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Abstract
This paper re-examines aspects of Cook’s environment during his early years in Yorkshire and questions how it was significant in shaping the man. His family background was more aspirational than is often thought and Whitby was an extraordinarily prosperous and enterprising place to train for a life at sea. Particularly important was the fact that education was professional and emphasized mathematics. When Cook left Whitby for the Royal Navy he had developed a deep respect for technical skills, together with a dogged perseverance. His background growing up on a farm was revealed through his concern for the spread of ‘useful crops’ and an increase in animal husbandry in the lands visited. Finally, his general lack of pretension and open-mindedness about the societies he encountered was influenced by the nine crucial years he spent in an outward-looking and openminded environment in Whitby.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Acknowledgements
This was first delivered as a paper to the ‘Imagining Anchorage’ Symposium organised by the Cook Inlet Historical Society in 2015, and I am grateful to them and for comments from the Cook scholars present. The late Glyn Williams and Rosalin Barker were unstintingly generous in sharing their knowledge. My thanks also to Ian Boreham, Robin Inglis, Peter Moore, David Nicandri together with the referee and editor of this journal.
Thanks to the Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society, and the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, for permission to reproduce images in their collection.
Notes
1 Gascoigne, Captain Cook, ch. 1 & 2.
2 Anderson, ‘The history of Scottish Education’. The minister in Ednam at the time when James Cook Sr was young was Thomas Thomson (1666-1716), father of the poet James Thomson, writer of ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Agamemnon’ and other works. See ODNB for the latter’s life.
3 The deed in which the land was assigned to the elder Cook is reproduced in Thornton, Cook in Cleveland, 86–87. Sandstone is plentiful in the area, and the house was built of semi-dressed stone, not coarse rubble. The 1788 Cuit drawing shows a porch and two chimneys, implying a certain respectability and status: The Hepworth Wakefield, Gott 3/41. For an analysis of the cottage, its transportation to Melbourne and reinterpretation there, see Young, ‘The contagious magic of James Cook’.
4 Speck, Stability and Strife, 47–48; inf. from Gill Cookson.
5 Thornton, Cook in Cleveland, has a good account of this period of Cook’s life.
6 O’Sullivan, The Education of Captain Cook.
7 It is said that Skottowe sponsored the young James at the Postgate School, which may have been the case but is unconfirmed: see Thornton, Cook in Cleveland, 25-26.
8 Barker, Rise of an Early Modern Shipping Industry, ch. 6 ‘The Established Port’; Moore, Endeavour, ch.2 ‘Enigmas’.
9 Young, History of Whitby. The second volume describes in detail the manufactures of the town and when each was set up. By Young’s time there were for example five rope-walks, and some 385,000 yards p.a. of sailcloth were being manufactured during the French wars: pp.545–560. For an earlier history see Charlton, History of Whitby.
10 Captain Cook Memorial Museum [CCMM}, Whitby in the Time of Cook, 24.
11 See Barker, Rise of an Early Modern Shipping Industry, for a detailed analysis of Whitby’s shipping industry, and Appendix 1, 159–164, on the size of the fleet.
12 Williams, Prize of All the Oceans, 61–64, 104.
13 Some 50 Whitby ships were operating in Canada at the time of the Seven Years War: inf. kindly supplied by Rosalin Barker.
14 Barker, Rise of an Early Modern Shipping Industry, 135–139.
15 Barker, Rise of an Early Modern Shipping Industry, 136. Three decades later Charlton notes that there were 300 carpenters working in the shipyards with more than 100 apprentices: Charlton, History of Whitby, 358.
16 Charlton, History of Whitby, title page; CCMM, Whitby in the Time of Cook, 14–18.
17 CCMM, Whitby in the Time of Cook, 16-17; Whitby Literary & Philosophical Society [WL&PS], 6180, ‘Suppose a Merchant Ship in the latitude of 48D:30m N falls in the hands of a Pyrit [Pirate] who takes from him all that he had…’.
18 Allen, ‘Remember me’, 21–36.
19 Barker, Rise of an Early Modern Shipping Industry, 142–151.
20 Charlton, History of Whitby, 361
21 CCMM, Whitby in the Time of Cook, 21–24. Much information about Abel Chapman’s life and business survives in WL&PS, Chapman Papers.
