Point Hicks

Cook's manuscript chart of Australia's east coast, starts at a point he named Point Hicks and gave its coordinates as 38°0'S and 148°53'E. However,the coordinates recorded are several miles off-shore, in {{convert|50|fathom|m}} of water. It has been variously suggested that Cook was deceived by a cloud bank, a compass error, or a faulty observation.{{Cite journal|last=Lipscombe|first=Trevor|year=2020|title=Why Has The Error of Cook's Point Hicks Endured? Part 1|url=https://www.captaincooksociety.com/cooks-life/places/why-has-the-error-of-cook-s-point-hicks-endured-part-1|journal=Cook's Log|volume= 43| issue = 1|pages=33–35|via=Captain Cook Society}} Margaret Cameron-Ash, however, claims that Cook deliberately falsified his charts and coordinates in order to hide the existence of Bass Strait for reasons of military and colonial policy.{{cite book|last1=Cameron-Ash|first1=M.|title=Lying for the Admiralty: Captain Cook's Endeavour Voyage|date=2018|publisher=Rosenberg|isbn=978-0-64804-396-6|location=Sydney|pages=148–154}} Those claims have been vigorously challenged as lacking in any sound evidence.{{Cite journal|last=Lipscombe|first=Trevor|year=2020|title=Cook Conspiracy at Point Hicks?|journal=The Globe|volume=87|pages=51–56}}{{Cite journal|last=Mawer|first=GA|date=2018|title=Lying for the admiralty: Captain Cook's Endeavour voyage [Book Review]|journal=The Globe|volume=84|pages=59–61|via=ProQuest}}

Nevertheless, it is likely that Cook's "Point of land" was not today's Point Hicks, and lies somewhat to the south-west.Lipscombe, Trevor (2015) "Cook's Point Hicks: Error That Just Won't Go Away" in Cook's Log by the Captain Cook Society, volume 38, number 2, pages 26–32. Online at, https://www.captaincooksociety.com/cooks-life/places/cook-s-point-hicks-error-that-just-won-t-go-away

File:Hicks-plaque.jpg

At the end of 1797, George Bass sailed past the area in an open whale-boat and was unable to identify the point.{{cite book |author=Flinders, Matthew |author-link=Matthew Flinders |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12929 |title=A Voyage to Terra Australis |volume=I |publisher=Project Gutenberg |publication-date=17 July 2004 |format=e-book}} Although Matthew Flinders sailed past the area in 1798–99 and again in 1802–03, the coastal area near Point Hicks was always out of Flinders' visual range. When drawing his chart, Flinders relied on Bass's observations, thus omitting Point Hicks. The name Point Hicks was still being used on some mapsMap by The Society for the diffusion of useful knowledge published in 1840 up until 1840.

The first use of the name Cape Everard has been attributed to hydrographer John Lort Stokes, who surveyed the coast in the Beagle in 1843.{{Cite journal|last=Scott|first=Ernest|date=1912|title=English and French Navigators on the Victorian Coast|journal=Victorian Historical Magazine|volume= 2 |issue= 4|pages=145–176}} It was presumed he named it after fellow naval officer James Everard Home. Stokes' maps do not record the name, but many secondary sources attribute its introduction to him. The first known map showing Cape Everard was made in 1852 and published in 1853, by surveyor George Douglas Smythe.{{Cite journal|last=Lipscombe|first=Trevor|date=2020|title=Cook's Point Hicks: Reports from the 1870s|url=https://www.captaincooksociety.com/cooks-life/places/cook-s-point-hicks-reports-from-the-1870s|journal=Cook's Log|publisher=Captain Cook Society|volume=41|issue=3|pages=36–37}} If he coined the name, then, according to one theory, he may have been referring to William Everard, a South Australian Commissioner of Crown Lands.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}} The name Cape Everard was adopted after 1853 and was used until 1970, when the location was renamed Point Hicks.{{Cite journal|last=Liscombe|first=Trevor|date=2014|title=Point Hicks – The clouded facts|journal=Victorian Historical Journal|volume=85|issue=2|pages=232–253}}

Despite the use of the name Cape Everard to designate the promontory, Cook's original name of Point Hicks was recorded on an obelisk-shaped monument erected by the Australian Government on the site in 1924.{{cite journal |last=Lipscombe |first=Trevor |date=August 2014 |title=Hydrographers v Historians — the truth about Point Hicks |url=http://www.australiaonthemap.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Map-Matters-24-Winter-2014R.pdf |journal=Map Matters | issue=24 |pages=4–8 |publisher=Australasian Hydrographic Society |access-date=27 February 2015}}{{rp|n30}} The inscription on the landward side of the monument reads:{{cite news |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2063346 |title=COOK'S VOYAGE. |newspaper=The Argus |location=Melbourne |date=6 November 1924 |access-date=27 September 2013 |page=17 |publisher=National Library of Australia}}

{{quotation|"Lieutenant James Cook, R.N. Of the Endeavour, First Sighted Australia Near This Point, Which He Named Point Hicks After Lieutenant Zachary Hicks Who First Saw the Land. April 19th (Ship's Log Date). April 20th (Calendar Date). 1770."

On the seaward side of the monument is a plaque listing the "Ship's Company of H.M. Bark Endeavour April 20th 1770".{{rp|n30}}{{cite book |title=Captain Cook's Journal During His First Voyage Round the World Made in H. M. Bark "Endeavour", 1768–71|author=Cook, James |author-link=James Cook |editor=Wharton, W. J. L |publisher=Project Gutenberg |publication-date=1 May 2005 |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8106/8106-h/8106-h.htm |format=e-book}}}}

In the 1930s, the Australian businessman and philanthropist, Russell Grimwade, commissioned stone to be quarried from Cape Everard and shipped to Great Ayton in Yorkshire. It was used to create a replica monument with an identical plaque, which was placed at the site of the home of Captain Cook's parents, after Grimwade had arranged for the home to be dismantled and reconstructed in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, in 1934.{{Cite journal |last=Antonello |first=Alessandro |date=2021-10-02 |title=Monumental geo-politics: ocean, land and Captain Cook in interwar Australia |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14490854.2021.1991812 |journal=History Australia |language=en |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=753–767 |doi=10.1080/14490854.2021.1991812 |issn=1449-0854}}

Cook's name, Point Hicks, was officially established as the name of the cape as part of the commemoration of the bicentenary of Cook's 1770 voyage.{{Cite book|last=Blainey|first=Geoffrey|title=Captain Cook's Epic Voyage: the strange quest for a missing continent|publisher=Viking Australia|year=2020|pages=305|isbn=9781760895099}} Victorian Premier Henry Bolte proclaimed the new name in a ceremony at the point on 20 April 1970.