Fitting Out the Endeavour by Jeffrey Mellefont riti s h res toration specia li s t Antoni a M aca rthur 's first in vo lvement with the Endeavour replica was to undertake earl y research into the sturd y Whitby colli er wh ich was outfitted by the Admira lty for Cook 's voyage of 1768-71. She rejoined the project two years ago to concentrate on the below-decks fitout. Her brief covered everything from the paneling, furniture and soft furni shings to sma ll persona l items which were used by the ship 's officers and sc ienti sts. The sources for her wo rk included archaeo log ical evidence, muse um arti facts, contemporary paintings , prints and drawings, including four Sidney Parkinson sketches of Endeavour , and written accounts, such as journals and logs by Cook, Joseph Banks and other officers, and Beaglehole's epic work on Cook. She described the work as a process of cross-referenci ng many sources, including ev idence of 18th-century Engli sh joinery and furnishings from the land as we ll as on ships. " We have some quite clear ev idence in the form of deck plan s, cabin layo uts, and profi le drawings," Ms. Macarthur ex plained. "Then there was a document relating clearly to the joiner's work which was ordered spec iall y for the first voyage, for example a written order for four new sashes made for the stem ga ll ery. Some of the information comes from bill s and estim ates at the time of the refitting. And Joseph Banks, who was ve ry keen to go on the second voyage with Cook, kept a great man y bill s and invoices whi ch tell us a lot about the sort of things that were carried on board. In the majority of cases, we are wo rkin g d irectl y fro m primary sources. " In the case of interior paneling in the officers ' quarters, it was first necessary to determine whether it existed or not and then to assess what kind. A key cl ue came from a fragment of pane l molding raised from a vesse l thought to be an 18th-century Whitby collier excavated from Yorktown harbor in C hesapeake Bay in I 984. There is also one very good oil painting in the National Maritime Museum , Greenwich, showing an English captain in hi s paneled cabin in 1770 ("Captain John Albert, Count Bentinck a nd hi s son Wi ll iam ," by Ma so n C hamberlin , 1775). Some of the Adm ira lty mode ls of the period have interior details whi ch can be studied by inserting modern surg ical viewing instruments. Excavati on of the wreci< of the Pan-
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dora , which foundered on the Great Barrier Reef whi le carrying Bounty mutineers back to England , provided an example for the stove fo und in the great cabin . " We know there was a red-painted floor c loth , a fore runner of modern Iinoleum , in the great cabin ," Ms. Macarthur relates. "The Admiralty, which had documented rules covering all sorts of aspects of ship fitout, specified thi s pa inted canvas coverin g o nl y fo r great cabin s ... . [In] Joseph Banks' acco unt of the voyage he speaks abo ut doing one of hi s
dence are found and married together, Antonia believes it is not hard to turn it all into written research, but finding out how things were actuall y made, she adds , is far more c hallen gi ng. With the Endeavour replica the need was to translate researc h into practi ca l cons truction s th at w ill work fo r th e replica 's crew. An example is the item of furniture desc ribed in Admiralty instructions as "swinging cots issued to the officers on board and the gentlemen." Different interpretations were tested before de-
Th e top picrure shows rhe Endeavour's great cabin , seen lookin g fmwa rd, and the boll om picture shows rh e crew's quarrers on the lower deck looking forwa rd past the main hatch.
ex periments with electricity, of which he was very fo nd , in the cabin on the red pai nted floor c loth ." Banks is also a source fo r another important area of domesti c appliance. While the seamen used the heads on e ither side of the bowsprit, or the chains and channe ls at the ship 's sides for call s of nature, we know that Banks carried a portable appli ance cal led a close stool or night stool with a copper pan-what might now be ca lled a commode . In part we know thi s because of hi s account of hi s dog, which died while lyi ng upon it. Examples of copper pans of the pe riod exist in the Science Museum of London. Once the man y tin y pieces of evi-
ciding on its design and construction. Antoni a Macarthur works as a researcher and consultant to bodies such as the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and the Roya l Naval Museum in Portsmouth and has worked for fifteen years on ship restorations. As she notes , it is thi s sort of careful research that makes a project like the Endeavour repli ca so worthwhile. By actuall y replicating and using these item s, we test o ur own research and really understand how they actuall y fun ctioned. j,
Jeffrey Mellefonr is Public Affairs Man ager at the Australian Nationa l Maritime Museum in Sydney. SEA HISTORY 74, SUMMER 1995
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