Captain Cook information

Not sure if it still is but isn’t the altar at Stockton st Mary’s church made from the timbers of the resolution.
 
Anyone care to provide information on Cook’s voyages to Hawaii and how they tied into science? Was there any part of his crew part of a science team other than Cook and Joseph Banks? Were the trips to Hawaii purely for botanical reasons? Hawaii (big island) has the largest view of the sky and therefore I was wondering if this was another reason for Cook’s visits?
Yes there were also noted scientists on the second voyage, although not Banks he went off in a huff after Cook vetoed all the alterations he wanted to make to the ship which would have made it quite unseaworthy.
The 3rd voyage that saw the ships twice visit Hawaii was an attempt to find a NW passage around North America. Cook was infuriated that the Russian charts they were following appeared to be totally wrong and fabricated. Following Cook's death. The commander of the second vessel and veteran of the other voyages Capt Clerke took over command of a voyage that took in Alaska, Russia and Japan before Clerke succumbed to TB. He had arrived back from the second round the world to find his brother in a debtors prison. After years at sea Clerke spelled his brother off in the prison where he contracted TB. And later died from it on the 3rd voyage.
 
In an unmarked grave.
Look for the tombstone in old Ayton church that records the deaths of many of the Cook family. It is possible it was even carved by James senior.
It isn’t unmarked. It is a grey headstone with a white cross on top of it. It is in the centre of the graveyard.

In terms of books, I’m currently reading Endeavour: the ship and attitude that changed the world by Peter Moore . It traces the life of Bark Endeavour and offers some excellent insights.

Years ago, I read a book about Cook’s voyages and a man who then followed the routes in modern times. It was a brilliant read but I have totally forgotten the author and title. I loaned it to a now ex-colleague and never got it back.
 
More Cook stuff

In the Inspector Morse series - the author Colin Dexter gave Morse the first name of Endeavour in tribute to James Cook.

Ref Early Australia

The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes is a very grim but interesting read about the transportation and imprisonment of UK citizens in Australia. I read it about 40 years ago, some interesting photos too. Up to 25% died on the very long voyages there, chained in the bilch of the ships for a lot of the journey. Australia was difficult when the first settlers got there, because a lot of crops grown in Europe at that time would not grow in Australia. Some of the escaped prisoners ending up eating each other because they did not know how the live off the land. Punishments meeted out to prisoners tended to be harsher than in the UK.
 
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More Cook stuff

In the Inspector Morse series - the author Colin Dexter gave Morse the first name of Endeavour in tribute to James Cook.

Ref Early Australia

The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes is a very grim but interesting read about the transportation and imprisonment of UK citizens in Australia. I read it about 40 years ago, some interesting photos too. Up to 25% died on the very long voyages there, chained in the bilch of the ships for a lot of the journey. Australia was difficult when the first settlers got there, because a lot of crops grown in Europe at that time would not grow in Australia. Some of the escaped prisoners ending up each other because they did not know how the live off the land. Punishments meeted out to prisoners tended to be harsher than in the UK.
It was an extremely tough time for the convicts and early settlers.
The crops that were planted around Camp Cove at the time of settlement failed for many reasons.
The ground is rocky and sandy and wasn't conducive for productive agriculture, it also had a lack of water.
Whatever crops that had taken root often failed or wiped out through drought or flood as well as being stolen.

It wasn't until ( thanks again to Dawes who I talked about in my previous post ) the Parramatta region was explored that they
found some decent areas capable of producing crops. ( Rose Hill )
They eventually crossed the Blue Mountains in the 1830s which revealed a wealth of pastoral land.
Up until that time, the marines, convicts and early settlers were starved of food until ships arrived with supplies.

The convicts that were sent to Australia ( for petty crimes ) were finally released and were given a plot of land with not much,
other than a shovel, axe and saw. The trees were much harder than those found in the UK and the axes would be blunt very quickly.
They would end up having to saw down the tree and then do the back breaking job of digging out the stumps before they could
till the land, again by hand before attempting to eke out an existence.

