Captain Cook Memorial Museum

The Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby is housed in the 17th-century building where James Cook served his apprenticeship. It showcases original letters, paintings, ship models, and artifacts from his voyages.

Planning your visit

James Cook came to Whitby at seventeen and served his apprenticeship in this house — the home of the shipowner John Walker, where Cook lodged in the attic with other apprentices while learning navigation and seamanship in the North Sea coal trade.

That training mattered. The ships Cook later chose for his Pacific voyages, including the Endeavour, were Whitby-built colliers: flat-bottomed, sturdy, capable of being run aground and repaired, and the opposite of the elegant naval vessels the Admiralty might have supplied. His three voyages mapped the Pacific, charted New Zealand and eastern Australia, and ended in his death in Hawaii in 1779.

The museum holds original letters, charts, ship models, paintings and artefacts from the voyages, including material collected in the Pacific.

The house on Grape Lane survives largely as it was, and the attic where he slept is part of the visit.

Cook's legacy in the Pacific is contested, and the museum engages with that.

Bookable options are entry tickets. Current availability is shown below.