DID IT EVER EXIST?

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 32, 1 November 1929, Page 13

DID IT EVER EXIST?

ENDEAVOUR’S FIGUREHEAD WHAT ADMIRALTY DRAFT . SHOWS Lieut.-Colonel H. C. Burton, late Royal Artillery, writes to the Press Association from Nelson: — “The reported discovery of the figurehead of Cook’s ship Endeavour is interesting. Unfortunately it is on record that when Captain Cook returned from bis first voyage (the only one in which the Endeavour was employed) he reported to the Admiralty that lie had been put to some difficulty in the Brazils because the Portuguese Gover nor refused to believe that the Endeavour was a man-of-war, owiug to her having no figure-head, and he therefore asked the Admiralty to furnish his ships on his second and third voyages with figureheads, so that they might be duly recognised as men-of-war. “The absence of a figurehead on the Endeavour during the time she was employed by Captain Cook is further borne out by the original dockyard draft of the ship, showing the alterations made to her by the Admiralty when she was purchased into the service for Captain Cook’s voyage. This drawing is uow a valued possession of the Sydney Yacht Club. The vessel is shown with a straight stem and no figurehead. These data are taken from the lecture on ‘Cook's Ships,’ by W. Laird-Clowes. the eminent naval historian. published in the English ‘Geographical Journal,’ of March, 1927.”