Over on the English Historical Fiction Authors blog, I have a new post up.
Historically, women had limited options for their lives, and Georgian England was no exception. As any reader of Jane Austen’s novels knows, this situation resulted in marriage being a primary career objective. Lack of education and property laws restricted the ability of many women to support themselves respectably, or even adequately. However, there were always exceptions. Margaret Holt Campion, known as the first Lady Banker in northern England, was one of them. Read morehere.
Illustration of Campion Bank House by Mike Kirby herefrom Wikimedia Commons
I wonder if she and her family knew Captain Cook, they would have known his ship the “Endeavour”, but probably by the name the “Earl of Pembroke” which was a Whitby collier launched in 1764 acquired by the Royal Navy in 1768 and renamed HMB Endeavour. James Cook was a native of Yorkshire and started his naval career from Whitby
I did not find any connection to Captain Cook or his ship. (I checked to see who built it and it was a different builder, neither her father’s company nor her husband’s). However, there were lots of gaps in the data I did find, and anything is possible!
The Endeavour was what was known in England as a “Whitby” collier. Designed specifically to carry coal from Newcastle to London. The original name for the Endeavour was the “Earl of Pembroke’. This ship finished it’s life in an inglorious way for a ship which had done so much for England,
It was sunk to help blockade a port in New England, I’m not sure may have been Newport RI. heres a link with pics of the reeplica that is stationed at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. For some years I was a volunteer guide at the museum and the Endeavour was one of my specialities. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-05/endeavour-discovery-to-end-resting-place-theories/7382728