James Cook grocer and haberdasher William Sanderson. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for shop work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sanderson's, John and Henry Walker. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade. Their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their small fleet of vessels, plying coal along the English coast. His
The Death of Captain James Cook (Zoffany) Uffizi". Zoffany stayed seven years and the resulting painting was not well received. Zoffany had to leave the country and he never again got a royal commission. He had hoped to sail with Captain Cook, but as a second choice he elected to make the long journey to Lucknow where he painted the life in colonial India. Whilst Zoffany was in India he worked with William Hodges. The construction of this painting is said to be based on a sketch by Hodges. Zoffany went to see a play at Covent Garden concerning the death of Captain Cook who had been