A file in the collections of the Board of Control, part of the India Office Records, gives some brief but fascinating details of those living in the former Indian Princely State of Colaba which had come under British control in the 1840s. On annexing the territory from the ruling Angria family, British officials faced the responsibility for the financial maintenance of members of the Angria family, their dependants, and those who had loyally served the Colaba State.

View of Colaba by Jose M. Gonsalves from Lithographic Views of Bombay published in Bombay 1826 Online Gallery

The file contains lists of persons who had received a pension under the previous rulers and those newly recommended for a life pension due to their past service. The recommendations were submitted to the Bombay Government by I M Davies, Political Superintendent of Colaba.

IOR/F/4/2075/95768

Here are some examples of the entries (spellings as given in the file):

• Luxumon bin Baboo Meetbhowkur, aged 13: This boy’s father was accidentally blown from a gun at the marriage of one of the Chief’s daughters in March 1840. His son was pensioned, and was in the receipt of 2½ rupees monthly when the State was attached.

• Tsanag Dubboo, alias Dzomaee, aged 70: Widow of an old servant in the ‘Armarr’, or department of vessels. Has received an allowance for many years, in consequence of the death of her son caused by falling off the Flag Staff in the Fort of Colaba.

• Annundrow bin Crishnarow Dhoolup, aged 36: A great grandson of the famous Mahratta Admiral, Dhoolup. Received a pension from the Chief, Raghojee Angria in 1836/37. He resides at Viziadroog and is a very respectable person.

• Wasdeo Babjee Pitkur, Pooranick, aged 70: A servant of the late State, of upwards of 40 years standing. He accompanied Baboorow Angria in Hindustan from 1805 to 1812 and has since resided at Alibagh, where he was entrusted with the duties of Officer of the Adawlut. Under the Political Superintendent he has been employed in the same capacity and is one of the Assessors of the Superintendent’s Court. He enjoyed a liberal maintenance under the late State.

• Appajee Bajee, aged 75: Served as a Puntojee, or teacher, in the Chief’s family for upwards of 40 years. He has for some years past been dependent upon the charity of the Ranees. It is recommended that a pension of 5 rupees per mensem be assigned to him.

• Manajee bin Luxman Lar, aged 45: An old Shingara, or horn blower. He lost his eye sight from smallpox and was 8 years employed in the Artificer’s shop as bellowsman. He received in that employment 8 annas per mensem and 1½ maund of bhat. Being very destitute I beg to recommend that he be allowed a pension of 1½ rupees per mensem during his life.

• Sheik Ismael Gohundaz, aged 100: An old sepoy who has served the State upwards of 70 years. He is still borne upon the books as a sepoy of Saughurgur Fort where he has been for upwards of 40 years. I beg to recommend that a pension of 3½ rupees per mensem be allowed to him during the remainder of his life.

IOR/F/4/2075/95768

In submitting his recommendations, Davies assured the Bombay Government that he had been as frugal as he had been able to suggest. 

John O’Brien
India Office Records

Further reading:
A list of persons recommended by the Political Superintendent of Colaba for life pensions, 1844 [Reference IOR/F/4/2075/95768]

 

By the end of the 18th century a number of publications had been produced for children that discussed the Pacific voyages led by James Cook.  He appeared most regularly at this point in juvenile literature concerning geography, where he featured amongst other voyagers who had opened up the ‘known world’.  In Richard Turner’s A New and Easy introduction to Universal Geography, Cook was described as an important captain in the first edition of 1780, but by later editions he was presented as a significant national figure.  This change reflected a broader trend in the image of Cook that resulted from the news of his death, the publication of the third voyage account and the subsequent development of his status in Britain.  Abridged versions of the three Pacific voyage accounts were produced for juvenile readers, in which stories and appealing characters were extracted to entertain and instruct.

Richard Turner, A New and Easy Introduction to Universal Geography; in a Series of Letters to a Youth at School (London, 1797), Eighth Edition.

