Had ‘Endeavour’ a Figurehead ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 808, 31 October 1929, Page 1

Had ‘Endeavour’ a Figurehead ?

AUTHORITY SAYS “NO!” NOT ON COOK’S VOYAGE Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. Lieutenant-Colonel H. C. H. Burton, late of the Royal Artillery, writes to the Press Association from Nelson as follows: “The reported discovery of the figurehead of the “Endeavour” is interesting, but unfortunately it is on record that when Captain Cook returned from his first voyage, the only one in which the “Endeavour” was employed, he reported to the Admiralty that lie had been put to some difficulty in the Brazils because the Portuguese Governor refused to believe the “Endeavour” was a man-o’-war, owing to her having no figurehead, and Cook therefore asked the Admiralty to furnish his ships on his second and third voyages with figureheads that they might be duly recognised as men-o’-war. The absence of a figurehead on the “Endeavour" during the time she was employed by Cook is further borne out by the original dockyard draft of the ship showing the alterations made to her by the Admiralty when she was purchased into the service for Cook’s voyage. This drawing is now a valued possession of the Sydney Yacht Club. The vessel is shown with a straight stem and no figurehead. These data are taken from a lecture on “Cook’s Ships," by Mr. W. LairdClowes, an eminent naval historian, published in the English “Geographical Journal,” in its March, 1927, number.