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
Captain of the port Captain of the port The captain of the port is an official who has different functions in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries. To some extent the role of captain of the port is analogous to that of a harbourmaster. In the Royal Navy, the captain of the port was the officer, usually with the rank of captain, responsible for the day-to-day running of a Naval Dockyard under the authority of the admiral-superintendent. He usually also held the position of Queen's or King's harbourmaster and was directly responsible for the captain's department, which among other things operated