22 May 1709 (baptised) to 28 March 1790 (buried)
FAR00136
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John Farndale served on colliers alongside James
Cook, discoverer of the Southern Continent, on colliers
out of Whitby.
The Story of John
Farndale is told as part of the Farndale
Story. This page provides the more detailed
research notes.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to
other pages are in dark
blue.
Headlines of
John’s life are in brown.
References and
citations are in turquoise.
Context and local
history are in purple.
1709
John, son of Thomas
Farndale, was baptised at St Mary the Virgin, Whitby on 22 May 1709. He was the son of Thomas and Sarah (nee Perkins) Farndale (FAR00118), a carpenter of
Whitby. John’s first
son is called Thomas, after his grandfather.
His brother was Giles Farndale (FAR00137), who also served in the navy from Whitby.
1736
John Farndale,
married Hannah Christian also of Whitby at Whitby Parish Church by
Banns on 30 May 1736 (Whitby PR, Boyds Marriage Index
1538 to 1850). John would have been 27 when he was married.
1737
Sarah Farndale, daughter of John and Hannah
Farndale of Whitby, sailor, baptised Whitby 19 Mar 1737 (FAR00150) (Whitby PR).
1739
Thomas Farndale, son of John and Hannah Farndale,
sailor baptised Whitby 30 Sep 1739 (FAR00153) (Whitby PR).
1743
John Farndale, son of John and Hannah Farndale,
sailor baptised Whitby 16 Oct 1743 (FAR00159) (Whitby PR).
1747
Hannah Farndale, daughter of John and Hannah
Farndale, sailor, baptised Whitby 27 Dec 1747 (FAR00162) (Whitby PR).
Eighteenth century Whitby
1751
John Farndill sailed on the Three Brothers between 21
November 1751 to 7 January 1752:
He was aged 45, so this is consistent with birth in 1709. This
voyage was probably to Norway. On this voyage his captain was Richard Ellerton, with James Cook as mate.
The Three Brothers was engaged as a transport
conveying British troops from the Netherlands at the end of the War of Austrian
Succession. Later she was used for trade in the Baltic. In 1750 her captain was
John Walker.
James Cook served on the following Whitby ships:
|
Ship |
Type of Vessel |
Dates |
Role of James Cook |
Overlap with John Farndale |
|
Freelove |
Collier |
29 September 1747 to 17 December 1747 |
Apprentice |
|
|
Freelove |
Collier |
26 February 1746 to 22 April 1748 |
Apprentice |
|
|
Three Brothers |
Collier |
14 June 1748 to 14 October 1748 |
Apprentice |
|
|
Troopship
to Holland and Ireland |
14
October 1748 to 20 April 1749 |
Apprentice |
|
|
|
Three
Brothers |
Voyage
to Norway |
20
April 1749 to 26 September 1749 |
Seaman |
|
|
Three
Brothers |
Collier? |
27
September 1749 to 8 December 1749 |
Seaman |
|
|
Mary
of Whitby |
Voyage
to The Baltic |
8
February 1750 to 5 December 1750 |
Seaman |
|
|
Three
Brothers |
Collier |
19
February 1751 to 30 July 1751 |
Seaman |
|
|
Friendship |
Collier |
31
July 1751 to 8 January 1752 |
Seaman Was
he promoted to Mate by November 1751 and returned to the Three Brothers from
21 November 1751 to 7 or 8 January 1752? |
There a record
that John Farndill sailed on the Three Brothers
between 21 November 1751 to 7 January 1752 This voyage was
probably to Norway. On this voyage his captain was Richard Ellerton, with
James Cook as mate. The Three Brothers was engaged as a transport conveying
British troops from the Netherlands at the end of the War of Austrian
Succession. Later she was used for trade in the Baltic. In 1750 her captain
was John Walker. |
|
Friendship |
Collier |
30
March 1752 to 10 November 1752 |
Mate |
John Farndill, Seaman, 45 years old, Whitby, served seven
months 12 days, on the Friendship, 30 March 1752 to 12 May 1753.
Paid 8/4d muster dues. On 30 March
1752, the ship sailed from Whitby to London, where it arrived on 9 April
1752. It then sailed to Newcastle, where it arrived on 18 April 1752. It then
sailed to Norway, where it arrived on 3 May 1752. It then returned to
Newcastle on 12 May 1752, and then to Whitby on 17 May 1752. |
|
Friendship |
Collier |
2
February 1753 to 4 February 1754 |
Mate |
According to
the muster rolls of Friendship in 1753, the ship had a crew of 24 men,
including Swainston and Cook. The ship left Whitby on 4 April 1753 and
returned on 26 September 1753. The voyage was probably not very profitable,
as the ship only caught one whale. It is not clear whether John Farndale took
part in this whaling expedition, but he might have done. John Farndale
was a seaman named in a list of 42 of the crew of ‘The Friendship of Whitby’
on 10 November 1753. |
|
Friendship |
Collier |
2
March 1754 to 28 July 1754 |
Mate |
|
|
Friendship |
Collier |
9
August 1754 to 19 December 1754 |
Mate |
|
|
Friendship |
Collier |
15
February 1755 to 14 June 1755 |
Mate |
|
|
Friendship |
Collier |
22 April 1776 |
Nil |
John Farndale
was captain of the Friendship and sailed out from Portsmouth, bound
for Whitehaven in Cumbria. |
(Clifford E Thornton, Captain Cook in
Cleveland, Middlesbrough Council, 1978; C Preston, Captain James Cook RN, FRS,
Whitby Literary Society, 1973).
