Captain James Cook’s voyage to the South Seas (1768-1771) on the Endeavour was the first long-distance expedition organised and equipped specifically for scientific exploration. The astounding collection of botanical material gathered on this voyage was largely due to the efforts of Joseph Banks, a wealthy naturalist who accompanied Cook and contributed to the cost of fitting out the ship. Banks also paid the salaries of the naturalists and artists.
During the voyage Sydney Parkinson, the botanical artist, completed 280 watercolours and over 1000 field sketches – a prodigious achievement - before dying of fever near Batavia. His sketches, with their colour notes and observations, later enabled other artists to complete the unfinished drawings. Banks intended to publish a Florilegium and employed several engravers to make copperplates of the drawings; but he subsequently lost interest in the project and the work was never published. The copper plates were stored at the British Museum, and it was not until 200 years later, in 1981-88, that the complete Florilegium was finally published.
Cook sighted the east coast of Australia in April 1770 and sailed north, landing first at Botany Bay - so named for the great variety of plants found there. Further north the ship struck a reef, forcing Cook to beach the ship so that repairs could be carried out. A stay of seven weeks enabled valuable scientific work to be carried out in this area, close to where Cooktown now stands. The prints in this room all illustrate plants which were collected there by Banks and Daniel Solander, the Swedish taxonomist who had studied under Linnaeus.
