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A sailor on colliers, who sailed with Captain Cook |
John and Hannah Farndale FAR00136
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Eighteenth century Whitby
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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).
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).