Greatest Britons – Captain James Cook

The latest in the Greatest Britons series by Louise Scott looks at the life of Captain James Cook.

Early Life

James Cook was born in the village of Marton, in the (then) North Riding of Yorkshire on 27th October 1728. He was the son of Scotsman James Cook, who was a farm worker, and his mother was a local woman called Grace. He was one of five children.

The Cook family moved to Airey Holme Farm at Great Ayton (also in North Riding of Yorkshire), and James attended school, his school fees being paid by his father’s employer Thomas Skottowe. He attended school for five years before beginning to work for his father in 1741 (his father had, by now, been promoted to a farm manager).

When he had spare time, James would head up Roseberry Topping, a distinctive hill in North Yorkshire. The climbing gave him his first taste for adventure and exploring, and this would stay with him for life.
In 1745, James moved to Staithes, a small fishing village near Whitby. Here he was apprenticed in a grocery/haberdashery business, but would gaze through the shop window and out towards the sea. He lasted eighteen months in this job, proving totally unsuitable for shop work, so his employer – William Sanderson – took him to Whitby and introduced him to prominent ship owners John and Henry Walker. They were involved in the coal trade, and they took James on as an apprentice working on their ships delivering coal along the English coast. The first ship he worked on was the Freelove. He spent several years on this job sailing between the Tyne and the Thames.

James would study algebra, trigonometry, geometry, astronomy and navigation during the course of his apprenticeship, all of them useful tools for one day commanding his own ship.

After completing his apprenticeship, he worked on trading ships in the Baltic, and in 1752 he was promoted to the rank of Mate (who is the officer in charge of navigation) aboard Friendship. He was put in charge of Friendship in 1755, but around a month later he volunteered for service in the Royal Navy. At that time, Britain was re-arming itself for what became the Seven Years’ War.

In the Navy he was at the bottom of the hierarchy, and needed to work his way back up, but James realised that his career would advance quicker in military service. He began as an able seaman aboard HMS Eagle but was soon promoted to Master’s Mate. Within two years of joining the Navy, he passed the master’s exam, allowing him to navigate and control a ship of the King’s fleet.

Family

He married Elizabeth Batts, who was the daughter of the innkeeper at the Bell Inn in Wapping, on 21st December 1762 in St Margaret’s Church, Barking. They had six children, and James lived in east London when he was not on duty at sea.

Navy Career

James was master of Pembroke during the Seven Years’ War and was involved in the siege of Quebec City. He displayed his talent for surveying and for designing maps by mapping a large part of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege, and this enabled General Wolfe to carry out a stealth attack on the Plains of Abraham.

During the 1760s James mapped the Newfoundland coast, and he spent five seasons in the area, producing the first large scale accurate maps of the Newfoundland coastline. This brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society.

The First Voyage

James was hired by the Royal Society in 1766 to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. He was to travel to the Pacific to carry out the observations and was commissioned as a Lieutenant commanding the HM Bark Endeavour – a Whitby-based collier ship which had good storage capacity.

He left England in 1768 and sailed round Cape Horn, heading west across the Pacific, arriving in Tahiti on 13th April 1769. The observations were to be made on 3rd June, and in the meantime a small fort and observatory were built. They are now known as Point Venus.Charles Green, who was assistant to the Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne, was to make the observations. The aim was to get measurements which could enable the calculation of the distance between Venus and the Sun. After this had been achieved, then it would be possible to work out the distances between other planets based on their orbits.James wrote, on the day the observations were made: “Saturday 3 rd This day prov’d as favourable to our purpose as we could wish, not a Clowd was to be seen the Whole day and the Air was perfectly clear, so that we had every advantage we could desire in Observing the whole of the passage of the Planet Venus over the Suns disk: we very distinctly saw an Atmosphere or dusky shade round the body of the Planet which very much disturbed the times of the contacts particularly the two internal ones. D r Solander observed as well as M r Green and my self, and we differ’d from one another in observeing the times of the Contacts much more than could be expected…”

The measurements found by the observers were widely varied and the result was not as conclusive or accurate as previously hoped for.

