

George Vancouver
A glance at George Vancouver’s chart, on which the torturous course along the North West Coast of America and the Canadian Pacific coast is marked, must arouse admiration for the man under whose leadership it was prepared and whose enduring monument it is.
George Vancouver was born in King’s Lynn on 22nd June 1757, the sixth child of a well to do family, firmly allied to the powerful Turner dynasty (who built the Custom House and the Duke’s Head Hotel in Lynn).
John Jasper Vancouver, George’s father, was Deputy Collector of Customs & Port Dues and had other sinecures about the town. It is thought that through his friendship with the famous Burney family (Charles, the musicologist and Fanny, the novelist), he secured the position of midshipman with James Cook for his son. George joined the Resolution aged 14 in 1771.
Young Vancouver showed flair for navigation and sailed the world on Cook’s second and third voyages, witnessing Cook’s death on Hawaii in 1779. After an uneventful rise through the ranks of the navy he was chosen for a diplomatic and exploratory mission to the North West American coast to treat with the Spanish for the return of disputed territory and to chart the dangerous and complicated coast in order to facilitate trade, initially in lucrative sea otter skins.
From 1791 until 1795 Vancouver took his two ships, The Discovery and The Chatham, through danger, sickness and deprivation, notably loosing few men, to complete a most remarkable chart used until the recent era of electronic mapping.
He gained the Island of Nootka back from the Spanish, now Vancouver Island, and provided us with unique insight into the lives of the Native American people from California to Alaska. Around 150 American and Canadian place names, many reflecting his home county, were chosen by George and are still in use today.
His last years were blighted by a dispute with the aristocratic Pitt family. Thomas Pitt, who had been sent home in disgrace while serving as a midshipman with Vancouver, was determined to destroy his Captain’s reputation and the stress of dealing with this unstable and violent man combined with his debilitating and onerous journey contributed to his early death, aged forty, in 1798. He is buried at Petersham near Richmond.
Incorporating text from “George Vancouver” by Alison Gifford