While these early publications included moralising elements, these became ubiquitous in juvenile literature relating to Cook in the 19th century.  He continued to be represented as an adventurer and explorer for the entertainment of the young, but significantly he became a moral exemplar with the stories including ethical and religious social codes for readers to learn from.

Juvenile editions of Cook’s Three Voyages round the World continued to be popular and were regularly printed in the 19th century.  They were offered at a range of price points that depended on the number and quality of illustrations included.  Images from Cook’s voyages became familiar to young audiences as depictions of islands, maps and Pacific peoples were repeated in illustrated publications and picture books.

Meredith Jones, The Story of Captain Cook’s three voyages round the world (London: Cassell, Petter, & Galpin, 1870).

Cook was referenced in Juvenile Missionary magazines of the 19th century, acting as a well-known figure through which children were introduced to the actions and locations of missions in the Pacific.  Here, descriptions of the first engagement of Europeans with Pacific Islanders were normally accompanied with a 19th-century commentary on the perceived nature of different peoples, with views which are now considered highly problematic.

In the opening of the popular account of the voyages by R. Ballantyne, The Cannibal Islands, Cook was described as ‘a hero who rose from the ranks’ and this image of Cook as a self-made man was seen as part of his appeal.  He was regularly touted as a figure of patriotic celebration and presented as one of the greatest navigators of the 18th century, celebrated beyond Britain with juvenile volumes produced in Australia and America.

Cook was a regular subject for boy’s own stories and he featured in boy’s magazines and comics.  By 1894, when producing several additions to its Household Edition of juvenile books, Routledge placed the story of Captain Cook’s Voyages alongside Gulliver’s Travels, the Adventures of Don Quixote, and Robin Hood.

Mary McMahon
AHRC CDP PhD Student, Royal Holloway, University of London, and the British Museum

Further reading:
Richard Turner, A New and Easy Introduction to Universal Geography; in a Series of Letters to a Youth at School (London: S. Crowder, 1780). Later editions between 1786 and 1805.
Robert Davidson, Geography Epitomised; or a Tour Round the World (London: T. Wilkins, 1786).
James Lindridge, Tales of Shipwrecks and Adventures at Sea: … with celebrated voyages, amusing tales … and… anecdotes… (London, 1846).
William Mavor, LL.D. and assistants, The British Nepos; or, youth’s mirror: being select lives of illustrious Britons… Written Purposely for the Use of Schools, and Carefully Adapted to the Situations and Capacities of British Youth, (London: printed for R. Phillips, 1798), pp.420-428. Later editions between 1800 and 1820.
James Bonwick, Geography for the Use of Australian Youth (Van Diemen’s Land: sold by S.A. Tegg, Hobart Town; James Dowling, Launceston; and at Sydney, by W. A. Colman, 1845). 
Meredith Jones, The Story of Captain Cook’s three voyages round the world (London: Cassell, Petter, & Galpin, 1870).
William Henry Giles Kingston, Captain Cook: his life, voyages, and discoveries. [With illustrations.] (London: Religious Tract Society, 1871).
R. M. Ballantyne, Tales of Adventure. Selected from Ballantyne’s Miscellany. With illustrations by the author (London: J. Nisbet & Co., 1873-75).

 

Visit our exhibition James Cook: The Voyages
Open until 28 August 2018

 

The troopship Empire Windrush is best known for carrying hundreds of migrants to London from the Caribbean in 1948.  The ship hit the headlines again six years later when it was destroyed by a fire sweeping through its decks.

The Empire Windrush - image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum © IWM (FL 9448)

In March 1954, the Empire Windrush was bringing 1,276 men, women and children back to the UK from Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Suez. Many were National Servicemen returning home to be demobbed.

On the morning of 28 March the ship was 20 miles off Algiers.  At about 6.15 am officers on the bridge heard a 'whoof' of air and, turning round, saw oily, black smoke pouring out of one of the ship’s funnels.  Then ten foot high flames appeared.  There was a fire in the engine room.  Since the alarm bell system failed to work, stewards and catering staff were sent to arouse crew and passengers. 

