Talk:First voyage of James Cook

Heading

"The First voyage of James Cook was the initial voyage of James Cook?" No kidding? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.120.38 (talk) 22:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Good point! Have made it clear it was the first of his voyages to explore the Pacific. Dick G (talk) 22:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Place names

With thanks to User:Roke who has added the table of place names, I would however ask if there is a better way to present the information? The article is a general précis of Cook's first voyage and, since many events and 'discoveries' were made on that expedition, the size and detail of the table seems at first cumbersome and secondly disproportionate to the value of the information. While I appreciate the endeavour (no pun intended), would it not be better to have the relevant data spun-off into a sub-page? Thoughts welcome. Dick G (talk) 03:48, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree, the place names are too great a proportion of this article, and don't cover the entire voyage. Spinning it off into Australian places named by James Cook would seem appropriate.-gadfium 05:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay fair enough, I have moved the table to the new title --Roke 06:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

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4.2 Foveaux Strait

" what a bold claim that Margaret Cameron Ash makes that Cooks maps were wrong on purpose, they may well have been but in my research this isn't general accepted knowledge so should be removed " MA Hons in archaeology undergrad in history and 10 years arch and history related work experience creating an exhibition on Cook for 250 celebrations — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.154.233.196 (talk) 20:00, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Port Jackson

Hello all

I have deleted some speculative material which I don't think are sufficiently factual; specifically: "Evidently, while the Endeavour was anchored in Botany Bay, Cook followed one of the ancient Aboriginal tracks that connect Botany Bay to Port Jackson, a distance of some ten kilometres, and saw the full extent of the deep, natural harbour. The Admiralty had ordered Cook to conceal strategically valuable discoveries, so he omitted the main Harbour from his journal and chart. Cook’s overland walk was first proposed in 2018 in the book Lying for the Admiralty: Captain Cook's Endeavour Voyage."

None of the primary sources mentions that Cook walked overland from Botany Bay to Port Jackson. This is pure speculation. Far from concealing Port Jackson, Cook named it in his journal entry for 6 May 1770 and noted that it appeared to provide safe anchorage. If Arthur Phillip, in 1787, thought that Port Jackson contained islands, the most likely explanation is that he conflated Cook's descriptions of Port Jackson and Port Stephens.--Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 10:37, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Possession Island

Hello all

I have removed some material which I think is speculative, controversial, and not supported by the sources. I have replaced it with the generally accepted account. The deleted material is:

"He climbed the hill with three others, including Joseph Banks. On seeing a navigable passage, he signalled the good news down to the men on the ship, who cheered loudly.

Cook later wrote that he had claimed possession of the east coast when up on that hill, and named the place 'Possession Island'. However, the Admiralty's instructions[35] did not authorise Cook to annex New Holland (Australia) and therefore it is unlikely that any possession ceremony occurred that August. Importantly, Banks, who was standing beside Cook, does not mention any such episode or announcement in his journal.[36] Cook re-wrote his journal on his arrival in Batavia (Jakarta) when he was confronted with the news that the Frenchman, Louis Bougainville, had sailed across the Pacific the previous year.[37]

In his revised journal entry, Cook wrote that he had claimed the entire coastline that he had just explored as British territory."

There is abundant documentary evidence that Cook claimed possession of the east coast of New Holland on Possession Island on 22 August 1770 and this is the established view among professional historians. It seems odd to argue that Admiralty instructions prevented Cook from making a formal claim to the east coast on Possession Island but didn't prevent him from making a fake claim a few weeks later. Although Banks does not mention the possession claim in his journal it is mentioned in Cook's journal, the ship's log, James Matra's unauthorised account and in Banks's Grey Manuscript. Parkinson, who was on the Endeavour at the time, also reports that Cook raised a jack - that is, a British flag which is a sign of a claim of possession. I think a Wikipedia article on James Cook needs to rely on established facts rather than speculative theories. A good recent scholarly account of Cook's first voyage can be found in John Molony's Captain James Cook: Claiming the Great South Land. Happy to discuss. --Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 11:00, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Bass Strait

Hello all

I have deleted this section because it is speculative rather than factual. The previous section "Australian Coast" is an accurate factual description of Cook's first sighting of the coast of New Holland. Specifically I have deleted:

"Bass Strait Cook had studied the old Dutch maps before leaving England and was fairly sure that Abel Tasman had found in 1642 that his Van Diemen’s Land is an island separated from the continental mainland by what is now Bass Strait. A talented and diligent hydrographer, Cook quickly surmised the likelihood of a strait. The Admiralty had issued its usual verbal instructions to hide strategically important discoveries that could become security risks, such as off-shore islands from which operations could be mounted by a hostile power.