After completing the astronomical observations, the next part of the voyage involved heading to the southern continent of “Terra Australis”. By discovering the riches of this continent on a voyage to map the transit of Venus, Britain could lay claim to the lands before any other European power.With the assistance of a navigator from Tahiti – Tupaia – James Cook reached New Zealand on 6th October 1769. They were only the second Europeans to reach the country, more than a century after Dutchman Abel Tasman. The entire New Zealand coastline was mapped, with only some minor errors. Cook Strait, separating North and South Island, bears his name to this day.After mapping New Zealand, Endeavour headed west towards what was then Van Dieman’s Land (and is now Tasmania), but prevailing northerly winds pushed them in a more northerly direction until one day land was sighted. This was named Point Hicks, in the south east of Australia.

They sailed northwards along the coast and came to an extensive inlet. On 29th April, James Cook and his crew first set foot in Australia. Initially it was given the name “Stingaree Bay” after the many stingrays there, later changed to “Botanist Bay” and then to its better known name of Botany Bay.

Botany Bay was promoted as a suitable place to establish an outpost but when the first British settlers arrive din 1788, they found the place unsuitable and moved a few miles further north, to a place called Sydney Cove, thus establishing the town (and later city) of Sydney.

James made contact with local Aborigines on landing in Australia. Two local men came to the boat, ignoring the offer of gifts. A shot was fired over their heads, and, as this wounded the older man, resulted in spears being thrown at the ship’s crew, who were unhurt. Two more rounds were fired at the Aborigines, who then ran away, but Cook went to the huts and found several children there. He left gifts of beads to show friendship.

They then sailed north, mapping the coastline along the way. The ship ran aground near the Great Barrier Reef on 11th June 1770, causing serious damage and a delay of around seven weeks whilst repairs were carried out. Encounters with local Aborigines were generally peaceful, and it is here that the word “kangaroo” first came into the English language.

After the ship had been repaired, it continued along its way, passing the point of Cape York Peninsula and sailing through the Torres Strait. Cook landed on Possession Island on 22nd August 1770, claming the entire coastline (which he later named New South Wales) for Britain.

The Endeavour then headed home, calling at the island of Savu, then continuing to Batavia for repairs. After rounding the Cape of Good Hope they stopped at St Helena and, on 10th July 1771, they came in sight of England, sailing up the English Channel, passing Beachy Head at 06:00 on 12th July. That afternoon Cook went ashore at Deal.After returning home, his journals were published and he found himself a hero amongst the scientific community. His son George was born five days before he left for his second voyage.

The Second Voyage

Before the second voyage, he was promoted from Master to Commander. Again he was commissioned by the Royal Society to look for the Terra Australis. He had already shown the New Zealand was not part of a larger landmass to the south and his charting of eastern Australia showed the island to be the size of a continent. The Royal Society still believed that there was a large continent to the south, even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

For the second voyage, the HMS Resolution was used. The ship circumnavigated the globe at a southern latitude, becoming among the first to cross the Antarctic Circle on 17th January 1773. On this voyage South Georgia was surveyed and mapped, being claimed for Britain. The ship sailed close to the Antarctic mainland but then turned north to Tahiti to get supplies. In 1774, Cook landed on the Friendly Islands, Easter Island, Norfolk Island, Vanuatu and New Caledonia. This laid to rest the myth of the Terra Australis continent.

After returning from this voyage, James Cook was promoted to Captain. He was given an honorary retirement from the Royal Navy, made a Fellow of the Royal Society and given the Copley Gold Medal. He longed to return to sea, however, and planned a third voyage, this time to find the Northwest Passage. He travelled to the Pacific and hoped to sail east to the Atlantic, whilst a simultaneous voyage would travel in the opposite direction.

The Third Voyage

On this voyage, Cook was in command of HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke was in command of HMS Discovery. In 1778, Cook became the first European to visit Hawaii. He made landfall at Waimea Harbour on Kauai and named the islands “Sandwich Islands” in honour of the fourth Earl of Sandwich, who was the acting First Lord of the Admiralty.

After visiting Hawaii, Cook sailed northeast, exploring the west coast of North America. He mapped the coast from California all the way to the Bering Strait, and he identified what became Cook Inlet in Alaska.

The Bering Strait was impassable, even though Cook made a few attempts to sail through it. He returned to Hawaii in 1779, sailing round the islands for eight weeks and then making landfall at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii. He stayed for a month and then headed off to resume his exploration of the North Pacific. A short while after leaving the foremast of Resolution broke, and they returned to Kealakekua Bay for repairs. However, quarrels broke out between Cook’s men and the Hawaiians and, on 14th February some locals took control of one of the small boats. Thefts were common in the islands of the Pacific, and Cook would have taken hostages until the stolen items were returned. He attempted to take the King of Hawaii – Kalaniopu’u – hostage, being prevented by the islanders, and Cook’s men retreated to the beach. As Cook had his back turned, helping to launch the boats, he was clubbed on the head and stabbed to death as he fell into the sea. His body was taken away by the Hawaiians.