Some of the military officers thought it was a practical joke when they were awoken by stewards bursting into their cabins shouting ‘Get quickly to your emergency station!'.  Captain Anderson turned over in his bunk and continued to wait for his morning cup of tea, but then became aware of a smell of burning.  He threw on his overcoat and rushed on deck.  Hot paint from the top of the funnel was setting light to the wooden decks.  The ship’s power failed and there was no light, water, or telephone.

   The Empire Windrush as she burned at sea off the port of Algiers 1954- image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum  © IWM (A 32891)

Evacuation procedures swung into action.  Lifeboats and rafts were launched and ships were sent from Algiers.  Everything proceeded in a disciplined manner.  Within twenty minutes of the order to abandon ship, all 250 women and children had been placed in lifeboats, as well as 500 of the servicemen and the ship’s cat Tibby.  One boat was damaged as it was being launched and later sank when full of survivors.  Some of these were in the sea for two hours before being rescued.  As the fire spread, the order was finally given – every man for himself.  At about 7.15 am the last men left the ship,  including the captain.

Four lives were lost - engineers G W Stockwell, J W Graves, A Webster, and L Pendleton.  Others suffered injuries such as damaged hands from going down ropes and lifelines too quickly.

  Survivors arriving at Blackbushe Airport – from The Courier and Advertiser 1 April 1954 British Newspaper Archive

A relief operation was set up in Algiers and emergency accommodation found.  A soon-to-open holiday camp was commandeered.  The survivors were taken by ship to Gibraltar and then flown home by RAF and chartered aircraft, or taken by ship if they did not wish to fly.  Many had lost their clothing and possessions in the fire.  Service wives were handed a £30 ex-gratia payment by the War Office on arrival in the UK, plus £15 for each child.  Compensation for serviceman and for the families of the dead engineers was dealt with later.

An official enquiry into the loss of the Empire Windrush was held in June and July 1954.  It concluded that the cause of the fire could not be determined, but smoking, electrical fault, and sabotage were considered improbable. 

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
British Newspaper Archive e.g. Northern Whig 29 March 1954, The Courier and Advertiser 30 March 1954 and 1 April 1954.
W N Seybold (compiler), Women and children first…The Loss of the Troopship ‘Empire Windrush’ (1998).

 

Visit our free exhibition Windrush: Songs in a Strange Land - open until 21 October 2018

 

The art historian Bernard Smith famously described Cook as ‘Adam Smith’s global agent’.  Cook’s voyages certainly promoted commerce as a civilizing activity, a key theme in Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (1776), published the same year Cook departed on his final voyage.  Commerce is often illustrated in John Webber’s images of the expedition.

  John Webber, The ship, ‘Resolution’, at anchor in Nootka Sound, 1778, pen, wash and watercolour, British Library, Add. 15514, no. 10 Images Online

In their eagerness to trade with the British, the Mowachaht are here exercising what Adam Smith terms ‘the most sacred of human rights’ – to make a profit from what they have produced, particularly sea-otter furs which were highly prized by the British – and in doing so, are sharing in the benefits of ‘civilization’.

Like Smith’s own public image, however, the man on the £20 note extolling the virtues of the division of labour, the realities of the encounter were more complicated than that.  Less often quoted are his comments on the impact of this division of labour on individuals’s lives: ‘The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations… becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to become’.

Smith was equally sceptical of European intrusions into the New World, motivated by ‘the dream of Eldorado’ or the equally fantastical ‘discovering a north-west passage to the East Indies’.  As for what he terms ‘colony trade’, this, he argued, tended to serve the interests of merchants above either those of the colonies or of the ‘mother country’. The ‘blankets, fire-arms, and brandy’ that the nations of North America traded for furs did little if anything to improve their lives, nor in Britain did those new imported products ‘consumed by idle people who produce nothing, such as foreign wines, foreign silks, &c’.