Consequently, in his journal Cook disguised his discovery with a riddle;[41] and on his chart he drew a curtain across the truncated channel by sketching a false coastline down to an invented Point Hicks.[42] Cook's cartographic fabrication worked and Tasmania's insularity was suppressed for three more decades."

There is no evidence that Cook discovered Bass Strait but hid his discovery. Cook's relevant journal entry for 19 April 1770 states that it is "doubtful whether they [ie Van Dieman's Land and New Holland] are one land or not." No document has been found indicating that the British Admiralty knew of the existence of a strait between Tasmania and the mainland before Bass's discovery in 1797. It is highly unlikely that the Admiralty would have let Phillip and Vancouver sail to Australia without telling them about Bass Strait if they knew about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aemilius Adolphin (talk • contribs) 06:11, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Indigenous accounts

I don't have time to do it now, but material from some ABC articles on indigenous accounts should be included:

• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/captain-cook-landing-indigenous-people-first-words-contested/12195148]
• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-26/indigenous-oral-accounts-of-captain-cooks-arrival/12183584
• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-18/captain-james-cook-first-sighting-of-endeavour-yuin-people/12151356
• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-29/captain-james-cook-discover-indigenous-aboriginal-history/12192756

Adpete (talk) 05:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Voyage of discovery

Hello all

I have expanded this section in order to better reflect the importance of this part of Cook's first voyage. I have also added sub-headings for clarity, and have added citations where these were lacking. Happy to discuss. --Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 05:01, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

New Zealand

Hello all

I have expanded this section in order to better reflect its importance, and have added sub-headings for clarity. I have also added citations where necessary. Happy to discuss. --Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 06:31, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Forby

no mention of the first european death on the east coast ? he does have his own wiki page, but that's also an easy link to from here for further information Dave Rave (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Improvements to lead

I have attempted a new draft of the opening paragraph based on MOS:OPEN (the lead doesn't even have a wikilink to Cook himself!) and MOS:NPOV (e.g. 'British' Royal Navy etc). Feedback welcome before I precede with the change.

The first voyage of James Cook was the first of three expeditions undertaken during the second half of the 18th century by British navigator James Cook, then a junior naval officer in the British Royal Navy. It was commissioned by King George III after a petition by the Royal Society with the scientific goal of observing the Transit of Venus from the South Pacific island of Tahiti to obtain an accurate measurement of the Earth-Sun distance. Cook also had a second objective to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land". The voyage employed the ship HMS Endeavour and lasted from 1769 until 1771. Cook became the first explorer to circumnavigate both the main islands of New Zealand and to chart the eastern coast of the continent of Australia. Jp2207 (talk) 20:08, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort but I prefer the current version which is more concise and gives us more of the essential information in the first three sentences: when it took place, who commissioned it, who commanded, the ship involved, the purpose. For example, The sentence: "The voyage employed the ship HMS Endeavour and lasted from 1769 until 1771" is clumsy compared with the original. I don't see any NPOV issue either and a wikilink is easy to insert without redrafting the whole paragraph. I think the main issue with the lead is that it doesn't adequately summarise the article: eg it doesn't mention that Cook claimed the east coast of New Holland for Britain or the legacy of the voyage: he became a national hero. I don't mean to be hypercritical but I don't think it's the first paragraph that needs fixing. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:39, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick feedback. There is a lot to unpack there so Iet's do it piecemeal:

1. Do you not think the first sentence should have a link to who the hell Cook is? I try to imagine an ignorant but curious reader not from the english speaking world.