Cook’s body was retained by local chiefs and elders, and the flesh was cut off his bones and roasted. Some remains were eventually returned for a burial at sea.

Remembering Captain James Cook

Captain James Cook has an extensive legacy. The place where he was born, in Marton, is now the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum. The house where he lodged in Whitby, owned by his employers the Walkers, is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum.The Endeavour River and the Endeavour Space Shuttle took their names from the ship used on his first voyage.

He accurately charted areas of the Pacific which other Europeans had never seen before.

He was the first to conclude that the Polynesian people of the South pacific had originated in Asia, a theory which has since been proved correct.

The site where he was killed in Hawaii is marked by a white obelisk and a small amount of land.

The Cook Islands in the South Pacific are named after him.

And in Middlesbrough a primary school and a shopping square bear his name.

Brits face bigger energy bills to subsidise French

British customers of the French energy company EDF face higher bills to subsidise EDF’s French customers. Only two weeks ago, the company increased its gas prices for British customers by 22% but it will not be allowed to increase its prices in France by more than 5%.

The law in France restricts energy price rises to the inflation rate.

EDF has blamed the price rises on the increasing wholesale gas price, though its electricity bills have also increased sharply.

The British energy industry was privatised in 1989, and in recent times both gas and electricity prices have increased markedly. Instead of energy companies making fat profits for their executives whilst many pensioners are forced to choose between feeding themselves or heating their homes, they should be re-nationalised and there should also be an end to foreign companies having such huge stakes in the British energy market.

Unmanned planes to spy on Britons

The Government is planning to introduce unmanned planes to spy on the British public. The MoD is working alongside BAE Systems to make the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (or “UAVs”) to make an aircraft safe enough to operate on police service in the UK.

The aircraft are able to take clear photos of the ground from as high as 50,000 feet. They are widely used by British forces in Iraq and Afghanistan but so far have not been used for civilian work in the UK.

If the UAV gets approval, it could be used for crowd control, anti-terror surveillance, maritime searching and in a support role for emergency services and intelligence services.

In another BAE project, technology is being developed that will take control away from air traffic controllers and effectively allow the spy planes to make their own decisions.

And what happens if this all goes wrong? Unmanned planes crashing onto urban areas because the plane was able to make its own decisions, then developed a fault and no one was able to prevent a crash?

As well as this being another example of Big Brother Britain, the potential for disaster is enormous.

Vermin problem in NHS

A study has shown that the NHS is having serious problems with vermin in hospitals – including in operating theatres which are supposed to be sterile.

One urology unit had a problem with cockroaches, an oral surgery unit reported a problem with crickets and drain flies were found in operating theatres. Wards and a renal unit in Leeds were found to have wasps nests.

Pest control experts have warned that insects could end up passing on infections to vulnerable patients as the vermin are attracted to food waste, drains and clinical waste which could contain dangerous germs.

As well as insects, rats and mice have also been found in hospitals. Some NHS Trusts had such severe problems that pest controllers were visiting once a week to remove vermin. The biggest problem was ants, followed by mice, rats and cockroaches.

The NHS was once the envy of the world, and superbugs and wards full of vermin were unknown. The rot started with the Tories and their obsession with private contractors and going for the cheapest (and not the best) each time. The NHS has continued to decline under Labour, with superbugs such as MRSA and C.difficile regularly making news. Whilst taxpayers’ money is spent on over-inflated salaries for health trust bosses, and even more money siphoned off for foreign aid, our once-great NHS is unable to provide even basic care for patients if they cannot even keep the wards clean and vermin-free

One third of “British” Muslims think killing is acceptable

A poll commissioned by the Centre for Social Cohesion has found that almost a third of “British” Muslim students think that killing in the name of religion is acceptable.

Also, almost half of those questioned wanted to see sharia law introduced in Britain and a third wanted a worldwide Islamic government.

However, Muslims have moaned about the findings, claiming them to be a “damning attack” on the Muslim community.

It is time that liberal woolly-minded do-gooders and their associates opened their eyes to the potential threat that these findings have exposed. No other religious group in the UK demands that their own rules replace our own, and no other has so many concessions and people bending over backwards to avoid causing them the slightest offence.

More here.