22 For an analysis of the meaning of ‘stock’, see Barker, ‘The Stock in Her’.
23 Barker, ‘Tea for the Cabin’.
24 University of York, Borthwick Institute for Archives, TEST CP 1754/4. Walker’s House is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum.
25 Walker supported Cook in his decision, and wrote to William Osbaldestone, MP for Scarborough, suggesting that Cook might be given a commission: Beaglehole, Life of Captain James Cook, 24–25.
26 Gascoigne, Captain Cook, 20–21.
27 Gascoigne, Captain Cook. 22–24, Beaglehole, Life of Captain James Cook, 26–38; Rodger, The Wooden World provides an excellent study of life in the Georgian Navy.
28 Cook combined land surveying techniques using a plane table with naval charting practices to produce the most accurate coastlines yet achieved. On Holland’s meeting with Cook and the importance of new cartography in this period, see Hornsby, Surveyors of Empire, 17, and Robson, Captain Cook’s War & Peace, 60–70.
29 Beaglehole, Life of Captain James Cook, 69, describes the survey work in Newfoundland as the most accomplished Cook ever did.
30 Beaglehole, Life of Captain James Cook, 89.
31 Jacob von Stählin (1709-1785) was a Russo-German academic: Nicandri, ‘A New Look at Cook’, 109-129.
32 William Bligh (1754-1817) alternated between serving in the Royal Navy, and the merchant marine at times when the Royal Navy reduced its size. He greatly admired Cook and was an excellent cartographer. Examples of charts drawn by Joseph Gilbert, Master of Resolution, John Elliott and Henry Roberts, midshipmen, under Cook on his second voyage (1772-75) may be seen in Frame and Walker, James Cook, 138, 149, 152–53.
33 Wesley was the author of a popular book of household medicine, Primitive Physick (London: 1747). See also Thomas, ‘Cleanliness and godliness in early modern England’, 56-83.
34 Young, A History of Whitby, ii, 635.
35 Vale, ‘Diet and Disease’, 16–17. On his second voyage crossing the Antarctic Circle, Cook took much trouble ensuring that a supply of warm clothing was taken.
36 As early as 1632 the Purchases Book for the John included turnips, cabbages, carrots, peas, as well as the usual fresh meat and fish, oatmeal and bread: TNA/HCA30/638 Voyage Book of John, of Whitby, Browne Bushell, Master, quoted in Barker, Rise of an Early Modern Shipping Industry, 46–48.
37 Cook gives a detailed description of brewing beer in New Zealand, the plants used and finding the right mixture to make the beer “exceeding Palatable and esteemed by every one on board’: Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, ii, 137–38.
38 For a recent assessment, see Vale, ‘Diet and disease’, 13–20.
39 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iv, 440.
40 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iv, 440. Names were confusingly varied and could be applied to a wide variety of similar berries. Beaglehole notes that the Partridge berry was possibly the Alpine partridge-berry (a plant from the heather family), but equally it may have been similar to the Newfoundland lingonberry (or cowberry), or the pigeon-berry, an edible plant resembling the blueberry, native to Alaska, western Canada and the United States. The etymology and identification of Cook’s description of native berries may be impossible to establish firmly, especially as the same plant was sometimes called a different name by another member of the expedition. However, the point is that he did identify and use local edible berries.
41 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iii, 419-20, and i, 394.
42 ‘Lightly manned’ does not imply skimping or negligence: a Whitby collier bark habitually had a crew of around 20-25 crew, of whom perhaps half might be boys. Endeavour when commissioned by the Royal Navy had an approved complement of 85 plus 12 marines. The comparison between the number in the crew means that each merchant marine sailor had to work and manoeuvre around three times the ship-weight that a sailor in the Royal Navy had to handle: inf. from Rosalin Barker.
43 Gascoigne, Captain Cook, 49
44 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, ii, 279, identified in n.3 as Tuanui of Pōrangahau.
45 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iii, 158.
46 For example, in Matavai Bay, Tahiti, in August 1777: Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iii, 195.
47 ‘Having some Cocoanuts and Yams on board in a state of vegetation, I ordered them to be planted…’ Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iii, 260–261.
48 Beaglehole (ed.), The Journals, iii, 195
49 To John Walker 13 Sept. 1771, printed in Beaglehole (ed.), The Journals, i, 506–09.
50 Banks, The Endeavour Journal, 137. It has been suggested that Cook imbibed some of Banks’ Enlightenment learning during the long voyage where they shared the Great Cabin and lived closely together in the confines of the ship.