2. My NPOV point was mostly the use of 'Royal Navy'. I'll change to 'British Royal Navy' with a wikilink to Great Britain (of the time) which is also oddly not wiki-linked.

More comments to follow. Jp2207 (talk) 23:01, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

There is, and always was, a wikilink to James Cook at the first unbolded mention of his name. This is policy. It is in the second sentence of the lead. I am sure that even readers with very limited attention spans will be able to get that far and click the link. Readers from the non-English speaking world who can't read two sentences in English will presumably be reading wikipedia in their own language. Royal Navy is the common name of the UK navy in the the English speaking world. The term is wikilinked so anyone who might confuse it with some other navy can click on it and be enlightened. If you think that calling it the [[Royal Navy]] does not reflect a NPOV I suggest you take the matter up on the Talk page of the relevant article. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

OK, you win. I was working on the seemingly false assumption that, if in doubt, wikipedia should strive for a level of clarity where articles do not *require* readers to click on links (or hovering) in order to understand a term. I doubt "Royal Navy" is common usage throughout the US. But, truly, not worth further discussion here. Yet I still find the current opening paragraph unsatisfactory. "first voyage" and "first of three voyages" in quick succession? "aboard HMS Endeavor" sounds like the narrative from a novel rather than a factual encyclopedia. And mentioning the exact date of the transit in parenthesis is too specific for 1st paragraph, no? And I feel it might be useful to succinctly state the reason they are bothering to measuring the transit - perhaps in later paragraph of the lead at least? And what do you think about linking to the specific 1769 transit article (as I did in my draft)? Jp2207 (talk) 05:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

The phrase "first of three voyages" clarifies that it is called the First Voyage because it was the first where Cook was the commander. It wasn't his first time at sea. "Aboard HMS Endeavour" is standard English, concisely stated. I have no problem with your moving the exact date of the transit of Venus to the relevant part of the second paragraph. It might also be useful to link the article on that specific transit there. That is probably also the place to briefly mention why they were observing it. As I said, I think the second and following paragraphs are those most in need of a rewrite (not to mention the entire article itself). By the way, I appreciate that you discussed your proposed changes here first and that you are willing to engage in constructive discussion about improving the content of the article. I apologise for my brusque tone earlier. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 07:09, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

No worries. I prefer back and forth to the silence that often follows my changes. WP:BRD works :) Jp2207 (talk) 18:44, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits. I added the link to the 1769 transit as discussed and changed the date to British style. The original text said 3-4 June. I'm not sure why, but it might have been because the Endeavour used two dating systems (ship's time and normal time). Or maybe the transit was over two days. I'm not sure that New Zealand and Tahiti should be linked as they are pretty well known countries, but I will leave it for now. See policy on overlinking. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 22:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. 3 June is in the source I have (Hough) and in the transit article itself. I guess it would be June 4 for observers in Asia. Transits are hours long - see here. While I totally agree that we should avoid overlinking, in this case I must respectfully push back. We should not be shy about linking to articles which play a central role in the article here, in this case the locations of Tahiti and New Zealand. Wikipedia is a surely a resource for the ignorant (myself included) more than for the already enlightened. I'd ask you to consider how many curious teenage high schoolers across the entire English speaking world know where (or even what!) New Zealand is, far less Tahiti. Jp2207 (talk) 23:30, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Lunar distance

The article has no mention of the lunar distance method of determining longitude. The use of this method by Wallis and then Cook ensured that the latter could actually find Tahiti. It also enabled useful charts of, for instance, New Zealand.

This is on my "to-do" list for the near future. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 22:59, 1 August 2025 (UTC)

Margaret Cameron-Ash

Material describing Margaret Cameron-Ash's theories has been vandalised again - far from the first time, as the threads below indicate. That is unethical. A glance at her books Lying for the Admiralty and Beating France to Botany Bay shows that she has considerable interesting evidence, which Wikipedia readers deserve to know about. It should be explained that it is a theory rather than established fact, but as such it should not be subject to cancellation. Jimmaths (talk) 10:49, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with "cancellation", it is just a matter of applying policy on fringe theories: "In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field. Because Wikipedia aims to summarize significant opinions with representation in proportion to their prominence, a Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is." Under policy, weight is given to theories in proportion to the extent they are accepted by experts in the field. There are hundreds of books about Cook and the First Fleet and so far I have yet to see any mainstream historian accept Margaret Cameron-Ash's conspiracy theories. The article already mentions her first book, and given that there are many excellent books by first class scholars which aren't mentioned, I think her views are already over-represented. I suggest you read some of the critiques of her works by more eminent scholars such as this one and this one. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 11:50, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

