Captain Cook Memorial Museum him on as apprentice seaman for a three-year term. Cook served Walker first as apprentice, then as seaman and lastly as master’s mate until he joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He spent most of his time at sea on Walker’s colliers, mainly in the coal trade between the Tyne and London but including voyages to the Baltic and Dublin. The Whitby historian George Young, ‘Life of Cook’ 1836, stated that during Cook’s apprenticeship Walker retained Cook in Whitby on occasion and lodged him in the attic of the house in Grape Lane. There should be no difficulty in accepting
James Cook James Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 172814 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook made detailed maps of Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, 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. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755. He saw action in the Seven Years' War and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint