History

"Jim, haven't they come a long way since the suburb and school was named after you!" said Mrs.J ames Cook.

Instead of writing about the school's history, I thought it a good idea to tell you about my history - Captain James Cook (1728 - 1779)!

Nowadays there is very little of the Earth that has not been explored and accurately mapped. Today much of our information about the planet comes from remote imaging systems mounted on satellites, high-flying aircraft, or robots designed specially for operations in places where no human could hope to survive. Now most of our exploration is done from a distance.

It was not always like this.

Up until very recently the only way for people to learn about a place was to go there, returning with maps, pictures of the local people, plant & animal life. For centuries this meant that to Europeans the Pacific Ocean, the largest expanse of water on our planet, remained as dark and mysterious as the spaces between the stars themselves. As expeditions were sent out, and the routes they navigated charted, that darkness was slowly pushed back. But the very size of the Pacific made this a slow and dangerous process for a number of reasons. Despite these dangers people still ventured out into the unknown, and the discoveries they made shaped the modern world.

I was one of those people.

I was born on the 27th October 1728 in the small Yorkshire town of Marton. Unlike the majority of Naval officers of the time I was not the son of rich or noble parents. In fact I was the son of a Scottish farm labourer (who worked his way up to an Overseer) and a Yorkshire girl. I was intelligent enough to impress my father's employer who paid for the my schooling.

After I finished school my parents apprenticed me to a grocer in Whitby, where I was not especially happy. It was there, however, that I got a taste for life on the sea. In those days the port of Whitby was a bustling place, always busy with all kinds of ships: fishing vessels, navy ships, and colliers. I soon found employment on the Baltic sea in a Collier (coal transport ship) at the age of 18.

In 1755, the year before the Seven Years War broke out between England and France, I left my ship and signed up with the Royal Navy enlisting as an Able Seaman on the Eagle. Within a month I was promoted, because of outstanding ability, to Master's Mate. Four years later I was promoted to Master. This was unusual for an enlisted man.

In command of my own ship, my first mission was to map the estuary of the St. Lawrence River, which made possible the great amphibious naval assault upon Quebec City in 1759.

On 21 December 1762 I married Elizabeth Batts in Barking Parish. My wife, Elizabeth, whose picture is in the school's library and I had 6 children - some of their names appear in this web site! See if you can find them. Click here to see my family tree

In 1763 I was given command of the schooner Grenville to survey the eastern coasts of Canada over a four year period. It was those surveys that made my name, along with the information I obtained from observing and recording an eclipse of the sun in 1766. The surveys were so accurate that they remained in use until the beginning of the 20th Century.

My surveys and scientific observations, coupled with my own scientific ability and my being in the right place at the right time led to my being chosen to captain the Endeavour in 1768 on a mission to explore the great unknown of the Pacific Ocean and scientifically record  the transit of Venus and everything that was encountered. It was the first of the three great voyages of discovery I led in the South Pacific.

I was assigned by the Royal Geographic Society to command The H.M. Barque Endeavour. Aboard the ship was Joseph Banks, a 25- year old Fellow of the Royal Society. In my first Pacific voyage, I rounded Cape Horn in the Endeavour and reached Tahiti on 3 June 1769. After recovering a necessary scientific instrument stolen by the natives, the transit of Venus was successfully observed. The Endeavour then spent six months charting New Zealand.