“COOK’S COTTAGE”

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 12263, 26 May 1934, Page 7

“COOK’S COTTAGE”

TO.BE RE-ERECTED IN MELBOURNE. A COMMON PLACE L I TTLE BUILDING. If ihe publicity attendant upon tlio arrival in Melbourne of the cottage which for a time housed Captain James Cook dees nothing else, Bshould remove the impression that lie discovered. Australia, says a writer i-n the “Man chest or Guardian.'' That popular error was echoed, by the way, by one of the speakers at tho lunch which was given, recently on board tho Port. Dunedin to mark iUe loading of the cottage in , boxed sections and barrelled fragments for its journey to the Commonwealth, complete with the plaster-of-paris mould of a .sandstone block engraved “J. and C. Cook, 1755." One speculates a s to bow that cottage will look when re-erected rn the attractive Iritzmy Gardens, its future home. It is u. commonplace liitJo building completely devoid or architectural charm; and it is to he hoped that, the ;symbolism, of its presence- will be compensation for any other shortcoming*. When ho was a- hoy the great- eircum-naviga-tor whose parents occupied it spent muc-h of his time scaring crows Tom the crops; and the modesty of. that occupation fits very well with the uuohtrusiveuess of the. cottage. B is the kind of dwelling (except that pantiles, uot thatch, furnished ilie material of its roof) which Gray allotted. io “the .rude• forefathers of the handed” in Ids, Elegy before he laid them in their narrow rafts for over; and it is, after all, an inspiring thought that from such humble surrounuuigs came The man who charted the St. Lawrence for Wolfebefore ho took Quebec and did more to -map tho Pacific and to make Australia known to the contemporary world than did any other Jfug-lishm-an. Flo did.not discover Australia, but he took possession of it fo. T : the British Crown, in spite ot the fact that bis name does nob appear in the index of tho 'Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia; and to him is due. more than to anyone else, the incorporation <>*• Australia and New Zealand in the King's Dominions.

■ annexing a continent. James Cook, the son of a field labourer, was horn in a mud hut (not the building which is being shioped to Australia lo embellish, the proceedings in connection with tho Melbourne Centenary) at Marton. in Yorkshire, in 1729. This hut was pulled down 140 years ago. Having served ns apprentice in a ■coalboat, Cook joined the Navy as an able .shaman at 27 years of age. In 1768 ho was commissioned as a. lieutenant to command ihe Endeavour, in which be observed Hie limn sit of Veil ns at Tahiti. In 1. 60 he tons possession of the North Island or Now '.Zealand, and in 1770 of the South Island, having circumnavigated. the coasts of both. “North-west of us,” said ihe Maoris, “is Tlliinaroa.” That was Australia, whose coast Cook sighted at Capo Evcrard, nodr Gape Howe, ihe point at which tho border-lino between New South Wales and Victoria now begins, on April 4 1770. Ho landed at Botany Bay rather more than three weeks later. An obelisk at KurnoH, Now South Wales, now marks ihe spot. Here ho buried a seaman—the first. Briton whose remains rest in Australian soil. 'Sailing, north, and exploring as he went- tho coasts o* New South Wales and Queensland, lie. 'Stranded his barque, the Endeavour at wjmt is now Co ok town, hut floated off after jettisoning stores and some of his guns. Having established the fact that Australia and New Guinea were separate islands, Cook, on August 23, 1770, took possession of the eastern coast of the continent in the name of George 111. This ceremony was confirmed, and extended to include Tasmania, by Governor Phillip when he landed on tho shores of Port Jackson in 1788. Noble bronze plaques on the outer wall of the Church of St. Mildreu. Broad street, London, 35. C., were recently installed to commemorate this ffievent. It was in Broad street that Philip was horn.

HIS LAST VOYAGE. After a further expedition to New Zealand and a circumnavigation o* the other extremity of the globe, Cook made his last voyage in 1776, visiting North America, and again Hawaii. Here the natives, who had at first accorded him divine honours, stabbed him with an. iron knife made by himself in the image of their wooden on.e 3 and handed by him to his murderer as a present. 'The cottage taken aboard the Port Dunedin was bought- for £BOO as tho, 'result of, the enterprise of Mr. Richard Linton, the' Agent-General for Victoria from its owners, Mr. and Mrs. Dixon, of Great -Aytonl Here it had been erected by Captain Cook’s father in 1755. Bids had been made for it. in the United States, bub Mr. and Mrs. Dixon patriotically stipulated mat it should not b© taken outside the British Empire. The land on which it stood was transferred to tho Middlcs-

brought Council 03 a people’s park, and hero will be erected by the Victorian Government a replica of the obelisk of native granite now commemoratively standing on Cape JCvera.vd. The material for the Great Ayton monument wa g q nrp.'J'ioct in the virgin bush and lowered down a. vast, cliff to a naval barge tossing in the waters below. After the oofctage had been care-/ fnTly de.rn-oifehed for • Removal. i/ts component parts wore encased in a thousand' stout wooden boxes and barrels, weighing in all 150 tons, each being marked “Cook’s Cottage, Australia.” These were, taken by goods train ,to Hull Docks on February 20, and on February 23 wore slung aboard the Commonwealth and Dominion liner Port Dunedin, which sailed for Australia, via London.