HISTORICAL RELICS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 252, 25 October 1933, Page 6

HISTORICAL RELICS

• SYDNEY V. MELBOURNE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 17. Some little time ago it was announced that Mr. Grim wade, M.L.C., of Victoria, had purchased the house in which Captain Cook lived at Great Ay ton, in Yorkshire, and that it is being demolished brick by brick and carefully packed up to be re-erected in the heart of Melbourne itself. When this was known in Sydney the mere fact that Melbourne was securing possession of a historical relic which has such close association with the early years of New South Wales was sufficient to start a controversy here; and first of all it was maintained that Sydney had a prior claim on this vestige of antiquity. It was at Botany Bay and not on the banks of the Yarra that Captain Cook's personal connection with Australia began; therefore, argued these enthusiasts, Cook's cottage should be transferred not to Melbourne but to Sydney and should be erected at Kurnell, on the south head of Botany Bay, where the monument commemorating the landing now stands. But as Melbourne was not at all likely to relinquish her prize, the local enthusiasts compromised by suggesting that after the centenary celebrations were over, and the people of Melbourne might presumably feel less excited about Captain Cook, the cottage should then bo handed over to Sydney. Here, again, however, they were blocked, by the terms of Mr. Grimwade's gift, which authorised the trustees to hold the cottage permanently in Melbourne as a national relic. By this time historical interest in Cook relics was thoroughly aroused here, and a few days ago a meeting was convened to discuss the whole question. The Royal Australian Historical Society, the Royal Empire Society and the Captain Cook Landing Place Trust were all represented at the convention, and the delegates discussed at length the various possibilities before them. Being reluctantly compelled—by the argument that I stated above—to surrender all hope of getting hold of Melbourne's acquisition, they considered various alternatives. Someone wanted to arrange for the purchase of the cottage in which Captain Cook was born in 1728; and it was necessary for Mr. Bertie, the city librarian, to explain that this cottage, as a matter of historical fact, was demolished nearly 150 years ago, and a granite vase was placed there to mark the site. A further suggestion was that an attempt should be made to get hold of the cottage in the Mile End Road, where Cook lived after his marriage. But it was pointed out that this cottage, if it is still standing, is one house in a terrace and is therefore peculiarly unsuitable for removal and re-erection. The meeting therefore terminated in rather an inconclusive way. But it is curious to note the strong disinclination of Sydneyites to imagine or believe that Melbourne can have any good reason for getting or holding anything that Sydney particularly wants. Even after the facts I have mentioned were generally known, a Sydney M.L>.A. wrote to the "Sydney Morning Herald" pointing out that kurnell is the right and proper locality for the Cook cottage, because Cook landed there, and suggesting that the Premier should intervene, so that this proiaosal "can be made a Commonwealth matter"—in other words, that the Federal Government should coerce Melbourne into surrendering the cottage whether she wishes to keep ■it or not. - And now about the cottage: The first point to be noted is that Cook never lived there. The cottage was built in 175o —as shown by the date on the lintel with the initials J.C. and G., for Cook's father and his mother Grace. Now young Cook left home when he was twelve years old that is in 1740, or fifteen years before the cottage was built. He went to work at a village on the coast —as far away from home, according to Sir W. Besant in his biography of Cook, as London is from Edinburgh to-day. When the cottage was built Cook was twenty-seven years old, lie had been several years at sea, and therefore he had no chance of living at Great Ay ton; and the further records of his life show that he never came back to this part of England again._ Further, Besant tells us that Cook's father built the Great Ayton house of stone. But it has evidently been rebuilt since, for to-day it is a brick cottage, with the exception of the stone doorway and lintel, which apparently still remain. The conscientious historian, without any desire to deprecate Melbourne's historical relic, may therefore point out that, though the original cottage was built by Cook's father, it has little to°do with the great navigator; and that the people of Melbourne will see it wholly transformed as well as transported to unfamiliar surroundings. Melbourne has thus been rather unfortunate in Mr. Grimwade's purchase; but the locality chosen for the erection of the cottage is equally unsatisfactory. The trustees of the , National Gallery gave permission for the erection of the cottage in the grounds of the Public Library on the Swanson Street frontage, near the heart of the city. As nearly all the town plan- ; ners and architects in Melbourne have pointed out, this site is in every way unsuitable. The ; critics, we are told, "stress the incongruity of , a little old world cottage placed near the stately columns of a modem building," especially on a spot where the city trams and motor cars keep up a ceaseless din, night and day. Mr. David . Stead, one of Sydney's best-known public men, ■ says that the cottage, which he describes as . "mean and extraordinarily plain (not to say 1 ugly)," is a splendid example of "how not to ; build a house for human occupation," and he adds that "stuck on the lawn in front of the fine Public Library it would be a public eyesore ( of the worst type for the Melbourne people." But Mr. Stead is also one of the few who have set their faces resolutely against the modern < practice of robbing places of historical interest < of their most sacred relics, and to him "this pur- . loining of the most interesting and important ; part of an English village is nothing less than souvenir-hunting at its meanest." After all, ] Cook's home even if he had never lived there, was only an integral part of Great Ayton, and so, . to <ret an appropriate setting for it here, as Mr. • Stead says, "the whole village should be trans- j ported with it." This, of course,reduces the , whole matter to absurdity—as he intends. ;