Smith was not alone in holding such critical views.  Some even stuck to the figure of Cook himself who was accused of being ‘amongst the pursuers of peltry’.  The accusation was not without some justification.  Soon after his death in 1779 a number of commercial expeditions were launched on the back of reports from Cook’s voyage of the abundance of sea-otter furs on America’s north-west coast and the huge prices they fetched in China.  Several of these trips were led by former crew members of Cook.  In 1792, George Vancouver, a midshipman on the Resolution, sailed to Nootka Sound to negotiate with Spain the rights of the British effectively to take possession of the region for purposes of trade.

In the background to Gillray’s caricature of Vancouver is ‘The South-Sea Fur Warehouse from China!’ selling ‘Fine Black Otter Skins.  The assertion: ‘No contraband goods sold here’ is hardly to be believed.  Instead, Gillray, like Smith, casts doubt on the benefits to the ‘mother country’ brought by ‘colony trade’, a point emphasised by the inscription on Vancouver’s cloak: ‘This present from the King of Owyhee to George IIId forgot to be delivered’.  Such criticisms of course take little, if any, account of the injurious impact the trade had on the Mowachaht themselves.

James Gillray, The Caneing in Conduit Street, dedicated to the Flag Officers of the British Navy, 1796 - hand-coloured etching British Museum

So it may be true that Cook’s promotion of trade was ‘the diplomatic hallmark of his command’.  But the suggestion that he did so with a particular economic theory in mind, Smith’s or anybody else’s for that matter, would be to credit him with a far greater clarity of purpose than all the evidence would imply he possessed.

Ben Pollitt
PhD Candidate, Department of History of Art, University College London

Further reading:
Bernard Smith, ‘Cook’s Posthumous Reputation,’ in Robin Fisher and Hugh Johnston (eds), Captain James Cook and his Times, Vancouver and London, 1979, pp. 159-186
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776
James Cook and James King, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1784
George Vancouver, A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World, London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1798
MacLaren, I.S., ‘Narrating and Alaskan Culture: Cook’s Journal (1778) and Douglas’s Edition of A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean (1784)’ in J. Barnett and D. Nicandri (eds.), Arctic Ambitions: Captain Cook and the Northwest Passage (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2015) pp. 231-261

Visit our exhibition James Cook: The Voyages
Open until 28 August 2018

 

This summer the British Library has been celebrating the 20th anniversary of the official opening of its St Pancras building.  One of the experts responsible for its construction was Anthony Stevens who died on 2 May 2018 at the age of 87.  His daughter Lexy has written this account of his life so that we can pay tribute to his work.

The British Library at St Pancras © Arup

Anthony Stevens was born to parents Edward Cecil and Gladys on 28 November 1930 at Wharncliffe Gardens in north-west London.  With his younger sister Betty, he spent his early childhood growing up in St John’s Wood.  When war broke out the family moved out to Hertfordshire, where he attended Watford Grammar School for Boys.
 
University education was not a possibility for him, so on leaving school aged 16, Tony initially worked as a draftsman for British Rail at Watford and then at Euston.  Inspired by the skills of his railway colleagues, he studied at night school for a civil engineering Higher National Certificate.  In 1955 he started work as a Chartered Engineer for Sir William Halcrow, and then joined Arup in 1958. He went on to become a Fellow of both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Structural Engineers.

Anthony Stevens – photo courtesy of Lexy Stevens

 Tony took over the structural design of the Barbican Estate in the early 1960s and led the group that developed the design for the Barbican Arts Centre. With its location close to the previously-constructed tall residential tower blocks, it was necessary to limit ground movements to avoid damage to their foundations.  The Arup group designed a thick diaphragm wall, supported below by stiff props built inside tunnels. 

  The Barbican Arts Centre © Daniel Imade/Arup

The Barbican Arts Centre received the Institution of Structural Engineer’s Special Award in 1981, acknowledging “the importance of ground engineering works in the successful construction of works of structural engineering”.