I don't think this is a fringe theory as per WP policies (this isn't "COVID vaccines contain nanobots"). I've read Lying for the Admiralty and I would agree that it does provide an alternative motivation and hence interpretations of Cook's voyage and journals. Favourable book reviews appear in connection with organisations with genuine interest in Cook's voyage, including the Captain Cook Society , Naval Historical Society of Australia , Australian Historical Association (although the review itself appears to be a broken link), Fellowship First Fleeters (which incorporates commentary by others) , etc. The response to the book broadly is that it does raises interesting questions and proposes alternatives to the traditional interpretation. None of the reviews dismissed it out-of-hand, all seemed to agree that it deserved serious consideration. I see no reason why it should be excluded from mention in this article. Rather than intersperse the material through the article, perhaps it would be better to have a section at the end of the article with some suitable heading e.g. "Alternative interpretations" (or whatever) and discuss it there. Kerry (talk) 22:32, 31 October 2025 (UTC)

With respect, Cameron-Ash's books do meet the wikipedia definition of a fringe theory: "In Wikipedia parlance, the term fringe theory is used in a broad sense to describe an idea that departs significantly from the prevailing views or mainstream views in its particular field." Therefore we shouldn't be giving them more prominence than they deserve based on their prevalence in the corpus of reliable academic histories on Cook. Her books are also classic conspiracy theories: she raises alleged anomalies in the accounts of Cook's first voyage and concludes that there was a conspiracy to suppress the truth. She then cites the lack of evidence for such a conspiracy as proof of the conspiracy. It is exactly the same type of inverted logic used by those who argue that the moon landings were faked or that the CIA was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, many people are attracted to conspiracy theories, probably because they are more fun than theories firmly based on documentary evidence, careful reasoning and due regard for more likely explanations. Even some members of amateur historical societies might be taken in by them. But Wikipedia policy states: "If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources on topics such as history, medicine, and science." WP:Source. So we should be looking at support for Cameron-Ash's theories in such sources.

"I see no reason why it should be excluded from mention in this article."

Her work isn't excluded from mention in this article. It is cited three times and her first book appears in the bibliography. But there is a good policy reason why we shouldn't devote more space to it than it deserves: policy clearly states that "Wikipedia aims to summarize significant opinions with representation in proportion to their prominence, a Wikipedia article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is." WP:FRINGE. Devoting a sub-section to a debate on Cameron-Ash's conspiracy theories would be giving them undue weight (see WP:BALASP). As I said, there are dozens on books on Cook written by eminent scholars that this article does not mention. Why devote a special section to this one?

Of the three "favourable reviews" you link, two are of the same one-page review by Paul Brunton (which was not published in a proper peer-reviewed journal), and one isn't a review at all. The only reviews I could find by distinguished historians and experts in the field dismiss Cameron-Ash's theories. Carl Bridge and Roger Carrick call them "a fanciful, yah-boo concoction of what can only be labelled ‘what if’-ery" here. G. A. Mawer, author of the excellent scholarly history, Incognita: The Invention and Discovery of Terra Australis, dismisses her first book as a conspiracy theory here A separate more detailed review article by Carrick in a refereed academic journal states: "the author’s pervasive habits of speculation and of describing circumstances unsupported by primary sources, and based instead on questionable deductions, more often than not lead to inaccurate conclusions and unsound history." As I wrote above, I am yet to find a serious historian who endorses Cameron-Ash's theories. Before we add a section to this article discussing her theories in more detail, I think the burden is on those supporting such a section to come up with mainstream historians who argue in favour of her theories. Alternatively, anyone is welcome to write an article on her and/or her books. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 01:37, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

