Photo from – here

Name

Captain Cook’s residences in the East End

Connection

The names of Cook and Australia are inseparable.

Locations

1. 326 The Highway in Shadwell, East London
2. 88 Mile End Road, Mile End, London E1 4UN, London Borough of Tower Hamlets

How to get there

Nearest London Overground station: Shadwell (for 326 The Highway, Shadwell)

Nearest underground stations: Whitechapel, District and Circle Lines (for 88 Mile End Road)

Story

There’s not much to see at 326 The Highway, Shadwell – just a blue plaque indicating that Cook lived for a short period nearby to the plaque.

Photo from – here

88 Mile End Road has a more interesting plaque and you get a sense of the structure in which Cook resided – the actual building has been demolished. Cook lived here after his first voyage of discovery and there are other buildings nearby which Cook may have frequented. Before being demolished, this property was brought to the attention of Australians and New Zealanders, who it was thought may have been interested in acquiring the building. Australia had purchased and transported Cooks’ Cottage from Great Ayton in Yorkshire to Melbourne in 1934. However, on this occasion no-one expressed any interest and unfortunately the building wasn’t preserved.

Slate plaque affixed to a brick wall on the site of 88 Mile End Road

In 1959, 88 Mile End Road was demolished. The commemorative plaque is set in a brick wall between 86 and 90 Mile End Road. Behind the plaque wall is a private car park. The current slate plaque replaced the one of 1906, and was put up by the Greater London Council in 1970.

‘Without a Moses, a Napoleon, a Garibaldi to strike the collective imagination, inadequate folk heroes have swollen to fill the void. In the absence of a supreme hero or saviour to preside providentially over the continent, we have had to create one. Cook, as it turned out, the working-class boy made good, fitted the ideal Aussie self-image perfectly’

J. Robertson, The Captain Cook Myth, (Michigan, Angus and Robertson, 1981), p.2

Further information

More detail about the Stepney Cook knew – here

Wikipedia – here

There is more of Cook's life to explore outside London, particularly in Yorkshire where he grew up and served his apprenticeship. A fascinating story concerns one of Cook's supposed residences which was transported, brick by brick, to Australia. Cooks' Cottage is now a tourist attraction in The Botanic Gardens in Melbourne.

The following video tells some of this extraordinary story – here

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