Plates to Cook's third voyage
1776–80
Bound volume
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
F78/6
John Webber was the official artist on Captain Cook’s third voyage of discovery between 1776 and 1780. Following the voyage, Webber’s drawings were engraved and printed as the official visual record of the voyage.
This bound set of his plates was carefully selected by the Admiralty and presented to Cook’s widow Elizabeth. Pasted into the front of the volume is a letter from her cousin Isaac Smith to her doctor, Dr Elliotson, sent on 5 May 1821:
'I am desired by Mrs Cook to present her compliments to you, & to request your acceptance of the 4 books sent herewith being her husband’s last voyage around the World, as a mark of her respect for the attention and the great benefit she has experienced from your prescriptions, & she hopes when you give them a place in your library it may remind you of an old patient who will always think herself indebted to you for the kind manner you have attended her through a long illness. The plates are proofs such as could not be bought but were made a present to Mrs Cook by the Lords of the Admiralty, the better proofs of the second edition being much superior to the first.’
Cook memorabilia
Over the past 200 years a fascination has developed with collecting Cook memorabilia. In 1886 Mr John Mackrell, the great nephew of the Royal Navy officer Isaac Smith, Elizabeth Cook's cousin, organised a display of Cook material at the request of the NSW government in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. The material on exhibition had remained in the hands of James Cook's widow, Elizabeth and her descendants until 1886. In 1887 the London based agent-general for the NSW government, Saul Samuel, bought John Mackrell's collection. Samuel also acquired items belonging to other Cook relatives, including Reverend Canon Frederick Bennett, Mrs Thomas Langton, H M C Alexander and Mr William Adams. The collection remained with the colonial secretary of NSW until 1894, when it was transferred to the Australian Museum. In 1935 most of the documents and memorabilia were transferred to the Mitchell Library.
There are a number of items in the Library’s collection which have a direct link with Elizabeth Cook. Long after the official period of mourning for her husband's death, Elizabeth continued to wear a cameo-style memorial ring. She was still wearing it in a portrait painted of her aged in her eighties. Another moving item is an unfinished waistcoat made from Tahitian tapa cloth, which James had brought back to England from his second Pacific voyage. Elizabeth was embroidering the waistcoat while he was away on his third voyage, leaving it unfinished following his death.
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