James Cook

James Cook married Elizabeth Batts, on December 21, 1762. They had six children together; James, Nathaniel, Elizabeth, Joseph, George and Hugh.

When he was not exploring and out at sea, he would spend time with his family in the East End of London.

On February 14, 1779, when he was in Hawaii, he was struck on the head and stabbed to death by Hawaiian villagers. His body was dragged away, parched, eviscerated and the bones were scrubbed. Some of his other remains were buried at sea, after an appeal by his crew.

James Cook was born to James Cook, a farm laborer and Grace Pace in Marton, Yorkshire. He was the second of the eight children born to the couple and was baptized at the St. Cuthbert Church.

In 1736, the family moved to a farm in Great Ayton, where he attended a local school. After five years of education, he began working for his father, who by then, was promoted to farm manager.

He worked as a shop boy in a grocery shop in 1745 and it is believed that this was where his fascination with the sea began as he would look out the window and gaze at the big blue sea.

Subsequently, he began working as a merchant navy apprentice, plying coal along the English coast. During his free time, he studied the fundamentals of mathematics, navigation and astronomy; all of which would prove to be useful in his later life. He completed his three-year apprenticeship and began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea.

After he passed his exams in 1752, he was promoted through the merchant navy ranks and within three years, he volunteered to be a part of the Royal Navy; a time during which Britain was preparing itself for a war that would later be known as the ‘Seven Years’ War’.

His first position in the Royal Navy was with the ‘HMS Eagle’, where he took part in the capture of one French warship and the sinking of another. He was promoted to the position of ‘boatswain’.

In 1757, he was allowed to handle and traverse a ship of the King’s armada. He was then posted to the ‘HMS Solebay’, as the master, where he worked under Captain Robert Craig.

During the period of the ‘Seven Years’ War’, he captured the Fortress of Louisburg and showed his flair for cartography and surveillance. During the 1760s, he surveyed the coast of Newfoundland and produced large-scale accurate maps of its position, outlines and coasts.

In 1766, he was asked to travel to the Pacific Ocean to record the transit of planet Venus across the Sun by the Royal Society. It was after he agreed to the excursion that he was promoted to lieutenant and ordained as the commander of the expedition, which set sail two years later.

The ship arrived in Tahiti on April 13, 1769, where Cook and his crew recorded their observations of Venus’ transit across the sun. However, the observations were later deemed as inaccurate.

Many of his journals were published upon his homecoming from his first voyage, which was from 1768 to 1771. He was ordained a hero among the masses and the scientific community and many of his readings or discoveries are used by cartographers and explorers even today.