A recent article about Joseph Shank, First Lieutenant in Adventure, said that “We do not know when William Honychurch and his wife Elizabeth moved to live in Mile End”.¹ These words have prompted me to write this update, and to throw light on the close connection of a group of men with links to Cook, who all at one time or another lived near the Bell Ale House in Wapping, the former home of Samuel Batts, and his daughter Elizabeth who married James Cook.

The land tax registers for the parish of St George-in-the-East, which lies just down stream from the Tower of London, provide answers to questions concerning links between Francis Holman, the marine painter, William Honeychurch, a watch maker, and James Cook.

Francis Holman (1729-1784) lived in this parish, which with the neighbouring one of Wapping, was popular with mariners.²  In 1771, he was commis­sioned by captains of the Hudson's Bay Company to paint their ships.³  It is likely that also that year he was on the lookout for other commissions, and would have been aware of the opportunities that might arise from the forthcoming Second Voyage of Captain Cook.  It is very possible that it was William Honey­church (1719-1787) who introduced Holman to Cook, leading to Holman’s painting of Resolution and Adventure in 1772.  Two years later, in 1774, he painted the Augusta Yacht with His Majesty King George III on board reviewing the fleet at Spithead.  The Yacht was under repair at Deptford at the same time that Resolution was being prepared for the Second Voyage.

It is clear from the land tax registers that William Honeychurch, who had been born in Cornwall, lived in St George-in-the-East from 1758 until 1763, just four doors away from Francis Holman.  Also, in October 1761, Honeychurch, a watchmaker living near Bell Dock, Wapping, insured houses at Bowers Gifford, just west of Southend in Essex, for £1700.  The insurance also covered barns, stables and a granary, which indicates a man of some wealth.⁴  

William was never apprenticed to a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers, and never became free himself by patrimony.  His brother Samuel Honeychurch (died in 1779) was recorded in 1770 as also being a watchmaker on Cheapside. 

In 1764, Honeychurch and his wife Elizabeth, née Slator, moved to Mile End Old Town to a brick and timber house with a rack rent of £18.⁵  Their house was slightly larger than Cook’s, which was just 20 feet away on the opposite side of the entry road into the John Curtis distillery.

Honeychurch would have watched Elizabeth Cook and her young family coping with the stresses caused by Cook's absences every summer, when he mapped Newfoundland (1762-1767), and his longer absence on his First Voyage to the Pacific from 1768 to 1771.  So it would have been perfectly natural for Honey­church to introduce Cook to his friend and former neighbour Francis Holman, and through his sister Jane Honeychurch, who had married Robert Shanks, to his brother-in-law Joseph Shank.⁶  William Honeychurch died in 1787, and was followed as taxpayer by his widow Elizabeth.

Finally, I like to think that Honeychurch, a successful watchmaker, discussed with Cook the trials of William Harrison’s chronometers.  And that, in 1775, they discussed the behaviour of K1, the copy made by Larcum Kendall of Harrison's H4, that had been taken on Cook’s Second Voyage.

The Cook and Honeychurch families sent all their boots and shoes to my Morris family for repair, as we lived nearby on the north side of Mile End Road.

Derek Morris

References

1. Robson, John.  “Joseph Shank (~1730–1782)” in Cook's Log.  2024.  Vol. 47, no. 2.  Page 5.
2. Morris, Derek and Ken Cozens.  “James Cook, Francis Holman and William Christopher” in Cook’s Log.  2008.  Vol. 31, no. 3.  Pages 10–12.
3. Morris, Derek and Ken Cozens.  London's Sailortown, 1600-1800: Social history of Shadwell and Ratcliff, an early modern London riverside suburb.  2014.  East London History Society.  Back cover picture. 
4. Sun Fire Office.  CLC/B/192/F/001/MS11936/
   138/185277, 14 October 1761.  Held at the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA).
5. Morris, Derek.  Mile End Old Town, 1740 1780; A social history of an early modern London suburb.  2007.  East London History Society.  Second edition.  Pages 118, 121.
6. Morris, Derek and Ken Cozens.  Wapping, 1600-1800: A social history of an early modern London Maritime suburb.  2000.  East London History Society.  Page 117. 

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 43, volume 47, number 3 (2024).