James Cook and HMB Endeavour

Cook's Voyages

Engage students with this interactive game. Players undertake scientific and navigational challenges while meeting with First Nations people in world-changing encounters.

wooden tall ship with white sails on the ocean with a blue sky

HMB Endeavour's Voyage of Exploration

In this resource produced by ABC Education in collaboration with Australian National Maritime Museum dive into the story of HMB Endeavour.

Learn about this momentous voyage, its famous crew and the lasting impact their visit had on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples – the continent's First Peoples.

Virtual Endeavour

Jump aboard and explore the life-sized replica of the HMB Endeavour in this virtual tour. Explore the sailing equipment on the upper decks or go below deck to see how the crew slept, ate and kept themselves amused during the voyage.

Collection items

Explore a curated collection of original materials from the Australian National Maritime Museum.

Read the object descriptions and answer the discussion questions:

Embroidered map of the Western Hemisphere. countries and continents embroidered in various colours, longititude and latitude are marked, each of the four corners of the fabric is embroidered and depicts sprigs of flowers.

Captain Cook's three voyages

This embroidered map is attributed to Elizabeth Cook, the wife of Captain James Cook, depicting her husband’s three voyages to the Pacific and is decorated with floral sprigs. This intriguing mixture of navigational science and domestic arts seems to suture the schism between a love of service to empire and a love between two people.

See in the collection

Figurine shows Cook seated, bare-headed, wearing captain's full dress uniform: blue coat and green pantaloons. To his right is a round table upon which is a manuscript.

Captain James Cook figurine

Captain James Cook became a celebrated figure in the 19th and 20th century, commonly depicted on books, plaques and posters. This glazed porcelain figurine of Captain Cook seated next to a round table and holding a manuscript was produced by the Alpha Factory in England. It was based on a 1776 portrait of Cook by Nathaniel Dance and would have been an expensive item to purchase at the time. High quality porcelain figures were popular items to decorate the home and often commemorated notable British celebrities.

See in the collection

2 bronze sculptures of a bust of a man, the right one with a black

'Captain James Crook' and 'Captain James Crook (unmasked)'

Two bronze busts of Captain James Cook by artist Jason Wing. They depict a traditional style busts of Cook, one wearing a black balaclava.

See in the collection

Explore other collection items

Captain James Cook

Chart of the World

Cannon ball

A Journal of a Voyage to the South Seas

A View of Endeavour River

HM Bark ENDEAVOUR

1 - 6

The Strange Big Canoe

(2:26 minutes)

The work, The Strange Big Canoe, created with the team from Ample Projects, is based on journal records and Indigenous histories that weave keynotes from HMB Endeavour’s voyage along the east coast into the perspectives of Indigenous communities along the shore and officers and crew on the ship. From first sightings of land and ship on 19 April 1770 at Tolylwarar in the south-east, a place Cook renamed Point Hicks, coastal communities watched as the ship made its way along the coastline - sending smoke signals ahead of it - as its commander Captain Cook watched, recorded and renamed lands from Kamay, Botany Bay to Bedhan Lag in the north on 22 August. There Cook planted the flag, renamed the island Possession Island, and sailed Endeavour north towards the spice islands, its hull full of plants and animals that had been collected.

Australian National Maritime Museum

Discussion questions

The full story of HMB Endeavour

(7:20 minutes)

The tale of how a little coal-carrying ship, originally called the Earl of Pembroke, but better known as His Majesty's Bark Endeavour. Endeavour travelled around the world under the command of Lieutenant James Cook (Captain Cook), mapping many islands in the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand and along the East Coast of Australia, before ending up sunk at the bottom of Newport Harbour, Rhode Island, USA.

Australian National Maritime Museum