Articles in ‘History’

Still believing a Southern Continent existed, and keen to locate it, Joseph Banks pushed hard for a second Pacific voyage. To his disappointment, the Admiralty called on Cook to lead the expedition, with instructions to find a suitable ship. He found two: Resolution and Adventure, which were fitted out for the voyage. Some of the crew employed had sailed with Cook on the Endeavour. Banks contributed fifteen people, including two French horn…

Most of our readers are too young to remember the great airships that sailed, ever so majestically, across the Atlantic between Europe and the Americas. Those fortunate enough to do so, remember them as a sight never to be forgotten. Probably the best remembered, not only for her tragic end at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937, but also for her size and grace, was the Hindenburg. Built by the Zeppelin Company at Lowenthal near…

In May 1768, having secured a naval commission, forty-year old Lieutenant Cook was finally given the command of his own ship. Officially, Cook was sent to the South Pacific to observe the Transit of Venus. An accurate calculation of ‘the distance of the sun from the earth and Venus’, would allow scientists to determine ‘the size of the universe’. Secret orders instructed Cook to search out ‘Terra Australis Incognita’, the Great Unknown Southern…

As a terrible storm raged over the North Island coast in December 1769 the ships of Captain Cook and the French explorer Jean-François-Marie de Surville unknowingly passed within a relatively short distance of each other. Both the British and the French governments on behalf of their respective monarchies were engaged in a progressive programme of expansion of their foreign assets and hence these captains were exploring the region. New…

James Cook’s quest to ‘range’ further than any other man began incrementally. Having declined the offer by his employer, John Walker, to take command of one of his ships Cook volunteered for service with the British Royal Navy. Walker was unsurprised at Cook’s change in direction, observing that the twenty-seven year old ‘had always an ambition to go into the Navy’.[^2] Cook believed the navy was the way to advancement, despite having to start…

The history of gold stretches as far back as the beginning of civilization. Humans have long since realized the value of gold for both decoration and currency due to its rarity, lustre and ease of exchange, and while it remains a global business with no shortage of big and small scale mining operations and reality TV shows, especially in America. In New Zealand the discovering and reliance of gold in the nineteenth century was an important part…

In the early decades of the 18th century New Zealand was enjoying the profitable beginnings of international trade with its nearest neighbour, New South Wales. The establishment of a British penal colony in Sydney was Great Britain’s solution a group of inter-related problems. A rapidly increasing population, displaced by the social behemoth ‘Industrial Revolution’, the rise of petty crime and prisoners that were in turn overwhelming a prison…

This year, between October and December, a replica of the Endeavour will sail around New Zealand to commemorate a significant event in Aotearoa New Zealand’s history: Captain James Cook’s first visit to New Zealand. While not the first European to visit New Zealand shores, Cook was the first to explore and chart both north and south islands, compiling ‘the first cartographic map’ of the country’s coastline and cataloguing the ‘unique animal and…

Agathis australis, or Kauri in Maori is one of New Zealand’s oldest and mightiest coniferous trees that can grow upwards of fifty metres and can live around two thousand years. Found in the northern districts of New Zealand, the Kauri was once prolific covering 1.2 million hectares from the far North of Northland to Te Kauri near Kawhia, when the first people arrived in New Zealand, 1,000 years ago. · Due to deforestation from heavy logging…

In the Northern Hemisphere the traditional ‘May Day’ celebration is an ancient festival whose origins are shrouded in the mists of time. It is said that the earliest May Day observances began in pre-Christian times out of the Roman empire, a dedication to the Roman flower goddess Floralia, or Flora and a celebration of the advent of the arrival of Summer and blossoming flowers. However we know that the Romans were great mimics, in fact this was…