   Anthony Stevens receiving the Special Award to Ove Arup and Partners for the Barbican Arts Centre – from The Structural Engineer vol. 60A No. 3 (March 1982)
 
His work on the Barbican made the new British Library at St Pancras a natural follow-up project for Tony.   He and colleagues decided that a design life of 500 years for certain structural elements of the building would not be unreasonable.  The book storage was planned in four basements with an overall depth of 25m, making this the largest civilian excavation in London.  Advanced analytical techniques showed only limited effects to surrounding properties, including St Pancras Station and the London Underground tunnels.  Techniques devised for the Barbican and British Library projects remain common practice. Tony was proud to learn that the British Library had been granted Grade I listing in 2015.

Construction of the British Library at St Pancras © Arup

   Construction of the British Library at St Pancras © Arup

  Construction of the British Library at St Pancras © Arup

  Construction of the British Library at St Pancras © Arup

At 62, Tony retired so that he could fulfil a long-held ambition. He studied for a degree at the Open University, attaining Bachelor of Science in Mathematical Sciences and Master of Mathematics, both with First Class Honours. Interviewed by a local newspaper, he said:
"Everybody can do it if they are determined to do the work, but there's quite a lot to do - at least 20 hours a week. People were amazed that I was ready to do it. During my career, there was quite a lot of maths in structural engineering, but I never really understood it. It was ever so interesting - I was finding out about a lot of things I had been taking for granted."

Tony combined an understanding of structure, materials, mathematics (despite his quote in the local paper!), and physics in order to solve problems from first principles, without having the benefit of today’s computers.  He was a leader with responsibilities for some of Arup’s most technically demanding projects, and set high standards. Everybody who worked with him will remember his support and advice, always given with a touch of humour.
 
Lexy Stevens
Architect, Tony’s daughter
with Peter Evans, who led the engineering of the British Library Completion Phase, containing the King’s Library, when Tony retired in 1992. 

Further reading:
A Stevens, B O Corbett, and A J Steele, ‘Barbican Arts Centre: the design and construction of the substructure’ in The Structural Engineer Vol. 55 No. 11 (November 1977).
The Structural Engineer vol. 60A No. 3 (March 1982).
P J Ryalls, R Cather, and A Stevens, ‘Aspects of design for durability at the British Library’ in Ravindra K Dhir and Jeffrey W Green (eds.), Protection of Concrete – Proceedings of the International Conference held at the University of Dundee 11-13 September 1990 (1990).

 

On a recent visit to the Green Howards Museum in Richmond Yorkshire, I was particularly taken with an article on display from the regimental magazine for 1895.  It was a first-hand account of the Crimean War by a soldier’s wife.  I found a copy in the British Library and it makes fascinating reading.

'A hot night in the Batteries'. Soldiers loading and firing cannons, during the Crimean War – from William Simpson and E Walker, The Seat of War in the East (London, 1855-1856) Images Online

Margaret Kerwin’s story was published in “Ours” – The Green Howards’ Gazette in 1895.  Margaret was the wife of Private John Kerwin of the 19th Regiment of Foot.  John was born in Carlow Ireland and he had enlisted in the British Army in February 1843 at the age of 20.  His first overseas posting was to North America where he served for nearly three years.

On 28 March 1854 Britain and France declared war on Russia. In April, the soldiers of the 19th Regiment who were stationed at the Tower of London were ordered to the Crimea.  People waved their handkerchiefs and threw oranges at the cheering soldiers as they left the Tower.  Margaret and fourteen other women went with the men on their journey.

Having sailed to Scutari, the regiment moved to Varna and then marched on foot to Devna.  Margaret bought a washing tub and carried it on her head with her cooking equipment inside.  She also carried a water bottle and a haversack with biscuits.  As they marched, men were overcome by the heat, and Margaret was kept busy providing them with drink.  In camp she was given the job of washing the clothes of 101 men, standing in a stream for twelve hours a day for very little payment.

