Whitby-built collier purchased and refitted by the Royal Navy as HM Bark Endeavour for Cook’s first Pacific voyage, chosen for strength, capacity, and shallow draught.
Lieutenant James Cook commanded HMS Endeavour on a joint Royal Navy and Royal Society voyage to observe the 1769 transit of Venus at Tahiti. Under further Admiralty orders, the expedition then circumnavigated and charted New Zealand, followed the eastern coast of Australia, and returned to England through Batavia and the Cape of Good Hope.
Sources and further reading
Tracing Endeavour, Australian National Maritime Museum. Ship history, Admiralty orders, transit-of-Venus mission, Australian east-coast passage, reef strike, repairs, and Indigenous context.
Journals of Captain James Cook: Endeavour, 1768–1771, National Library of Australia and Australian Joint Copying Project. Digitized manuscript journals and logs supporting the first voyage’s chronology, coastal survey, Botany Bay, Endeavour River, Torres Strait, and return route.