Thomas Willis (1756-1797) was a sailor with the Second voyage of James Cook.
Willis was born in 1756, the son of Richard Willis, M.A., Rector of Hartley Mauditt, Hampshire, by his wife Anne (née) Hawkins. Thomas Willis began his career in the Royal Navy aboard H.M.S. Dunkirk in 1769; he served on several other ships before joining the crew of Captain James Cook on H.M.S. Resolution in 1772. The Willis Islands in the South Georgia Islands were named for Willis, the first to sight them. [1] Willis kept a journal of his time with Cook. [2]
Following the voyage, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in 1778, and joined H.M.S. Sultan . He lost his right leg in 1782 whilst serving as second lieutenant aboard the Royal William , during skirmishes with French and Spanish forces. Willis married Mary, daughter of Anthony Kirkham, of Deal, Kent, in 1781, and had a son, Richard. Willis died 15 July 1797. [1] The Victoria Cross recipient Major Richard Raymond Willis was the great-great-great nephew of Thomas Willis. [3]
Captain James Cook was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and to Australia in particular. He made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific, during which he achieved the first recorded European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands, and the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand.
HMS Resolution was a sloop of the Royal Navy, a converted merchant collier purchased by the Navy and adapted, in which Captain James Cook made his second and third voyages of exploration in the Pacific. She impressed him enough that he called her "the ship of my choice", and "the fittest for service of any I have seen".
Captain Alexander Hood was an officer of the Royal Navy, one of several members of the Hood family to serve at sea, including his brother Sir Samuel Hood, who were both sponsored into the Royal Navy by their cousins once removed, Viscount Hood and Alexander Hood.
Captain James King was an officer of the Royal Navy. He served under James Cook on his last voyage around the world, specialising in taking important astronomical readings using a sextant. After Cook died he helped lead the ships on the remainder of their course, also completing Cook's account of the voyage. He continued his career in the Navy, reaching the rank of post-captain, commanding several ships and serving in the American War of Independence.
Captain Charles Clerke was an officer in the Royal Navy who sailed on four voyages of exploration, three with Captain James Cook. When Cook was killed during his 3rd expedition to the Pacific, Clerke took command but died later in the voyage from tuberculosis.
Zachary Hicks was a Royal Navy officer, second-in-command on Lieutenant James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific and the first among Cook's crew to sight mainland Australia. A dependable officer who had risen swiftly through the ranks, Hicks conducted liaison and military duties for Cook, including command of shore parties in Rio de Janeiro and the kidnapping of a Tahitian chieftain in order to force indigenous assistance in the recovery of deserters. Hicks' quick thinking while in temporary command of HMS Endeavour also saved the lives of Cook, Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander when they were attacked by Māori in New Zealand in November 1769.
Isaac Smith (1752–1831) was a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy and cousin of Elizabeth Cook wife of Captain James Cook, with whom he sailed on two voyages of exploration in the South Pacific. Smith was the first European to set foot in eastern Australia and the first to prepare survey maps of various Pacific islands and coastlines including Tierra del Fuego in South America.
Adventure Bay is the name of a locality, a township and a geographical feature on the eastern side of Bruny Island, Tasmania. At the 2016 census, Adventure Bay and the surrounding area had a population of 195.
The first voyage of James Cook was a combined Royal Navy and Royal Society expedition to the south Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Endeavour, from 1768 to 1771. It was the first of three Pacific voyages of which James Cook was the commander. The aims of this first expedition were to observe the 1769 transit of Venus across the Sun, and to seek evidence of the postulated Terra Australis Incognita or "undiscovered southern land".
Captain John Gore was a British American sailor who circumnavigated the globe four times with the Royal Navy in the 18th century and accompanied Captain James Cook in his discoveries in the Pacific Ocean.
Captain John Hatley, RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Hatley is most noted for being one of the junior officers on board Captain James Cook's third voyage in HMS Resolution, aged approximately 14. He later went on to serve in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, receiving promotion after helping to thwart a mutiny in 1797 and later commanding frigates in several campaigns.
The first humans are thought to have arrived in New Zealand from Polynesia some time around 1300AD. The people, who later became known as Māori, eventually travelled to almost every part of the country. Their arrival had a significant impact on the local fauna, particularly the flightless birds such as moa.
William Wales was a British mathematician and astronomer who sailed on Captain Cook's second voyage of discovery, then became Master of the Royal Mathematical School at Christ's Hospital and a Fellow of the Royal Society.
James Colnett was an officer of the British Royal Navy, an explorer, and a maritime fur trader. He served under James Cook during Cook's second voyage of exploration. Later he led two private trading expeditions that involved collecting sea otter pelts in the Pacific Northwest of North America and selling them in Canton, China, where the British East India Company maintained a trading post. Wintering in the recently discovered Hawaiian Islands was a key component of the new trade system. Colnett is remembered largely for his involvement in the Nootka Crisis of 1789—initially a dispute between British traders and the Spanish Navy over the use of Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island that became an international crisis that led Britain and Spain to the brink of war before being peacefully resolved through diplomacy and the signing of the Nootka Conventions.
The second voyage of James Cook, from 1772 to 1775, commissioned by the British government with advice from the Royal Society, was designed to circumnavigate the globe as far south as possible to finally determine whether there was any great southern landmass, or Terra Australis. On his first voyage, Cook had demonstrated by circumnavigating New Zealand that it was not attached to a larger landmass to the south, and he charted almost the entire eastern coastline of Australia, yet Terra Australis was believed to lie further south. Alexander Dalrymple and others of the Royal Society still believed that this massive southern continent should exist. After a delay brought about by the botanist Joseph Banks' unreasonable demands, the ships Resolution and Adventure were fitted for the voyage and set sail for the Antarctic in July 1772.
Colonel Commandant Sir Richard Williams (1764–1839) was a career British officer of the Royal Marines active during the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812.
James Cook's third and final voyage took the route from Plymouth via Cape Town and Tenerife to New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands, and along the North American coast to the Bering Strait.
Joseph Gilbert (1732–1831) was a British naval officer who was Master of HMS Resolution on the second voyage of Captain James Cook. As Master he was responsible for a number of specific duties, especially navigation.
Richard Pickersgill was an English naval officer who accompanied the sailor and explorer James Cook on two of his Pacific voyages.
A Voyage Round the World is Georg Forster's report on the second voyage of the British explorer James Cook. During the preparations for Cook's voyage, the expedition's naturalist Joseph Banks had withdrawn his participation, and Georg's father, Johann Reinhold Forster, had taken his place at very short notice, with his seventeen-year-old son as his assistant. They sailed on HMS Resolution with Cook, accompanied by HMS Adventure under Tobias Furneaux. On the voyage, they circumnavigated the world, crossed the Antarctic Circle and sailed as far south as 71° 10', discovered several Pacific islands, encountered diverse cultures and described many species of plants and animals.