The People: Explorers |
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Captain
Cook made the most famous 18th century voyages into the Pacific,
between 1769 and 1779. The first was to observe the transit of the planet Venus.
The later voyages were to establish British influence in the region.
Many items were brought back by seamen on the voyages. Many were later displayed in the museum of Sir Ashton Lever in London and eventually sold by auction in 1806. Some were bought by a Devon man called Vaughan and donated to the museum in 1868. They included clubs from New Zealand, Tonga and New Caledonia, most probably collected during the second voyage, in 1772-5 and a barkcloth likely to be from the Austral or Cook Islands.
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For
more information about Captain Cook visit the Hunterian
Museum and Art Gallery site.
Francis Godolphin Bond was born in Plymouth in 1765. At the age of 25 he became first Lieutenant on his uncle William Bligh's second voyage into the Pacific on HMS Providence, to gather breadfruit to take to the West Indies for cultivation on the slave plantations. Bond was promoted to Captain in 1797. He retired to live in Exeter and became a founder member of the Devon & Exeter Institution.
One of the most spectacular objects associated with Bond is the costume of a chief mourner in Tahiti, given to the Institution in about 1815, and passed on to the Museum in the 1870s. Other Tahitian items probably given by Bond to the Institution include the gorget.
Bond's Uncle, Captain William Bligh, On the morning of April 28th, 1789, led
by Masters Mate Fletcher Christian, twelve crewmembers staged the now famous
mutiny, capturing the ship, and setting Lt. Bligh and his supporters adrift
in the ship's launch.
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To
find out more about Captain Bligh visit the Mutiny
on the Bounty site. This site includes photos of a reconstruction of Bligh's
ship, H.M.S. Bounty,
used in filming the 1984 film "The Bounty".