James Cook spent nine years in Whitby,
three as apprentice and six as a seaman and later mate for Captain Walker’s
shipping service. These years had a profound influence on his later life and
career.
Whitby
in the mid eighteenth century was a centre of shipbuilding. The town was
highly prosperous, and the heart of the coal-carrying trade between Newcastle
and London. It was the sixth biggest ship-building port in the country outside
London.
There
were many shipyards, mostly on the banks of the river Esk,
several dry-docks, three ropewalks for manufacturing the cordage needed for
ships, sail-making lofts, and even sailcloth manufactories from 1756. It was a
place teeming with highly skilled craftsmen. Tough, capacious collier barks,
sometimes called cat-built barks, or simply ‘cats’, were being built.
William Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine,
1769, as corrected by Thomas Cadell in 1780, defines cat as "(chatte,
Fr.) a ship employed in the coal trade, formed from the Norwegian model. It is
distinguished by a narrow stern, projecting quarters, a deep waist, and by
having no ornamental figure on the prow."
Whitby cats were wide-beamed, shallow-draught,
lightly rigged vessels built in Whitby designed for the coastal trade. They
were used mainly to carry coal from Whitby to the Thames and backloaded with
timber. Cat is an acronym of "coal and timber ship"
The 'Earl of Pembroke', a cat built (with a bluff
bow and broad stern) bark used in the coal trade. Known as colliers, these
vessels were used in the North Sea coal trade and were robustly built to
withstand the handling of their cargo as well as the harsh weather conditions.
Measuring 98 feet in length by 29 feet in the beam and with a tonnage of 369
burden, the ‘Earl of Pembroke’ was built by Fishburne of Whitby, launched in
1768 and renamed the ‘Endeavour’ after its purchase (see SLR0353). Following the
return from Captain Cook’s voyage of discovery of 1768-71, the vessel made
several voyages to the Falkland Islands before being sold in 1775. It was
eventually returned to the North Sea coal trade and later passed to French
ownership, before finally ending up at Newport, Rhode Island, towards the end
of the 18th century.
A collier - literally, coal boat - also
known as a Whitby collier, and colloquially as a cat , was
an 18th century bulk carrier designed expressly to
transport coal by
sea from the north east of England to
London. Traditional collier brigs of wooden hull and
two masts could carry between 280 and 300 tons of coal (although some
sources that could lead up to 600 tons) And it took between five and six
weeks to make the round trip in optimal conditions. In
contrast, collier John Bowes,
an iron-hulled steamboat , launched in 1852, would make the same
trip in five days with 650 tons.
The first colliers wood had a wide and
deep line, with a stern narrow
and lacked figureheads of the bow . They had two or
three masts . Bats catch and most wore
large square sails , while the mizzen had gaff
sails front and rear. This type of sail allowed the boat to navigate
with almost any weather condition, facing the most violent storms. Also,
if the boat needed to be beached, it could be done without suffering any
damage.
HMB Endeavor was a
collier
Since James Cook knew this type of ship
well, having sailed on one on his first voyage on sea - in fact, his first
nine years as a sailor, before enlisting in the Royal Navy, he passed them on
three colliers - and for its ability to carry heavy loads and many
men for a long voyage, in 1768 I chose the Earl of Pembroke, launched in 1764,
for his first expedition to the South sea , from 1768 to
1771 successive his voyages of exploration, of 1772-1775 ,
and from 1776-79 , he would also make them aboard colliers- Endeavor's
wineries were modified to house food for 18 months, scientific material and 94
people (a crew of 71 men, 11 scientists from the Royal Society and
12 Royal Marines.
Collier
barks were square-rigged, three-masted ships. They were designed to transport
coal from the coalfields of northern England south to London. They also traded
across the Baltic, bringing back timber, tar, hemp and other naval supplies.
They were not elegant or particularly fast, but very capacious in order to
carry low-value, bulky goods such as coal, and very reliable and durable. As
they were virtually flat-bottomed, they could be beached anywhere. No quay or
dock was needed. There were between 250-300 ships owned by Whitby men sailing
out of the port. There were too many Whitby registered vessels to fit in to the
harbour altogether at once. Many over-wintered to the north in Newcastle or
Sunderland. The ships were well known to the Royal Navy, and frequently hired
as troop transports or supply ships in times of war. For example, a large
number of collier barks were used during the Seven Years War in North America.
Whitby
was a bustling port with lots of opportunity for work. It also had a strong
Quaker community which was very influential in the town. The Society of
Friends, or Quakers, believed in moderation, in not bearing arms and abstaining
from violence.
