TALKS and events over the next two months at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Stewart Park, Middlesbrough.
Friday, April 15, 2-3pm
Captain Cook’s Merchant Ships by Stephen Baines – talk and book signing
Discover the fascinating story of Cook’s ships, especially the four Whitby-built vessels that sailed on his three great voyages of discovery, as told by author Stephen Baines in his recently published book. Signed copies will be available from the Museum Shop.
£2 including refreshments
Local History Month (LHM)
Join the Museums in celebrating numerous aspects of the town’s rich heritage with a range of different events, tours and exhibitions offering something for everyone.
Friday, May 6, 2-3pm
Captain Cook Birthplace Museum
LHM Talk: Farther than any Man: Captain Cook’s Ice Excursions by Phil Philo
Although Cook and his crew never set foot on Antarctica, his excursions into the high southern latitudes brought him closer to the continent than anyone had ever been before and his ships became the first recorded vessels to cross the Antarctic Circle.
His probing of the extremely dangerous ice fields in search of Terra Australis Incognita, the great unknown southern land, resulted in his crew experiencing appalling weather conditions and privations and led to pioneering scientific work and research in the fields of navigation, astronomy, charting and the use of chronometers, the recording of weather, sea states and natural phenomena, such as the Aurora Australis; natural sciences; nutrition, diet, medicine and general health at sea; ice fields and icebergs, including their recording for the first time in the drawings of official voyage artist William Hodges.
Voyage accounts were also an inspiration for Coleridge’s epic poem ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’.
This illustrated talk will give an outline of Cook’s pioneering work in the realms of exploration of the Southern Ocean.
£2 including refreshments.
Friday, May 13, 2-3pm
Captain Cook Birthplace Museum
LHM Talk: Walkabout: Cook and Australian Aboriginal Life and Legends by Jenny Phillips & Phil Philo
2020 will see the marking of the 250th anniversary of Cook’s pioneering visit to the east coast of Australia and his recording of the people, flora and fauna.
Through Cook’s accounts of the visit and using the Museums Service’s collection of Australian Aboriginal artefacts, this talk will bring to life a fascinating culture that had existed for at least 65,000 years before Cook’s visit.
£2 including refreshments.
Friday, May 20 2-3pm
Captain Cook Birthplace Museum
LHM Talk: The Total Want of Wheelbarrows: Cook, Boney & St. Helena
By Phil Philo
Over 240 years ago Captain Cook made his last visit to the island of St. Helena, made famous by the exiling of Emperor of the French, Napoleon Bonaparte, to the island after his defeat at Waterloo and until his death in 1821.
This illustrated talk outlines the two men’s experiences and observations whilst on the island and highlights Cook’s apparently controversial comments on wheelbarrows and slavery and his links with the island’s Governor who hailed from the North East of England!
£2 including refreshments.
Tuesday, May 24
Dickens Inn, Southfield Road, Middlesbrough
Oceans (not pints!) of Science 1768-70 by Senior Curator Phil Philo as part of the ‘Pint of Science’ Festival 2016
On his second great voyage Cook famously wrote that he thought that he had gone ‘Farther than any man…’ and nowhere was that more true than in the realms of science.
Exploration, navigation, charting, astronomy, mathematics, horology, health, hygiene & nutrition, natural sciences, botany, anthropology….the list of fields covered by the great man and his fellow voyagers just goes on.
Discover the scientific highlights (and lowlights!) of the travels of Middlesbrough’s greatest son.