51 Banks talks about ‘the earth almost spontaneously produc[ing]’ foods: The Endeavour Journal, 137.
52 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, ii, 272.
53 In his journal, 19-21 January 1778, Cook mentions plantations on three occasions: Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iii, 264, 269, 271–72.
54 Hoare (ed), The Resolution Journal of Johann Reinhold Forster, 233. Note the ‘stage’ for the animals to stand on so that waste could be removed. J.R. Forster was the man of science appointed by the Admiralty when Joseph Banks withdrew from the voyage in May 1772.
55 William Anderson noted in March 1777 that they were obliged to kill eight of the sheep for lack of hay: Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iv, 822.
56 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iii, 306.
57 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, ii, 167. It had been a particularly difficult journey for the animals, with storms, contaminated fodder and extreme cold.
58 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, iii, 241. As Beaglehole remarks, this was an unfortunate prophecy as all the animals died except the dogs and pigs.
59 Gascoigne discusses religious beliefs and practices and argues that the Quaker-influenced Cook took a dim view of organised religion: Captain Cook, 170, 149–175.
60 Beaglehole, Life of Captain James Cook, 187-8. Cook ordered the crews to be inspected by the surgeon for signs of venereal disease before being allowed to go ashore, and tried to prevent women coming abroad, not with complete success: see 353, 638–39.
61 Both Cook and Banks described eating and food taboos in Tahiti in some detail; Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, i, 123; Banks, Endeavour Journal, 141.
62 For example, the scene of public sexual coupling described in Rennie, The Point Venus ‘Scene’, 135.
63 Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, i, 399.
64 O’Sullivan argues that Cook exhibited some very un-Quaker like characteristics ‘such as a tendency to swear, and also a readiness to use violence to achieve his aims when other methods failed’. But colourful language, including swearing, was both widespread and could equally be regarded as a normal tool of command in the armed services. There is moreover a distinction between ‘violence’, which is uncontrolled and often unpredictable, and ‘force’ which is exercised within a disciplined framework and reported upon afterwards: O’Sullivan, In Search of Captain Cook, 181–83.
65 As argued in Williams,’Far more happier than we Europeans’, 499–512.
66 Banks, Endeavour Journal, 318.
67 Ryskamp & Pottle (eds), Boswell, 308.
68 Larkin, ‘Replicating Captain Cook’s waistcoat’, 58–61. The reconstructed waistcoat was shown in the Captain Cook Memorial Museum special exhibition 2015, ‘Fashion and Fibres: Island Dress in Polynesia’.
69 Both the Dance and Hodges portraits were painted c.1775-76, and are now in the National Maritime Museum.
70 Cook, A Voyage Towards the South Pole, General Introduction, II, xxxvi; Murray, ‘Notwithstanding our signs to the contrary’, 73–74.
71 Dampier, A New Voyage, I, ii.
72 Quilley, ‘The Captain’s artist’, 13–21.
73 Young, A History of Whitby, ii, 547. Young also noted the number of religious bodies in Whitby and calculated that most of the population attended one or other place of worship, 607–625.
74 Gascoigne, Captain Cook, 49. Cleveland was that part of Yorkshire’s North Riding which included the earlier sites of Cook’s life in Marton and Great Ayton.
75 Conrad, ‘Landfalls and departures’, in The Mirror of the Sea, 27. Cook was twenty-six years old when offered the post of master by Walker.
76 For example, Captain Hammond of Hull, to whom letters survive. North-eastern sea captains at this time seem to have included many men of cultivated interests: the 512 subscribers to Lionel Charlton, A History of Whitby, v-x, include the names of 52 sea captains, mostly from Whitby and the north-east coast.
77 Cook to Captain Walker, 19 August 1775, printed in Beaglehole (ed.), Journals, ii, 960.
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Sophie Forgan
Sophie Forgan read history and completed her PhD at London University. Her academic career at Teesside University combined teaching in the history of design and architecture with research in the history of science. She has published widely in academic journals and collections of essays and is particularly concerned with bringing inter-disciplinary approaches to bear on specific topics in different branches of history. Since 1997 she has been involved with the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby, recently retiring as Chairman of Trustees.