Whitby gained a reputation for training young men for the sea. Boys came not
only from the surrounding countryside, but also from places much further away,
even as far as the Orkneys. The town must have been awash with boys and young
men. In the years 1747 to 1748 when James Cook was an apprentice,
there were over 1,200 apprentices listed in Whitby’s ship muster rolls. The
town had a population of 5,000 inhabitants.
There
was no publicly endowed school nor or grammar school in Whitby. That meant that
there was no accepted model of a standard classical education for the sons of
prosperous burgesses – boys did not have to learn Latin or study Roman models
of behaviour. Instead, there were commercially oriented schools and the
teaching of mathematics was encouraged because of its practical use at sea. It
was here that Cook acquired the mathematical knowledge which enabled him to
develop navigational, cartographic and astronomical skills of a high order.
1752
The following information appears in the ledgers of the library of Whitby museum:
Ship:
"Friendship" of Whitby, owned by John Walker, Grape Lane, Whitby.
Richard Allerton, Master, James Cook, Mate. John Farndill, Seaman, 45 years old, Whitby, served seven months
12 days, 30 March 1752 to 12 May 1753. Paid
8/4d muster dues. Prior to this he sailed with Robert Easton of London, but
the name of ship is not given. No ship of James Peacock appears in Whitby records, but
the name Peacock appears often as crew member in the muster rolls. In fact
there was a Captain Peacock still living in Whitby in 1984.
The Friendship of Whitby was a collier ship
that carried coal and other goods between London, Newcastle, and Norway. On
March 30, 1752, the ship sailed from Whitby to London, where it arrived on
April 9. It then sailed to Newcastle, where it arrived on April 18. It then
sailed to Norway, where it arrived on May 3. It then returned to Newcastle on
May 12, and then to Whitby on May 17.
Friendship appears also to have been used as a whaling ship that sailed
from Whitby to the Arctic regions in search of whales and seals. In 1753, the
ship was commanded by John Swainston, who had been the mate of Three
Brothers, another ship of Walker’s fleet, in 1751. James Cook was the mate
of Friendship in 1753, and this was his last voyage as a merchant seaman before
he joined the Royal Navy.
The Friendship was owned by John Walker, a
Quaker shipowner and merchant in Whitby. He was also the master of James Cook, the famous explorer
and navigator, who served as his apprentice and later as his mate. He owned
several ships that traded coal and other goods between London, Newcastle, and
Norway. He was also involved in the whaling industry and sent his ships to the
Arctic regions.
Cook served in the Freelove, the Three Brothers and
the Mary before sailing in the Friendship. All the ships were owned by the
Walker Brothers who were engaged in the coal trade. About the type of vessel
Beaglehole says: ' the broad bottomed blunt bowed Whitby Collier was no sprite
of the sea: she was a 'cat built' vessel or simply a 'cat'. The 'cat' was
defined by the Dictionary of the Marine (William Faulkner, 1789) as "a
ship employed in the coal trade, formed from the Norwegian model. It is distinguished
by a narrow stern, projecting quarters, a deep waist, and by having no
ornamental figure on the prow ... generally built remarkably strong , and
carrying from four to six hundred tons".'
Robert Farndale, son of John and Hannah Farndale,
sailor, baptised Whitby 17 Nov 1752 (FAR00169) (Whitby PR).
1753
Captain Cook, was Mate on the Friendship (a Collier),
from 2 February 1753 to 4 February 1754. On Friday 2 February 1753, the
Friendship, as collier, sailed from Whitby with Cook as Mate. On Monday 4
February 1754, she returned to Whitby.
According to the muster rolls of Friendship
in 1753, the ship had a crew of 24 men, including Swainston and Cook. The ship
left Whitby on April 4 and returned on September 26. The voyage was probably
not very profitable, as the ship only caught one whale.
There are no records to show whether John Farndale was part of
these earlier voyages of the year. John Farndale was a seaman named in a list
of 42 of the crew of ‘The Friendship of Whitby’ on 10 November 1753 when
James Cook (later the
famous Captain Cook) was the Mate. John was about 46 years old at this stage.
During
winter months outside of the sailing season ships were overwintered at Whitby.
Repairs were carried out to vessels and Cook, like the other apprentices,
lodged at Mr. Walker’s house in Grape Lane. During these periods Cook appears
to have studied hard and by 1755 he had the chance to become Master of the
“Friendship”, deciding instead to join the Royal Navy.
1776
The Hampshire Chronicle, 22 April 1776:
Ship News. Sailed from Portsmouth, April 18th … Friendship, Farndale, for
Whitehaven …
This record records that by 1776 John Farndale was captain of the Friendship and
sailed out from Portsmouth, bound for Whitehaven in Cumbria.
1782
Hannah Farndale,
wife of John Farndale, mariner aged 75 was buried at Whitby on 26 Mar 1782. She was therefore born in 1707.
1790
John Farndale,
sailor, age 79 buried St Mary, Whitby 28 Mar 1790 (Whitby PR).
