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March 27, 2018 by Alexander Meldrum
Captain James Cook.
Born 7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728
Marton, Yorkshire, England
Died 14 February 1779 (aged 50)
Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii
Nationality British
Education Postgate School, Grea...Captain James Cook.
Born 7 November [O.S. 27 October] 1728
Marton, Yorkshire, England
Died 14 February 1779 (aged 50)
Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii
Nationality British
Education Postgate School, Great Ayton
Occupation Explorer, navigator, cartographer
Spouse(s) Elizabeth Batts
Children 6
Parent(s) James Cook
Grace Pace
Captain James Cook FRS (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy.
James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 (N.S.) 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.
He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, and his locally born wife, Grace Pace, from Thornaby-on-Tees.
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. For leisure, he would climb a nearby hill, Roseberry Topping, enjoying the opportunity for solitude.
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.
Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, 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. He saw action in the Seven Years' War,
and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society.
This notice came at a crucial moment in both Cook's career and the direction of British overseas exploration, and led to his commission in 1766 as commander of HM Bark Endeavour for the first of three Pacific voyages.
In three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail and on a scale not previously achieved.
As he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time.
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 kidnap Kalani?opu?u, a Hawaiian chief, in order to reclaim a cutter stolen from one of his ships.
He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him.
Start of Royal Navy career Great Britain in the Seven Years' War
Cook's first posting was with HMS Eagle, serving as able seaman and master's mate under Captain Joseph Hamar for his first year aboard, and Captain Hugh Palliser thereafter.
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.
He then joined the frigate HMS Solebay as master under Captain Robert Craig.
First voyage (1768–71) of James Cook
In 1766, the Admiralty engaged Cook to command a scientific voyage to the Pacific Ocean. The purpose of the voyage was to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun for the benefit of a
Royal Society inquiry into a means of determining longitude. Cook, at the age of 39, was promoted to lieutenant to grant him sufficient status to take the command.
For its part the Royal Society agreed that Cook would receive a one hundred guinea gratuity in addition to his Naval pay.
Endeavour replica in Cooktown, Queensland harbour — anchored where the original Endeavour was beached for seven weeks in 1770
The expedition sailed aboard HMS Endeavour, departing England on 26 August 1768. Cook and his crew rounded Cape Horn and continued westward across the Pacific to arrive at Tahiti on 13 April 1769,
where the observations of the Venus Transit were made. However, the result of the observations was not as conclusive or accurate as had been hoped.
Once the observations were completed, Cook opened the sealed orders which were additional instructions from the Admiralty for the second part of his voyage:
to search the south Pacific for signs of the postulated rich southern continent of Terra Australis. Cook then sailed to New Zealand and mapped the complete coastline,
making only some minor errors. He then voyaged west, reaching the south-eastern 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: “...and were so near the Shore as to distinguish several people upon the Sea beach they appear'd to be of a very dark or black Colour but whether this was the real colour of their skins or the
othes they might have on I know not.”[28] On 29 April Cook and crew made their first landfall on the mainland of the continent at a place now known as the Kurnell Peninsula. Cook originally christened the area as "Stingray Bay",
but later he crossed this out and named it “Botany Bay” after the unique specimens retrieved by the botanists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander.
It is here that James Cook made first contact with an aboriginal tribe known as the Gweagal.
After his departure from Botany Bay he continued northwards. He stopped at Bustard Bay (now known as Seventeen Seventy or 1770) at 8 o’clock on 23 May 1770.
On 24 May Cook and Banks and others went ashore. Continuing north, on 11 June a mishap occurred when HMS Endeavour ran aground on a shoal of the Great Barrier Reef,
and then “nursed into a river mouth on 18 June 1770”. The ship was badly damaged and his voyage was delayed almost seven weeks while repairs were carried out on the beach (near the docks of modern Cooktown, Queensland,
at the mouth of the Endeavour River). The voyage then continued, sailing through Torres Strait and on 22 August Cook landed on Possession Island,
where he claimed the entire coastline that he had just explored as British territory. 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 12 July 1771.
On his last voyage, Cook again commanded HMS Resolution, while Captain Charles Clerke commanded HMS Discovery. The voyage was ostensibly planned to return the Pacific Islander,
Omai to Tahiti, or so the public were led to believe. The trip's principal goal was to locate a Northwest Passage around the American continent.
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.
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