captaincooksmonument

In 1899, in order to commemorate the landing of Cook, an area of 100.86 hectares was set apart and dedicated as a Public Recreation Reserve. I wonder if that is what they are celebrating.

It is the dedication of Captain Cook Reserve at the landing place in Kurnell.

The ceremony happened on Saturday 6 May 1899. The officials and guests arrived by steamers and were brought to the jetty "by the steam punt from Tom Ugly's Point, above which was carried a framework from which floated a variety of colours." (See link below)

A very full description including the speeches is in the Sydney Morning Herald the following Monday 8 May 1899 (page 4). It is an interesting read and really brings this photo to life - trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/14213166

If this is a photo of the people attending the dedication party then somewhere amongst them is Joseph H. Carruthers, a great Australian who probably did more for Captain Cook than any other. It was thanks to his work that Kurnell was set aside for the public to enjoy. He likened it to Australia's "Plymouth Rock". Amongst his other work, he prompted the erection of the statue to Cook in London, near Admiralty Arch, and the 1928 Cook celebrations in Hawai'i.

Captain Cook Society There is another photo of the Monument, misnamed by the photographer Charles Kerry as La Perouse, at the same time -

Captain Cook Society J.H. Carruthers (as Minister for Lands) is listed as attending, and his full speech is quoted in the Trove link above.

" As the Plymouth Rock is the most sacred ground
to the Americans, so may this historic place, rich in
its traditions, be the one place in our island continent
more consecrated than another to the great man who
here first set foot upon our shores, and in his foresight
secured for the empire and its people a territory
unsurpassed in the whole universe. "

It is interesting that our predecessors often erected a monument and then caged it in with railings. Were they implying that the monument was too sacred for the public to approach, or that the public were not to be trusted, or both? I do not think that graffitti was a problem in the early 1900s, so it cannot have been the latter. Today the railings are no longer there, and the monument looks a lot better for it.

Hello! We'd love you to add this photo to the National Maritime Museum's group Travellers' Tails. www.flickr.com/groups/nmm_travellers/rules/ This group has been set up to collate photographic responses to the exhibition The Art and Science of Exploration: 1768-80 at the National Maritime Museum and touring to the Grant Museum of Zoology, the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, the Hunterian Museum and Horniman Museum and Gardens. The exhibition aims to explore Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery, as well as the exchange of ideas and experiences around travel and exploration and investigate key questions around the history of art, science and exploration and what this means today, drawing on George Stubbs’ Enlightenment era paintings of a kangaroo and dingo, recently acquired by the National Maritime Museum. We’d love to see your photographs - please help us build a gallery of images to enrich the group! Thanks! www.flickr.com/groups/nmm_travellers/rules/