German-based company plans to demolish famous landmark

The Tinsley Twins taken on my mobile phone on my way to work

E-on, the German-based energy company, is to demolish the famous cooling towers in Tinsley, Sheffield.

The towers, at Blackburn Meadows, are 250 feet high and stand close to the M1, offering a prominent landmark to those travelling to and from the north of England. They serve as a reminder of the region’s proud industrial past which, like every other area of great British industry, has long since been destroyed by the anti-British traitors who control our country.

The towers will be demolished to make way for regeneration in the area, and it is said that their replacement will include a chimney which is even higher than the two iconic towers. A biomass power station is planned for the site.

The power plant which the towers had been part of was demolished in the 1980s, leaving only two of the eight cooling towers standing.

The decision to demolish the towers caused mixed opinions in Sheffield, with many people glad to see them go, and many others launching a campaign, including an online petition attracting more than 4000 signatures, to keep the Tinsley Twins. Ultimately this campaign was to fail.

Having worked in the area recently, I would see the towers on my way to and from work, and they were a great navigational landmark. It is a shame to see the end of something which many, myself included, believe should be preserved as a monument to British engineering, industry and as a tribute to everything which once made this country great but has been eroded away and destroyed by the pro-EU, anti-British traitors who now sit in Westminster and claim over-inflated salaries for doing nothing.

See more pictures of the Tinsley towers here.

MPs call for extradition of Hamza to be halted

MPs have called for the extradition of Abu Hamza to be halted on human rights grounds.

Hamza is due to be extradited to the US to face charges of terrorism. Another, Babar Ahmad, is accused of raising money for the Taliban.

However, the CIA has admitted that it “tortures” terror suspects, and this is the reason for the attempt to halt extraditions to the US. The CIA admitted waterboarding three terror detainees, and the UK ministers say this amounts to torture. The UK has signed up to a UN convention banning the return of individuals to countries where they face risk of torture.

It is time that those who run this country put the rights of law abiding citizens first. We should have the right to travel on public transport without the risk of being blown up in the name of religion. Those who support, carry out and condone terrorism should be stripped of all rights instead of being given more protection than the rest of us.

More here.

Traitor Brown makes Queen sign away British sovereignty

Brown – the latest in a long line of traitors stretching back to Edward Heath

Gordon Brown, the latest in a long line of government traitors, has ratified the controversial Lisbon treaty in a secret ceremony earlier this week.

The instrument of ratification was signed by the Queen, who was obliged to do so as Brown had signed the treaty, she was obliged to do the same. The treaty document was then put into a sealed bag and delivered to the Italian foreign ministry in Rome.

Brown now faces widespread revolt and the possibility of legal action after he forced the treaty into law without holding the referendum which had been promised.

How long before Ireland is forced to hold another referendum, this time ensuring that the “correct” answer is returned?

This traitorous, shambolic, spineless excuse for a British government should be voted out at the next election and replaced by those who truly have the best interests of this country at heart.

Police sniffer dogs will wear bootees, so Muslims aren’t offended

As people remember the 52 innocent London commuters who were  murdered three years ago by  Islamic terrorists, the police have announced yet another concession to  Muslims – that police dogs will be fitted with bootees when they enter Muslim homes. This is to avoid causing offence as Muslims regard dogs as unclean.

The bootees are already used when dogs enter mosques, and dogs would only be used to search Muslim homes in exceptional circumstances. Only last week Muslims were moaning about being searched by sniffer dogs at railway stations.

Muslims should realise that many people find aspects of their beliefs offensive – such as the ritual slaughter of animals – will this be banned to suit the wishes of the indigenous people of the UK? No, of course not.

Muslims object to sniffer dogs

Not content with moaning about washing their hands in hospitals, the flavouring on crisps and numerous other things, Muslims have now decided to moan about the use of sniffer dogs.

The dogs used by police to detect explosives are regarded as “unclean” by the Muslims, and not content with complaining about that, they are also up in arms about the use of body scanners in the fight against terrorism.

The dogs may now not come into contact with Muslims in case their religion is offended, and instead they should only touch the luggage – a practice which meets with the approval of the Muslims.

This came to light after trials of security measures at stations after the 7th July terrorist attacks. Female Muslims objected to the use of the body scanner as they said it was “tantamount to being forced to strip”.

If they have nothing to hide then they should not object to security measures which are put in place in an attempt to prevent mass murder. People should remember the religion of those who carry out, or attempt to carry out, suicide attacks in the first place.

More here.