A sailor on colliers, who sailed with Captain Cook

 

John and Hannah Farndale
22 May 1709 (baptised) to 28 March 1790 (buried) 

The Whitby 1 Line 

The Whitby 2 Line

 

 

 

 

 

FAR00136

 

 

 

                          Eighteenth century Whitby

 

 

  

Home Page

The Farndale Directory

Farndale Themes

Farndale History

Particular branches of the family tree

Other Information

General Sir Martin Farndale KCB

Links

 

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:

 

A screenshot of a computer

Description automatically generated

 

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

 

Three Brothers

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.

 

A drawing of a ship

Description automatically generated 

 

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" 

 

https://collections.rmg.co.uk/mediaLib/359/570/d0083.jpg

 

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

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/HMS_Bark_Endeavour_-_Replica01.jpg/350px-HMS_Bark_Endeavour_-_Replica01.jpg

 

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).