Artefacts associated with the voyages of Captain James Cook

Among the acquisitions of the twentieth century, two important components stand out.

The first is a series of four separate gifts, between 1912 and 1962, of Maori, Pacific, and Native American items associated with the voyages of English navigator and explorer James Cook. In 1912, Lord St Oswald unexpectedly presented his family collection to the Dominion of New Zealand. Not all the St Oswald collection derives from Cook’s voyages, but it includes such treasures as the cloak and helmet given to Cook by the Hawaiian chief Kalani‘opu‘u.

In 1955, the Imperial Institute gave the Museum a significant collection of items associated with Cook, which had been in the possession of Queen Victoria and had been given to the Institute by Edward VII. Cook himself may have given these to George III after his second voyage. Two smaller items are traceable to Mrs Cook.