HMS Endeavour Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids History
HMS Endeavour off the coast of New Holland by Samuel Atkins c. 1794
Great Britain
Name	Endeavour
Operator	Thomas Millner, Royal Navy, J. Mather
Builder	Thomas Fishburn, Whitby
Launched	June 1764
Acquired	28 March 1768 as Earl of Pembroke
Commissioned	26 May 1768
Decommissioned	September 1774
Out of service	March 1775, sold
Renamed	Lord Sandwich, February 1776
Homeport	Plymouth, United Kingdom
Fate	Scuttled, Newport, Rhode Island, 1778
General characteristics
Class and type	Bark
Tons burthen	366 49⁄94 (bm)
Length	97 ft 8 in (29.77 m)
Beam	29 ft 2 in (8.89 m)
Depth of hold	11 ft 4 in (3.45 m)
Sail plan	Full rigged ship 3,321 square yards (2,777 m²) of sail
Speed	7 to 8 knots (13 to 15 km/h) maximum
Boats & landing craft carried	yawl, pinnace, longboat, two skiffs
Complement	94, comprising: 71 ship's company 12 marines 11 civilians
Armament	10 4-pdrs, 12 swivel guns

HMS Endeavour, also known as HM Bark Endeavour, was a British Royal Navy ship commanded by Lieutenant James Cook on his first voyage of discovery to Australia and New Zealand from 1769 to 1771.

Launched in 1764 as a coal carrying ship Earl of Pembroke, she was bought by the Navy in 1768 for a scientific mission to the Pacific Ocean. She was also to search for the unknown southern land, Terra Australis Incognita. Renamed as His Majesty's Bark the Endeavour, she left Plymouth in August 1768. After sailing around Cape Horn she reached Tahiti to see the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun. She then set sail into the largely uncharted ocean to the south, stopping at the Pacific islands of Huahine, Borabora, and Raiatea which Cook claimed for Great Britain. In September 1769, she anchored off New Zealand, the first European vessel to reach the islands since Abel Tasman's Heemskerck 127 years earlier. In April 1770, Endeavour became the first ship to reach the east coast of Australia, when Cook went ashore at what is now known as Botany Bay.

Endeavour then sailed north along the Australian coast. She ran into the Great Barrier Reef near Cape Tribulation. The crew were able to get the ship onto a beach on the mainland. This is now the site of the town of Cooktown. They stayed for seven weeks so that basic repairs could be made to her hull. On 10 October 1770, she limped into port in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies for more substantial repairs. She left on 26 December, rounded the Cape of Good Hope on 13 March 1771, and reached the English port of Dover on 12 July, having been at sea for nearly three years.

The Endeavour spent the next three years shipping Navy stores to the Falkland Islands. She was renamed and sold in 1775, but was used as a troop transport during the American Revolutionary War. She sank in a blockade of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island in 1778. Her wreck has not been found, but relics, including six of her cannons and an anchor, are displayed at maritime museums worldwide. A full size working copy of Endeavour was launched in 1994 and is berthed alongside the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney Harbour.

Images for kids

Earl of Pembroke, later HMS Endeavour, leaving Whitby Harbour in 1768. By Thomas Luny, dated 1790.
An 1893 chart showing Endeavour's track
Tile on street depicting HMS Endeavour. Cooktown. 2005
Endeavour beached at its namesake river, Endeavour River, for repairs after her grounding on the Great Barrier Reef in 1770. By Johann Fritzsch, published 1786.
Route of Endeavour from the Torres Strait to Java, August and September 1770
A recovered cannon from Endeavour on display at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England
HM Bark Endeavour Replica. Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney

HMS Endeavour facts for kids

Images for kids

See also