- Title
- The Skottowe Manuscript And The Cook Connection
- Creator
- Dutton, Kenneth R.
- Relation
- Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Vol. 153, Issue 2, p. 156-163
- Relation
- https://royalsoc.org.au/council-members-section/481-v153-2
- Publisher
- Royal Society of New South Wales
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Thomas Skottowe was Commandant of the Penal Settlement at Newcastle from 1811 to 1814. A keen naturalist, he made extensive notes on the local flora and fauna and had them illustrated by one of the convicts at the Settlement, Richard Browne. The resulting manuscript was acquired by David Scott Mitchell and donated to the State Library of New South Wales as a gift to the people of the State. In 1988, the Skottowe manuscript was published as part of Australia’s Bicentennial celebrations. Thomas Skottowe’s father was Lord of the Manor in Great Ayton, Yorkshire, where the navigator James Cook spent much of his childhood. He was instrumental in helping Cook gain an education and perhaps in encouraging him to enlist in the Royal Navy. The significance of the manuscript lies, in Sir David Attenborough’s words, not in the scientific information it contains, but in “something much rarer — the glimpse it brings to our jaded and only too knowledgeable eyes of a land full of marvels seen with wonder and innocence” [Foreword, The Skottowe Manuscript, 1988].
- Subject
- Thomas Skottowe; Newcastle; James Cook; Skottowe manuscript
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1454364
- Identifier
- uon:44920
- Identifier
- ISSN:0035-9173
- Language
- eng
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