Midshipman William Harvey, sailor on all three voyages of Captain Cook : his watercolour portrait and snuff box.

Watercolour on paper, 247 x 227 mm, in an early gilded wood and gesso frame, inscribed verso Midshipman Hardy [sic] of Ct. Cook’s Ship Discovery 1779.

Exhibited: Endeavour voyage: the untold stories of Cook and the First Australians. National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2 June 2020 – 26 April 2021.

Reference: Coates, Ian (editor). Endeavour voyage, the untold stories of Cook and the First Australians. National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2020, p. 192.

Together with: 

Snuff box made of bone inlaid with tortoiseshell, 26 x 89 x 39 mm; British, 1770s, with manuscript label pasted inside the lid inscribed Snuff box which belonged to Midshipman Hardy [sic] of Captain Cook’s ship Discovery 1779. Sydney 1884. (N.B. the inscriptions on the portrait frame and snuff box lid are in the same hand).

Exhibited: Captain Cook & the Art of Memorabilia. The David Roche Foundation, Adelaide, 30 January – 29 May 2021.

An extraordinary pair of relics from Cook’s voyages, with a distinguished museum exhibition history. 

William Harvey (1752-1807) sailed with Captain James Cook on all three of his circumnavigations – one of only a few men to do so. He served on three of Cook’s ships: the Endeavour, Resolution, and Discovery. Harvey’s journal, which runs from 17 December 1771 to 7 March 1775, is held at The National Archives, Kew (ADM 51/4553/184-7).

Harvey was the son of William and Mary Antonie of Grays Inn Lane, London. His father was possibly a member of the legal profession, so it is likely that young William received a good education. The name entered in his original baptismal record is William Antonie, but the surname was later changed, by affidavit, to Harvey, shortly before William passed his lieutenant’s examination in September 1775. (He had, however, gone under the name William Harvey for his entire naval career up to that point).

William Harvey’s naval career:

Harvey joined the Endeavour at the age of sixteen on 3 June 1768, as servant to Zachary Hicks, the second lieutenant. On 7 April 1769 he became an able seaman (AB), and took part in Cook’s first circumnavigation in the Endeavour. Cook named the uninhabited Harvey Reef, in the Home Islands group off Cape York, in honour of his young crew member. At the end of the voyage he was promoted to midshipman on HMS Scorpion on 7 February 1771.

On Cook’s second circumnavigation, Harvey served as midshipman on the Resolution. During this voyage he was one of those entrusted to make astronomical observations during a lunar eclipse on 12 October 1772, while Resolution was in the South Atlantic.

Although he passed his lieutenant’s examination in September 1775, Harvey was not awarded his commission straight away: it was still as an AB that he joined Resolution for Cook’s third voyage on 10 February 1776. Just before her departure, he received the rating of master’s mate – the master in command being William Bligh, with whom he apparently got on well. Harvey had also already befriended the Tahitian prince Omai in London prior to this voyage, on which Omai would be returned to his home in Tahiti. At Huahine, on 30 October 1777, an islander in custody on board Resolution escaped on Harvey’s watch, and he was consequently disrated to midshipman and transferred to Discovery. After Cook’s death in Hawaii in February 1779, Harvey was promoted to third lieutenant (the promotion not being confirmed until December of that year) and transferred back to Resolution. Captain Clerke (Resolution) wrote that he had ‘often heard Capt. Cook in private conversation declare his intentions of making Mr Harvey a Lieut’.

In October 1789, Harvey was recommissioned to captain the Gorgon as part of the Third Fleet to New South Wales. In a letter to his old friend, Sir Joseph Banks, dated 28 October 1789, Harvey wrote: ‘I take this opportunity to return you my most unfeigned and sincere thanks for your friendship in getting me this Command’ (State Library of New South Wales, SAFE/Banks Papers/Series 72.82).

However, shortly before the Gorgon sailed in March 1791, Harvey was replaced in command by Captain John Parker. In correspondence to Banks dated 2 January 1791, Harvey wrote: ‘Just as I was sitting down to inform you that the Gorgon was changing her provisions and that when compleated with fresh she would have sail’d for New South Wales in the course of three weeks. When I was visited by a Captain Parker late of the Ulyses [Ulysses], who inform’d me that he came to supersede me. At present I can only account for it that the Major Commandant and I have disagreed’ (State Library of New South Wales, SAFE/Banks Papers/Series 72.83).

In 1801, in the twilight of his naval career, Harvey was placed in command of the guard ship HMS Amphitrite, stationed off the Isle of Wight.

Provenance:

Harvey died on 12 July 1807. In his will he bequeathed all his worldly possessions – which would have included, it seems reasonable to assume, his portrait and snuff box – to his beloved wife, Martha.

The following research by John Robson is published on the website of the Captain Cook Society:

‘William Harvey married Martha Plumer on 27 July 1790 at St. Mary’s, Portsea. Martha was born about 1763 at or near Much Hadham in Hertfordshire, near the town of Bishop’s Stortford. They bought a property called Halfway House near the village in 1797, moving there to live. They had one child, a daughter Elizabeth, who was baptised in 1792.

William Harvey died on 12 July 1807 aged 65, leaving a will, proven on 19 December. He was buried at St. Cecilia’s Church in Little Hadham. A memorial in the church records his burial there:

In Memory of
CAPTAIN WILLIAM HARVEY
late of the R.N.
Who accompanied that Illustrious
Navigator CAPTAIN JAMES COOK
on his three voyages of / Discoveries, who died July 12t
1807 Aged 65 Years.
Frequently having observed in the course
of his travels the wonderful works of the
Almighty and the words of Job truly verified
He stretcheth the North over the
empty place, and hangeth the
Earth upon nothing
Job 26,7.

In 1815, Elizabeth Harvey married William Henry Bendel, and together they had ten children.

Martha Harvey died on 20 May 1836, aged 73.  She left a will, proven on 2 July 1836. Interestingly, while William Bendel acted as an executor, neither he, nor Elizabeth, nor any of their children were listed as beneficiaries. Instead members of her Plumer and Huggons families benefitted’ (John Robson, https://www.captaincooksociety.com/cooks-life/people/cooks-officers-and-crew-and-contemporaries/william-harvey-1752-1807).

At some point between 1836 and 1884, when they passed into the hands of a new owner in Sydney, New South Wales, William Harvey’s portrait and snuff box found their way to Australia, perhaps with an emigrant member of the Plumer or Huggons families. Two generations on from Martha’s death – and more than three after William’s – the objects had now become well and truly divorced from their original family context, and it is easy to understand how, in 1884, the name Harvey might be misrecorded as ‘Hardy’. What is self-evident, however, is that their new Australian custodian was perfectly aware of the historical significance of these relics (the story behind them had no doubt been passed on to them orally) and was conscious of the need to preserve the information about their link with Captain Cook. From an Australian colonist’s perspective, the provenance of these objects would have had a special resonance.

The portrait and snuff box remained together, but for how long they were in Australia is unclear. They crossed the globe for a second time – it is not known when, exactly – this time returning to their country of origin, where they were eventually sold at auction:

Christie’s, London, 28 September 2001 (lot 213).

The pair were ultimately acquired by an Australian collector and so made their way back to Australia once more:

Private collection, Adelaide (2019-2024)