 | | | THE LATEST PROGRAMME | | | |
| | James Cook rose to become the leader of the first voyage of discovery, sponsored by the Admiralty and the Royal Society. | | | 
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PROGRAMME 1: 'FURTHER THAN ANY OTHER MAN'.
Born in 1728, son of a farm labourer in Yorkshire, it's extraordinary that James Cook rose to become the leader of the first voyage of discovery, sponsored by the Admiralty and the Royal Society in 1768. This became a three year voyage that led to the charting of unknown territory - the whole of what we now know of as New Zealand, and the eastern coast of Australia.
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Captain James Cook. This portrait is courtesy of The National Maritime Museum ..>> |
The involvement of the Admiralty and Royal Society indicated that this was a voyage in which discovery and science played equal parts. It was very much an Enlightenment mission, to claim new territories for the British crown, but also to map and quantify, to literally push the boundaries of the known world. Dr Nigel Rigby of the National Maritime Museum considers Cook's personal qualities that made him - above all others - the man for this singular job.
In large part it was due to his prowess as a surveyor, skills at which Cook excelled, at a time when wealth and patronage were what counted. It's ironic perhaps, that HM Bark Endeavour, Cook's ship on the first voyage was no sleek ship of the line, but a Whitby collier - in other words a floating coal scuttle.
This round-bottomed vessel, faithfully reproduced today in the shape of the Replica Endeavour - she made the 5 month crossing from Australia earlier this summer, and is currently visiting British ports - would've been familiar to the Captain from his apprentice days at the Yorkshire port.
Nigel Rigby visits Whitby to learn more of Cook's nautical training there, and hears an interesting argument that the values of the Quaker ship owner with whom he served his apprenticeship may have contributed to Cook's own Enlightenment values of tolerance and scepticism, attributes that served him well when encountering the cultures of the South Pacific, in Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia. Probably the world's leading expert on Cook, Professor Glyn Williams also gives his assessment of the man and his considerable achievements.
Producer: Mark Smalley
Reader: Bill Wallis
Music composed and performed by: John Metcalfe.
FURTHER READING
The Journals of Captain Cook, Phillip Edwards, Penguin Books.
Voyages of Captain Cook, Captain James Cook, et al Wordsworth Editions Ltd.
Captain James Cook, Richard Hough, Coronet. | |
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Listen to - introduction
