James Cook (1728-79) lived in a thatched cottage in Marton Yorkshire during his youngest years. Shortly after, Cook Snr left Aireyholme to become a stonemason and in 1736, they all moved to Ayton. Until young James left Ayton to enter his apprenticeship with a grocer in Staithes in 1745.
Great Ayton Yorkshire
The doorway seems older than the rest of the cottage; it was probably not as originally built. With improved circumstances, the elder Cook enhanced the building. Our James only spent time with his elderly father here in 1771/72, on his return from the Australia voyage.
In 1933, the then-owner of the cottage, Mrs Dixon, put the Yorkshire cottage up for sale and it was suggested that it would make an ideal focus piece for Victoria's centenary in 1934. The prominent Melbourne businessman Sir Russell Grimwade saw an advertisement in the paper and agreed to buy the cottage, to present it as a gift to the Victorian people. However a difficulty arose when Mrs Dixon had stipulated that cottage should remain in Britain. She had rejected offers from wealthy Americans for patriotic reasons, but she was persuaded to agree to Victoria's claim on the cottage as Australia was British. After all, Capt Cook had been in Australia or New Zealand three times between 1768-79. So she accepted an Australian bid of £800, more than the highest local offer
The routes of James Cook's Australasian voyages.
The 1st voyage is shown in red, 2nd voyage in green, 3rd voyage in blue.
As the cottage’s structure had been altered by a succession of owners after the Cook family, its Australian assemblers had to restore the cottage, as best they knew, to its mid C18th appearance. The construction was completed in 6 months and the cottage was formally handed over to our Lord Mayor by Grimwade in Oct 1934.
The cottage had been sold unfurnished, so few of the present contents have any direct connection with Cook. But today’s contents have been carefully selected as original representations of the era. The Ditty Box, a hide-covered wood used by sailors to hold their smaller possessions, has the initials JC and was the personal property of Cook.
The cottage was dismantled brick by brick and packed into 253 cases and 40 barrels, together with slips of ivy from the walls to be transplanted in Melbourne. Everything was put on board the Port Dunedin which sailed from Hull in 1934.
When the ship arrived in Apr 1934, a site in the Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne was immediately selected, to set the cottage amongst the large European trees. Fitzroy Gardens were named after Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy (1796-1858), Governor of NSW (1846-51) and Governor-General of the Australian Colonies (1851-55). And Melburnians say that few other capital cities can boast such a significant garden.. so close to the heart of town. The City of Melbourne is responsible to preserve this splendid garden, visited by millions of locals and visitors each year.
When the ship arrived in Apr 1934, a site in the Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne was immediately selected, to set the cottage amongst the large European trees. Fitzroy Gardens were named after Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy (1796-1858), Governor of NSW (1846-51) and Governor-General of the Australian Colonies (1851-55). And Melburnians say that few other capital cities can boast such a significant garden.. so close to the heart of town. The City of Melbourne is responsible to preserve this splendid garden, visited by millions of locals and visitors each year.
As the cottage’s structure had been altered by a succession of owners after the Cook family, its Australian assemblers had to restore the cottage, as best they knew, to its mid C18th appearance. The construction was completed in 6 months and the cottage was formally handed over to our Lord Mayor by Grimwade in Oct 1934.
The cottage had been sold unfurnished, so few of the present contents have any direct connection with Cook. But today’s contents have been carefully selected as original representations of the era. The Ditty Box, a hide-covered wood used by sailors to hold their smaller possessions, has the initials JC and was the personal property of Cook.
Captain Cook's Cottage, Melbourne
Sitting in the Fitzroy Gardens (above)
Furnished with 18th century originals (below)
The cottage has since had two restorations. The first was in the late 1950s and again in 1978, when a major effort furnished the building with time-appropriate material and surrounded it with a garden.
