Details about the circumstances
surrounding the Endeavour voyage.
(Illustration - a view of the ship on shore at
Endeavour River. Engraving by Will Byrne)

ED03

THE ENDEAVOUR VOYAGE

We do not know what Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) would have called the grand and
stylish publication which he once envisaged for these botanical engravings. But in
choosing a title for this first comprehensive edition two hundred years later it seems
natural and just to commemorate the name of the founder and overseer of the whole
botanical venture, whose reputation as one of the great men of the eighteenth century
continues to grow. Had it not been for the young Joseph Banks, the scientific purpose
of Captain Cook's first voyage of circumnavigation in the Endeavour would have been
confined to the observation from the South Pacific of the Transit of Venus on 3 June
1769. It was entirely due to an initiative by Banks that the Council of the Royal
Society wrote as follows to the Lords of the Admiralty:

. . . The Council have appointed Mr Charles Green, and Captain Cook, who is
commander of the vessel, to be their observers; besides whom, Joseph Banks Esq,
Fellow of this Society, a gentleman of large fortune, who is well versed in natural
history, being desirous of undertaking the same voyage, the Council very earnestly
request their Lordships, that in regard to Mr Banks' great personal merit, and for the
advancement of useful knowledge, he also, together with his suite, being seven
persons more (that is eight in all), together with their baggage be received on board of
the ship in command of Captain Cook . .

From the point of view of Banks' Florilegium, the important figures on the voyage were
Daniel Carl Solander (1733-1782) who had studied natural history under Linnaeus at
Uppsala from 1750 to 1759 and who was to become a keeper of' the Natural History
Department of the British Museum; Sydney Parkinson (?1745-1771) a young but
highly industrious and graceful artist who sadly died of fever on the voyage home, after
leaving Batavia; and of course Banks himself who was to become President of the
Royal Society from 1778 to 1820 and an honorary member of almost every learned
society in Europe. The amateur naturalist John Ellis (?1710-1776) wrote to Linnaeus
at the time, 'No people ever went to sea better fitted out for the purpose of Natural
History.' The expedition continues to hold its significance as the first organised and
thoroughly equipped voyage of biological exploration, the precursor and pattern of
other influential voyages including that of Darwin in the Beagle. Banks has recreated
the scene on the Endeavour in these words:

. . We sat at the great table with the draughtsman directly across from us. We
showed him how the drawings should be depicted and hurriedly made descriptions of
all the natural history objects while they were still fresh. When a long journey from
land had exhausted fresh things, we finished each description and added the
synonyms to the books we had. These completed accounts were immediately entered
by a secretary in the books in the form of a flora of each of the lands we had
visited . . .