Cholera and ‘black fever’ struck, killing large numbers of men.  Margaret fell seriously ill but her husband John had to leave her to fight in the Battle of Alma.  She was taken to the hospital at Varna where she received word that John had survived with just a slight wound.  Margaret refused to be sent back to England, and when she eventually recovered she was appointed as nurse at the hospital.

When the hospital was disbanded, Margaret sailed to Balaclava where she was reunited with John.  Shortly afterwards, the couple were ordered up to the front.  Margaret had a narrow escape when four shells exploded in her tent as she was on her knees ironing, her pet goat lying beside her.  A dozen shirts she was washing for Mr Beans were riddled with holes.

In November 1854, Margaret saw the Battle of Inkerman from Cathcart’s Hill.  She then had another brush with death when a Russian pistol held by a British sergeant went off unexpectedly and knocked the bonnet off her head.  Margaret was stunned but unharmed.

Having survived the Crimean campaign, John Kerwin went on to serve for seven years in India.  He was discharged from the Army in 1864 on a pension of 1s ½d, suffering from rheumatism.  John and Margaret returned to Carlow and lived to old age.  Her account of her experiences given in the 1890s ends: ‘If I was young to-morrow, I would take the same travels, but I would be a little wiser’.

Margaret Makepeace
Lead Curator, East India Company Records

Further reading:
“Ours” – The Green Howards’ Gazette Vol. III No. 25 (April 1895,) pp. 94-96.
Army discharge papers for Private John Kerwin (or Kirwin) No. 1737 can be accessed through findmypast.

 Green Howards Museum

In 1930, Australian politician Sir Joseph Carruthers published Captain James Cook R.N., 150 Years After.  Despite being riddled with inaccuracies and overstatements the book was well received by reviewers and included a foreword by former Australian Prime Minister William ‘Billy’ Hughes.  Amongst other claims, Carruthers posits that: the spread of disease by Europeans had little to do with the devastation wrought on Pacific Islanders; that Cook diligently respected the rights of Indigenous peoples; and that he has a claim to have started building Britain’s Empire in the Pacific.

  Sir Joseph Carruthers  Photo: Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW - Call no PXE 1104 /1/ 7.

Here are some of Carruthers’ claims regarding Cook and Australia, and what’s wrong with them.

1. Australia is the Great Southern Continent Cook was searching for

It is commonly believed that Cook was tasked with ‘discovering’ Australia.  Carruthers had no small part in establishing this myth, using the fact that Cook was issued with secret Admiralty orders to search for the fabled ‘great southern continent’; however, this was not Australia.  The Admiralty’s secret orders instructed Cook to search southward of Tahiti between 40 and 35 degrees latitude ‘until you discover it, or fall in with the Eastern side of the Land discover’d by Tasman and now called New Zeland’ (sic).  The great southern continent was expected to be east of New Zealand.

2. Cook Discovered Australia

Carruthers also bolstered the claim that Cook discovered Australia based on an interesting definition of discovery:

‘Captain Cook is the real discoverer of Australia in the sense that he stands alone as the one man who made good his discovery and founded an indisputable title to possession for the British race.  No new fact was needed to prove that’.

It is a perception that downplays the Dutch, Spanish and other English sailors (to name but a few) who sighted and even landed on Australia’s shores before Cook; and more importantly denies the fact that the continent was already populated by the Indigenous peoples, estimated to have arrived there over 60,000 years ago.

3. Cook was an example to the Union movement

Carruthers was writing in the wake of the Great Depression, when the Union movement was in full swing.  In his book he took the opportunity to advise that:

‘It is just as well in these days, when the Union wage in Australia and America varies from one pound to three pounds per day, to remember that the greatest discoverer and navigator of all time did his job magnificently on ‘five bob’ a day and never made a murmur about his pay’.