A typical mid C18th Yorkshire cottage garden has been recreated, mostly using plants native to Great Britain and Northern Europe. The vegetable garden is also British; the chamomile lawn is composed of one of the oldest herbal plants of English gardens since chamomile tea was medicinally important for many ailments. In Capt Cook's time a water channel formed the garden boundary, so this feature has been faithfully recreated.
The garden and the renovated interior of the cottage were re-opened by Governor-General Zelman Cowan in Oct 1978, on Capt Cook's birthday.
Summary
This is the oldest building in Australia and a popular Melbourne tourist attraction, combining modern interpretations of Capt Cook's adventures, antiques, a lovely English cottage garden with medicinal herbs and remedies, volunteers dressed in C18th costumes and a newly equipped stable. Tickets and souvenirs can be purchased from the Fitzroy Gardens Visitor Centre, and entry to the cottage includes a comprehensive fact sheet for a self-guided tour. The humble home of a national hero… or at least his parents’.
Read The contagious magic of James Cook in Captain-Cook's cottage by Linda Young.
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22 comments:
wOW! Moving a cottage from one continent to another! That was quite a gigantic project!
As I understand the Australians turned it into a big touristic attraction composed of: English cottage, herb garden, volunteers, stable.
My class went on a school excursion and had a fun time. The garden was better than my parents' but the house was much smaller.
I remember visiting the cottage when I visited Melbourne. It really was a piece of England in Australia.
We were very nearly there on our only visit to Melbourne. I'm sure we visited the Royal Botanic Gardens. It's a pity because it's the kind of thing we would have liked to see but we were unaware at the time.
This has also reminded me of the way that London Bridge was removed brick by brick to Arizona. Apparently, the rumour that the Americans thought they were buying Tower Bridge is unfounded!
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DUTA
thank goodness the house was unpacked and transported on board a ship. You know how easily the house could have been remodelled or indeed destroyed, and noone would have cared. But this way Australians, and other tourists, can relive all the history we do at school in a hands-on way.
Train Man
when I was in primary school in the 1950s, there was very little money for luxuries like excursions. But Capt Cook's Cottage and the shrine were two exceptions that I can immediately think of, easily reached on public transport. I bet you are your friends had a great time at the Cottage.
Fun60,
the British influence on Australia was so great, from the transport of convicts on. But Victoria didn't accept any convicts, so our earlier architectural history is more limited than New South Wales or Tasmania. Victoria had to make up for this:
eg1 In 1954, Queen Elizabeth celebrated her coronation in Melbourne. The highlight was her event at the HUGE MCG ... I was there!
eg2 in 1956, Prince Philip opened the Olympic Games in Melbourne and was the star of the opening ceremony.
I am delighted you were taken to important British sites that linked our two countries.
bazza
Next time you come, I will make you a good list of places to visit :) But whereas my generation did _only_ Australian and British history throughout primary school, children these days are probably less educated about our national experience.
By the way, what was the historical connection between the London Bridge and Lake Havasu Arizona?
A book does not have to be written. You have researched well and written an adequate and conclusive piece about Cook's Cottage. I've seen it from the outside a number of times but I have never been inside. I should remedy that. I believe I would have to duck my head at times.
Andrew
sometimes I am so thrilled by spectacular architecture, thousands of ks away, connected to world-changing history... I forget that we also have modest, local sites to value. Can we compare Capt Cook's Cottage (in Melbourne) to Hagia Sophia (in Istanbul) or Taj Mahal (in Agra)? Hell yes.
Hello Hels, In 1968 the old (i.e. built in 1831) London Bridge had to be replaced, and was sold to an American millionaire and reassembled in Arizona. This late date means that it could not have been a factor in keeping the Cook cottage in British territory. Apparently there was a lot of granite left over from the bridge's foundation, and this was made into thousands of souvenir paperweights, etc. I have a decent sized chunk of it with a little plaque attached.
The historic Cook cottage sounds like a charming attraction, and its moving and reassembly makes its story that much more interesting. It sounds like a charming spot, and I am adding it to my list of places I want to visit.
