook was built in 2006 to replace the RRS Charles Darwin in the UK's Royal Research Fleet, and Stepney Historical Trust placed a plaque on Free Trade Wharf in the Highway, Shadwell to commemorate his life in the East End of London.
Also named after Cook is James Cook University Hospital, a major teaching hospital which opened in 2003 with a railway station serving it called James Cook opening in 2014. The Royal Research Ship RRS James Cook was built in 2006 to replace the RRS Charles Darwin in the UK's Royal Research Fleet, and Stepney Historical Trust placed a plaque on Free Trade Wharf in the Highway, Shadwell to commemorate his life in the East End of London.
In 1931, Kenneth Slessor's poem "Five Visions of Captain Cook" was the "most dramatic break-through" in Australian poetry of the 20th century according to poet Douglas Stewart. === Controversy over legacy === The period 2018 - 2021 marked the 250th anniversary of Cook's first voyage of exploration.
2 (7 February 2019), pp. 18–20. Villiers, Alan John, Captain James Cook Newport Beach, California: Books on Tape (1983) Withey, Lynne.
In 1931, Kenneth Slessor's poem "Five Visions of Captain Cook" was the "most dramatic break-through" in Australian poetry of the 20th century according to poet Douglas Stewart. === Controversy over legacy === The period 2018 - 2021 marked the 250th anniversary of Cook's first voyage of exploration.
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