I have since found a discussion of Cameron-Ash's Port Jackson theory in Blainey (2020). I will replace the current (rather cryptic) sentence in the Port Jackson section with a more direct sentence regarding her theory and Blainey's comment on it. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 03:50, 2 November 2025 (UTC)

Two thoughts

(1) The article leaves an inconsistency in the readers mind with:

(Description of Endeavour) A flat-bottomed design made her well-suited to sailing in shallow waters and allowed her to be beached for loading and unloading of cargo and for basic repairs without requiring a dry dock. and:

(Account of repairs after grounding on Barrier Reef) This was with the knowledge that the after part of the hull could not be properly inspected – there was no way of heaving the ship over to make that part accessible.

The flat-bottomed hull meant that it was extremely difficult to careen the hull over to access the damaged part of the hull. A ship with a more V-shaped hull, or even just a little bit of deadrise would have been much easier to haul over to expose the damaged area. I suggest that the description of Endeavour should omit ... and for basic repairs without requiring a dry dock.

That makes sense. I will make the change. --Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:18, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

(2) The removal of kedge over the bar takes away from the article a reminder that Cook was constantly using ordinary seamanship techniques that are alien to a modern sailor. The edit summary justification that is given includes that this technical language is not in the cited source. I disagree. There is a lengthy description of how the ship was got out of Endeavour River. The term used by Beaglehole is "warping". In his context, this is a perfectly permissible use of terminology, because he explains the use of anchors and (ultimately) the absence of wind. In an established harbour, the practice of the time might be to warp out to a permanent buoy or a pier-head or some other structure. None of these existed for Cook. The summary language of this article condensed the description by Beaglehole into just a few words by using "kedging" and "bar". There is no way that "kedging" is an inappropriate summary of the account given by Beaglehole. If the reader does not know what the term means, there is a link for that, but I suggest that many readers would gloss over this with the thought that "they had to use some seamanship technique to get out to sea". If the latter applies, we still achieve the objective discussed in the next paragraph.

So the question left is: "To what extent should the reader be aware of the technical aspects of Cook's voyage in a ship that was technologically quite different from a modern sailing vessel?" Cook's voyage was a number of things: contacts with new people in undiscovered lands, the most advanced navigational methods of his day, the leadership of his crew, etc. But among this list is the simple management of his ship. If we consider other articles – say Apollo 11 – we find the "nuts and bolts" descriptions of how things were done. I think we need some element of this here. Otherwise there is a risk that the reader has a subconscious image of the ship handling being akin to the fantasies in Pirates of the Caribbean (deliberate over-statement here!!).

This isn't a point where I am going to dive in and make changes, but just something to offer up for consideration. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 10:24, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Policy states: "Some topics are necessarily technical; however, editors should seek to write articles accessible to the greatest possible number of readers. Minimize the use of jargon, and adequately explain its meaning when it is used. Overly technical material can be tagged with {{Technical}} or {{Technical statement}}, so that it can be addressed by other editors."

The sentence: "With repair work finished, Cook had to wait until 3 August for the right combination of wind and tide to kedge over the bar and out to sea" made no sense to me and I am a pretty average reader. I had to click on the linked nautical dictionary to find out what the sentence meant. We shouldn't expect readers to do this when the sentence makes perfect sense without the technical terms. If you want to put the technicalities in a footnote with the technical dictionary, that would be fine. Aemilius Adolphin (talk) 23:17, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

OK, fair comment. I have gone for the footnote solution. You might think I have overdone it on the references therein, but I feel that part of the job of Wikipedia is to provide sources to readers who want to learn more than Wikipedia can offer. Harland would give a student of Cook a complete insight into the ship-handling skills that Cook would have possessed. May is the comprehensive coverage of ships' boats – and we know from everything about Cook's voyages that the boats were integral to much of what he did. The content of the footnote does rely on both sources discussed. I feel that continuing to use "kedge" is appropriate, given that it is immediately explained in the next sentence. I appreciate that there may be alternative views on this, perhaps using Cook's terminology of warping up to the anchor. But that would require explanation also. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 10:48, 2 November 2025 (UTC)