--Jim
Dear Hels, I'm embarrassed to admit that the times I've visited Melbourne have been confined to visiting friends and not taking in sights and I hadn't realised the Cook family home was there. I'm going to put this little gem onto The List forthwith! I did wonder if the map of his voyages was going to include a roundabout route taken by the disassembled house but it seems that that particular voyage was uneventful :) And six-months to rebuild the puzzle without a how-to diagram would put some modern builders to shame today.
I was watching a show on a house restoration in Sydney the other night and the bricks were English-made, as bricks - alongside decorative wrought iron etc - were used as ballast on ships coming over to collect our exports. There are little pieces of Mother England dotted all over this country.
Parnassus
Thank you... I had no idea that London Bridge had to be replaced anyhow. So some entrepreneurs saw a way to make money, instead of simply junking the bridge materials. And no historical link between the donor site and the recipient site.
Captain Cook's Cottage is indeed charming and the Fitzroy Gardens are beautiful, really well worth seeing. But our attitudes to colonial history have changed since 1934 and I was a bit worried about discussing concepts like terra nullius.
Pipistrello
the map was interesting to me because it was clear that Capt Cook's ships had far more to do with New Zealand than Australia. I had wrongly assumed Australia would have been bigger and more important to the British.
Re importing building materials and other vital products from Britain, I am sure that was the most sensible response in the early days *nod*. Apart from food, sheep and timber, Australia had to establish its own production sites from the ground up.
Hi Hels - I always find it amazing they took his whole cottage over half a world away - and it survived the journey. There were a variety of reasons for those early voyages - exploration yes, but scientific too - the transit of Venus in the late 1700s ... it's a fascinating time. New Zealand was on the Pacific route hence its early and more detailed mapped landmass - before Australia as a whole was mapped and found. Definitely a place to visit when in Melbourne ... cheers Hilary
Hilary
Europeans had long believed there was a land mass in the southern hemisphere which they called Terra Australia Incognita, and you are quite right about the exploration of New Zealand's islands! We know that plenty of European explorers were here before Captain Cook - Willem Janszoon (and others) from the Netherlands and Luís Vaz de Torres from Spain were well recorded.
Boa tarde minha querida amiga. Sempre aprendo com seu maravilhoso trabalho de pesquisa.
Luiz
Thank you. I imagine colonial history is very important for students in Brasil as well.
It i a dear little cottage . I wouldn't mind living there on my own !! The thought of a family living there is pretty mind boggling . My mum lives in a very similar cottage in Geelong which was built by Geelong's first clerk of works . It is of similar dimensions and he raised 5 children there !!! I love the simple honesty of these cottages and I think perhaps others do too. The stark difference between this simplicity and the advent of Marvelous Melbourne during the gold rush is quite significant .I know which I prefer . I was quite shocked to hear that the house Cook actually lived in and that Mrs Cook lived in until the end of her old age , was pulled down only in the fairly recent past . He lived close to the docks in the east end of London .. Even if we discount the damage done to the indigenous populations of the pacific, his achievements as a mariner are truly amazing, even more so when one considers his quite humble origins .Mrs Cook also deserves a mention . A very long suffering person who saw her husband rarely and lost all her children in her lifetime .
mem
Poor wives :( If the cottage was built in the mid 18th century, I can almost understand why it was sooo squishy. Some families would have had 1 child, some would have had 10. But the cottages stayed the same.
What I could not understand was my grandmother's flat in the East End of London, before and after WW1. The block had four flats in total, her flat having two bedrooms, a kitchen and open area, but no toilet. (The toilet shared by the four families was on the other side of the back lane). Granny's rooms were shared by 2 parents, 10 children and then the uncle arrived from Russia!
"By the way, what was the historical connection between the London Bridge and Lake Havasu Arizona?"
There was no connection Hels - it was purely a commercial transaction!
bazza
I suppose if the alternative to destroying a historically significant object was selling it at a profit to a stranger, then I prefer it be sold. Destruction is far more common, at least in Australia.
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