Endeavour journal of Captain Cook

Journal of James Cook kept on HM Barque Endeavour, 1768-1771
Manuscript Collection MS1
Mahogany fall-front bureau believed to have been used by Captain Cook on his Pacific voyages c.1795
mahogany, Brazilian rosewood;
60.9 x 56.4 x 54.8 cm
Pictorial Collection

The story behind the acquisition of the Endeavour Journal of James Cook illustrates the Library's emerging role as a National Library. The Mitchell Library in Sydney had been interested in acquiring the journal for quite some time before it was offered by Sotheby's for auction in 1923. The Mitchell's claims to the journal were based upon the considerable collection the Library had already amassed on early European–Australian history. Anxious that the journal would fetch more than it was able to pay, the Trustees of the Mitchell approached the Commonwealth Government for a financial contribution towards the purchase. At this point the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library had no intention of bidding for the journal. Arthur Wadsworth, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Librarian, telegraphed the Mitchell to reassure it that the Library would not be bidding. Despite this reassurance, Wadsworth's assistant, Kenneth Binns, was intent upon the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library acquiring the journal.

I pointed out to the Commonwealth Government that the Mitchell was a portion of the Public Library of New South Wales, and that they would be assisting it to purchase a document which really was of such outstanding national importance that its only permanent repository should be the Commonwealth’s own National Library.

Kenneth Binns Oral History, 1967

The Commonwealth agreed to buy the journal and an understanding was entered into with the Mitchell Library that it would be its custodian until such time as the Commonwealth Government has a suitable repository.' While the National Library was asserting itself as the cultural custodian of the nation, the newly formed Commonwealth Government was also subtly reminding New South Wales that Canberra was now the central focus of the nation.

Upon arrival in Australia the journal was exhibited in Queens Hall, Melbourne, for a month before going to the Mitchell Library in Sydney. After four years at the Mitchell Library the journal finally arrived in Canberra.

Andrew Osborn met Arthur Wadsworth at the Canberra railway station on his return from Sydney with the Endeavour journal:

I was greatly surprised when I saw the old man … I’ve often thought that he was far wiser than I. If I had been sent to bring the Cook manuscript I would have guarded it in such a way that everybody would have been suspicious, they would have known I had something valuable, but treated as it was, in an old brown paper parcel, I imagine it was far safer, and of course, this great treasure of Australian history was brought safely in this way from Sydney to Canberra.

Andrew Osborn Oral History, 1962

back