Australians are extremely proud of their convict past due to the incredibly hard work under such extreme conditions that laid the
foundation of what this country has become.
Rightly so.
 
It isn’t unmarked. It is a grey headstone with a white cross on top of it. It is in the centre of the graveyard.

In terms of books, I’m currently reading Endeavour: the ship and attitude that changed the world by Peter Moore . It traces the life of Bark Endeavour and offers some excellent insights.

Years ago, I read a book about Cook’s voyages and a man who then followed the routes in modern times. It was a brilliant read but I have totally forgotten the author and title. I loaned it to a now ex-colleague and never got it back.

Into the Blue: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before Paperback – 6 Oct. 2003​

by Tony Horwitz
 

Into the Blue: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before Paperback – 6 Oct. 2003​

by Tony Horwitz
That is it. A superb read. Highly recommend it!
 
His father was Scottish and worked as a supervisor/charge hand at Airy Hill Farm near the bottom of Roseberry Topping.

It is believed a local landowner paid for James Cook's schooling as it was expensive to go to school and uncommon for someone from his background in that period.

As Rob N will be able to back up his home as a young child was believed to be a cottage on the spot of a granite water fountain on the lawn of the former Marton Hall - only some stone arches survive next to the CC Birthplace Museum. The Hall was burnt down in the 1960s. The site of the cottage is marked though.

My grandad watched them take his cottage from Great Ayton in the early 1930s. I expect he bought this cottage with his Royal Navy wages. The area around Stokesley grew a lot of flax for sails in Cook's times, with quite a few local mills and the area provided men and officers for the Royal Navy and Merchant ships based on Whitby. There is a sailors trod acrosss the moors to Whitby from Great Ayton/Stokesley/Guisborough, hence the Jolly Sailors pub on the Moors road and graffiti of sailing ships in the ex Guisborough Jail.

My family had a RN member called Shout. His daughter married a male member of my family in Stokesley around 1820. When Middlesbrough started to take off a child of theirs moved to moved to the Boro in the late 1840s in one of the first streets and married a bricklayer (I guess it was a common occupation in early Victorian Middlesbrough).

The British Library did an excellent exhibition on Captain Cook and his Voyages about 5 years ago. I went to a talk there and you could tell they were scared stiff of being called promoters of British colonialism. James Cook was ahead of his time both on a social and technical level. His maps are very detailed and accurate, considering the technology of the time the maps are pretty unbelievable. His was able to deal with all ranks and all members of British society from the bottom to the top (extremely rare then), his rose from what is working class to almost upper middle class (very rare then), he also help integrate a non white pacific islander into London society, treating him as an equal - a first? I have forgotten his name but I am sure other posters can help you out.

Lieutenant/Captain Cook never claimed Australia etc for the British Crown - his main objective was to increase scientific and geographic knowledge. However what he found out laid the foundation for that to happen. A key event in Australia was setting up the first penal colony around 1788 @ Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour). This was 9 years after Cook was killed.
Yes, family story of ours is that farm was in my wifes side of the family, our claim to fame
 
At primary school we were told that Cook's first job was as a scarecrow. It would be a shame if schools had to 'cancell' such an incredible example of social mobility.

nano fact: on Clapham Common Northside there is a row of trees known as Captain Cook's Trees and number 22 was known as Captain Cook's house. It's believed that his widow lived there, but all a bit sketchy.
 
AB

Cheers - interetsting new knowldege to me.

He had a London town house, many R/N captains had houses close to the river in Central London. Captain Blighs is near the Imperial War Museum. The Admiralty had big offices in Somerset House in the 1700s. I thought his wife lived in Great Ayton, most of her life. I also seem to remember they had quite a number of children. Didn't someone post on here she lived till the 1820s.
 
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