Peter Moore

Event information

The Enlightenment was an age of endeavour, when Britain was consumed by the impulse for grand projects. Endeavour was also the name given to a Whitby collier bought by the Royal Navy in 1768 for an expedition to the South Seas. A commonplace, coal-carrying vessel, no one could have guessed that Endeavour would go on to become the most significant ship in the history of British exploration.Endeavour carried James Cook on his first great voyage, visiting Pacific islands unknown to European geography, charting for the first time NewZealand and the eastern coast of Australia, and almost foundering on the Great Barrier Reef. But Endeavour was a ship with many lives. She was present at the Wilkes Riots in London in 1768. During the battles for control of New York in 1776 she witnessed the bloody birth of the United States of America. As well as carrying botanists, a Polynesian priest and the remains of the first kangaroo to arrive in Britain, she transported Newcastle coal and Hessian soldiers. According to Charles Darwin, she helped Cook add a hemisphere to the civilised world. NASA later named a space shuttle after her.No one has ever told Endeavour’s complete story before. Peter Moore sets out to explore the many lives of this remarkable ship, from the acorn that grew into the oak that made her, to her rich and complex legacy.