4. Cook’s Divine Grace

Cook as a man of destiny is a recurring motif in many books.  For Sir Joseph, Cook was ordained to land in Australia under divine providence. His book contains many biblical allusions and calls to God.  Perhaps most bizarrely though, he recounts that when Cook’s father ‘went to live in Yorkshire, the grandmother said to him: “God send you grace.” At his new home he [Cook’s father] met his future wife and her name was Grace’.  Thus, for Carruthers, Grandma Cook’s prayer was fulfilled.

Peter Hooker
PhD candidate with the University of Newcastle (Australia)

Further reading:
Carruthers, Joseph and Hogan, Michael, 2005 A Lifetime in Conservative Politics: Political Memoirs of Sir Joseph Carruthers 1856-1932. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press
Carruthers, Sir Joseph 1930. Captain James Cook, R.N., One Hundred and Fifty Years After, London: John Murray.
Ward, John M. Carruthers, Sir Joseph Hector (1856–1932) Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 7, (MUP), 1979.

 

Visit our exhibition James Cook: The Voyages
Open until 28 August 2018

A penny dreadful account of  James Cook’s boyhood titled The Adventures and Vicissitudes of Captain Cook, offers an unusual example of 19th-century literature concerning this figure.  Published in 20 parts from 1 November 1869, the author of the account remained anonymous, but its publisher was E. Harrison, known for his “sensational fiction” and creation of cheap weekly periodicals aimed at children and adults.  Each part opened with a striking illustration, often of the young figure of Cook embroiled in a physical struggle or in the process of escaping danger.

The Adventures and Vicissitudes of Captain Cook, Mariner. Showing how by Honesty, Truth, and Perseverance, a Poor, Friendless Orphan Boy became a Great Man.  Beautifully illustrated (London: E. Harrison, 1870) available online

This work is notable for the inaccuracies and embellishments in its description of Cook’s childhood.  Though it is not acknowledged as fictitious in the volume itself, this may have been presumed by the readership.

The story begins with James Cook at the age of ten, living in the village of Marton with his sick and widowed mother.  While this was the correct location of the real Cook’s birth, on 27 October 1728, at the age of eight his family had moved to Great Ayton.  His parents in the Adventures are named as James and Mary Cook, and his father had died while working for a Farmer Gripman.  In reality Cook’s mother was named Grace.  James Cook Senior worked for a Mr Mewburn in Marton and a Mr Thomas Skottowe on Ayton and he was still very much alive at this stage in the younger Cook’s life.

A key plot point of the early chapters of the volume is the death of Cook’s ailing widowed mother, leaving him behind as an orphan with no siblings.  The real Cook was the second of eight children, four of whom died young.  Through this constructed context the series introduced the 19th-century literary trope of the impoverished orphan.  By opening the fictional story of his life in this manner the events that followed could address Cook going out into the world alone and navigating its trials and tribulations.

The events that ensued are filled with action and adventure, childhood companions both kind like Ichabod ‘Ikey’ Mangles, and cruel like Octavius Challoner.  Mysterious strangers act as defenders and draw the hero into new environments.  Together they guide the fictional Cook to his ultimate purpose and allow him to display his moral worth.  His values of honesty and kindness are always rewarded.

While connections to the facts of Cook’s early life are few, these tales create an origin story for the idealised vision of the James Cook that had become well-known in juvenile literature of this period.  In the final scene, as the vessel enters Whitby harbour, where the real Cook learnt his trade and his ships like the Endeavour and Resolution were built, the writer states ‘that with honesty and integrity for a motto, the most unpromising commencement of life may have the brightest finish’.

Mary McMahon
AHRC CDP PhD Student, Royal Holloway, University of London, and the British Museum

Further reading:
Beaglehole, J. C. The Life of Captain James Cook (London: A. and C. Black, 1974).
The Adventures and Vicissitudes of Captain Cook, Mariner. Showing how by Honesty, Truth, and Perseverance, a Poor, Friendless Orphan Boy became a Great Man.  Beautifully illustrated (London: E. Harrison, 1870) - available online.

 

Visit our exhibition James Cook: The Voyages
Open until 28 August 2018