HMS Endeavour was the
ship in which
James Cook undertook his explorations of the
Pacific.
Originally built in 1764 as
The Earl of Pembroke a
supply ship (a
collier) in Fishburn, Whitby England, she was 29.7metres long, with
breadth of 8.9 metres and a
depth of 3.4 metres. She had three masts and her hull was made of wood. She was
armed with 6 4-pounder guns, and 8 swivel cannon.
The Earl of Pembroke was bought in March 1768 by the
Royal Navy for conversion; to provide a
vessel for
Lieutenant James Cook when the
Royal Society invited him to command an expedition to the Southern Hemisphere. First it was renamed
HM Bark, later
HMS Endeavour.
This
expedition was commissioned for two purposes, firstly to establish an
observatory on Tahiti and observe the transit of
Venus across the sun – with the intention of improving
astronomy and
navigation, and secondly to discover whether “Terra Australis”, the great Southern
Continent, actually existed.
There was a third aim of the voyage: the
investigation,
observation and discovery of
natural history. This was a privately sponsored
project, financed by 25 year old Joseph Banks, and as well as the navy crew, Endeavour carried a scientific party of seven men and their four servants.
She set sail from Plymouth on 25 August 1768, travelling via
Madeira and
Rio de Janeiro, and rounding Cape Horn in January 1769. Banks party put ashore at
Tierra del Fuego, and were caught overnight in appalling conditions, resulting in two of the party’s servants, George Dorlton and Thomas Richmond, freezing to death.
Endeavour arrived at Matavai Bay,
Tahiti on April 13, 1769, where she remained until the mid-July, monitoring the transit of Venus. When they left the island a Tahitian, Tupia, and his servant Tiata joined the
complement, with Tupia joining the scientific group.
From Tahiti, Cook sailed
southward, reaching
New Zealand at the end of 1769, and spent four months exploring the coasts of North and South island, before sailing west in March of 1770.
The ship reached Australia at
Botany Bay in April 1770, and sailed along the East coast of Australia. On 10 June, Endeavour hit a
reef off the
Queensland coast, and there was a desperate
battle to keep her afloat, until repairs could be carried out. After repair and restocking, the ship left Australia in August 1770.
The journey back to
England was fraught with disaster. While laid up for essential repairs in
Batavia in the
East Indies,
malaria and
dysentery ravaged the crew, killing thirty men including
artist Sydney Parkinson. Until this point the only deaths had been
accidental - the two frozen servants, and three drownings. A further three died between leaving the East Indies and arriving back in
Britain in July 1771. The voyages were a triumph, however, both in terms of
discovery and science, with the identification more than 1400 species of plant and 1000 animals previously unknown in Europe, and the charting of New Zealand and the Australian East coast.
HMS Endeavour was refitted in 1775. After this, her fate becomes murky. Some claim she served the Navy for 15 more years before possibly being purchased by the French in 1790 and renamed
La Liberte: there was definitely a ship of this name sold to the French, but there is doubt as to whether it was in fact, Captain Cook's. Other reports have her moored on the Thames and acting as a receiving ship for female convicts, yet others, renamed the "Lord Sandwich" and serving as a troopship.
La Liberte was finally broken up after running aground off Rhode Island in 1793, the fate of the ship on the Thames does not appear to have been recorded, and the Lord Sandwich was destroyed - again off Rhode Island - as part of a blockade to halt the advance of French and American troops in 1778.
Endeavour Crew, for the 1768-1771 Voyages of Exploration
CAPTAIN
James Cook
OFFICERS
John Bootie
Charles Clerke
John Gore
William Harvey
Joseph Magra
Isaac Manley
Robert Molineux
Jonathan Monkhouse
William B. Monkhouse
William Perry
Richard Pickersgill
Patrick Saunders
Isaac Smith
Francis Wilkinson
ABLE SEAMEN & SEAMEN WITH ‘TRADES’ (Cooks, Carpenters etc.)
Robert Anderson
Joseph Childs
William Collett
Matthew Cox
William Dawson
Jeremiah Dozey
Sam Evans
Peter Flowers
Stephen Forwood
John Gathray
John Goodjohn
James Gray
Francis Haite
Thomas Hardman
William Howson
Richard Hughes
Richard Hutchins
Henry Jeffs
Isaac Johnson
Sam Jones
Thomas Jones
Thomas Jones (2)
Benjamin Jordan
Thomas Jordan
Thomas Knight
Michael Littleboy
Robert Littleboy
Thomas Matthews
Sam Moody
Nathaniel Morey
James Nicholson
George Nowell
Richard Orton
Isaac Parker
William Peckover
Antony Ponto
John Ramsay
John Ravenhill
John Reading
Timothy Rearden
Daniel Roberts
John Satterly
Thomas Simmonds
Alexander Simpson
Robert Stainsby
Hyram Stevens
Forby Sutherland
Robert Taylor
Edward Terrell
John Thompson
John Thurmand
James Tunley
Alexander Weir
Charles Williams
John Woodworth
Archibald Wolfe
MARINES
John Bowles
Thomas Dunster
John Edgecombe
Samuel Gibson
William Greenslade
William Judge
Hyram Paul
Daniel Preston
Thomas Rossiter
John Trusslove
Clement Webb
William Wiltshire
SCIENTIFIC PARTY:
Joseph Banks, Esq. -Leader
Herman Sporing - Secretary
Charles Green - Astronomer
Daniel Solander – Naturalist
Alexander Buchan - Artist
Sydney Parkinson - Artist
John Reynolds - Artist
SERVANTS TO BANKS’ PARTY:
Peter Briscoe
George Dorlton
Thomas Richmond
James Roberts
TOTAL LOSSES:
Drowned: 3
Frozen: 2
Died of Illness: 33
Sources: http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/7557/1roster.html,
http://www.slnsw.gov.au/Banks/series_03/03_view.htm,
http://www.updateyourself.co.uk/premiershipmodels/listings/222.html