CAPTAIN COOK’S WIFE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1935, Page 7 (Supplement)

CAPTAIN COOK’S WIFE

ALONE FOR 40 YEARS

TRAGEDY OF THREE BOYS. , Just one hundred years ago there died at Clapham a very old lady who for 40 years lived very much alone and spent four days of every year in absolute seclusion. On January 25, February 14, October 1, and December 21 she stayed in her room fasting, solitary with her Bible and her memories. Her memories were proud indeed though very sad, for she was the widow of Captain Cook. It was as a young girl that she stood on the banks of the Thames, in 1759, to welcome back the victors from the Plains of Abraham. Among the officers was James Cook, Master of the Mercury, ir which ship he had surveyed the channel of the St. Lawrence and piloted the boats which carried Wolfe on that momentous journey.

She was then Elizabeth Batts, and a few days before Christmas in 1762 she was standing in front of the altar of Barking Church to be married to James Cook, who was then paying a flying visit home from his charting of American waters. They had six children, of whom three died as babies, and Mrs. Cook must have had a very busy time bringing up h +hree fine boys, for when her husband was not charting the seas he was making his famous voyages of discovery; he was very seldom at home. When Captain Cook returned from his sc d voyage round the world his two eldest children were James aged 11, and Nathaniel aged 10,' already eager to join the Navy. They did so, but they never so-ved under their father, for Captain Cook had already set out on the voyage from which he never returned. There was a baby, too, in the household, little Hugh, bom just after his father had set out.

Elizabeth had said goodbye to her husband in July, 1776, but it was not until October 1780 that his ship, the Resolution, returned to England, bringing back the news of her captain’s death, which had taken place a*t Hawaii 20 months earlier.

Thus slowly did news travel 150 years ago. Such momentous news as the death of a Captain Cook would to-day be round the world in 20 minutes; the actual news of his death took 20 months to reach home.

Captain Cook had been assassinated on February 14, 1779, and Elizabeth , Cook was to survive him for 56 years. They were years of great sorrow for her, for she outlived all her children. In 16 years after their father’s death his three boys died, and the mother was to be alone in the world for 40 years. On October 1, the very month on which she heard of her husband’s death, Nathaniel, then 16, was lost while serving as a midshipman in the Thunderer in the West Indies.

Hugh grew up'* a scholar but died on December 21, 1793, at Christ’s College, Cambridge; this sorrow befell the poor mother on the 31st anniversary of her wedding at Barking. Mrs. Cook and her only remaining child, Commander James Cook, left their home at Clapham to attend Hugh’s burial at St. Andrew’s Church, Cambridge, and, as if she had not suffered enough, within a few weeks of this funeral James was laid to rest there, too, for as he was returning to his ship off Poole, on January 25, a high sea in a historic storm swamped his boat and he was drowned.

The stricken wife of one of the noblest Englishmen was now alone in the world with her memories, and for 40 years she lived at Clapham, an example of great fortitude and Christian faith. She set up a memorial in the church of St. Andrew in Cambridge, with a relief of the globe and the names of her husband and her children inscribed on it. There she joined her children at the age of 93, on May 13, just over a hundred years ago.