Sunday, (NEW DATE , MARCH TBA): Special Event with the Noble Maritime Museum: Dr. James Hunter and Kieran Hosty, Australian National Maritime Museum: Cook’s Endeavor Found

Sunday, (TBA, MARCH), 2022            The Helen H. Loeffler Memorial Lecture

Special Event with the Noble Maritime Museum!

Cook’s Endeavour Found:

Identifying an iconic shipwreck using a ‘preponderance of evidence’ approach 

Kieran Hosty, Manager, Maritime Archaeology Program, ANMM

Dr James Hunter, Curator, Navy Archaeology, ANMM

HIS MAJESTY’S BARK ENDEAVOUR is a tremendously significant vessel in world maritime history and one that elicits mixed opinions. For some, the Pacific voyage led by James Cook between 1768 and 1771 embodies the spirit of Europe’s Age of Enlightenment, while for others it symbolises the onset of colonisation and the subjugation of First Nations peoples. Less well understood is Endeavour’s afterlife as a British troop transport and prison ship caught up in the American War of Independence. It was in this capacity – and renamed Lord Sandwich – that the vessel was deliberately sunk in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, in 1778.

This month, after 22 years of extensive research with its partner the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, the Australian National Maritime Museum announced that the shipwreck site of Endeavour had been finally identified using a ‘preponderance of evidence’ approach. In this presentation Kieran Hosty and Dr James Hunter detail the historical and archaeological research behind this approach, provide the evidence leading to the museum’s announcement, and discuss what the future might hold for the remnants of Cook’s Endeavour.