Captain Cook Statue - Hyde Park South - Unveiled 25th February 1879 - Sydney - New South Wales

If you cut through Hyde Park South near Park and Elizabeth Streets, the bronze of Captain James Cook is hard to miss — larger than life, telescope in the left hand, right arm raised. English sculptor Thomas Woolner (1825–1892), a founding Pre-Raphaelite who had briefly tried the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s, designed the figure. It stands on a massive Moruya granite pedestal shipped to Sydney in 1878.

Commissioned in 1874 with public subscription and a New South Wales government grant, the statue was cast in England and unveiled on 25 February 1879 by Governor Sir Hercules Robinson. The day was a public holiday; contemporary reports described a huge procession (about 12,000) and a crowd estimated around 60,000. Pedestal inscriptions record Cook’s birth at Marton, Yorkshire (1728), the 1770 voyage of exploration, and his death at Hawai‘i (1779), together with the 1879 dedication.

It remains a City of Sydney public sculpture in the park’s southern formal landscape. Photographs here show the statue, pedestal and Hyde Park South setting.

 

The Captain Cook Statue - Hyde Park - Sydney - NSW

The Captain Cook Statue Is In The South Of Hyde Park 
The Sculpture Stands On A Moruya Granite Pedestool. 
This Work Was Commissioned On The 26th September 1874 & Was unveiled To The Public On The 25th February 1879 
It Was Made By Thomas Woolner (1825 - 1892). He Was Born In Hadleigh, Suffolk, & Studied At The Royal Academy. He Travelled To Australia in 1852, & Went On To Have Limited Success On The Voctorian Goldfields. 
The Day Of The Sculpture's Unveilling Was Declared A Public Holiday In Honour Of Cook & The Monument. It Was Estimated That 12,000 Joined The Procession To Hyde Park & 60,000 People Attended. 

Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Tuesday 25 February 1879, page 7

Captain James Cook RN - Birth - Wednesday October 27th 1728

 

Captain James Cook RN

Wednesday, October 27, 1728. :   Captain James Cook, who charted Australia's eastern coastline, is born. 

     James Cook was born at Marton in North Yorkshire, on 27 October 1728. He was the son of a farm labourer, and held no great ambitions, being apprenticed in a grocer/haberdashery when he was 16. Lack of aptitude in the trade led his employer to introduce Cook to local shipowners, who took him on as a merchant navy apprentice. Here he was educated in algebra, trigonometry, navigation, and astronomy, which later set Cook up to command his own ship.

After working his way up to positions of greater responsibility and experience, Cook was hired in 1766 by the Royal Society to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. Following this, Cook's next orders were to search the south Pacific for Terra Australis Incognita, the great southern continent that many believed must extend around the southern pole. He came across New Zealand, which Abel Tasman had discovered in 1642, and spent some months there, charting the coastline. Nearly a year later, Cook set sail west for New Holland, which was later to become Australia

Refloating HMS Endeavour off a Coral Reef – 1770

Refloating The HMS Endeavour Off A Coral Reef On The Great Barrier Reef 

1770 

In 1770, Captain James Cook’s Endeavour struck the Great Barrier Reef while surveying the east coast of Australia. The crew spent weeks repairing the ship at Endeavour River, near present-day Cooktown in Queensland. Refloating the vessel allowed Cook’s voyage to continue north towards the Torres Strait.