James Wilson (captain)

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James Wilson

James Wilson (* 1769 ; † August 12, 1814 in London ) was a British captain and explorer .

Youth and first experiences

Born the youngest of 19 children to a Newcastle merchant captain , James Wilson was destined for seafaring from an early age on the part of his parents. In the service of the East India Company he gained experience as a seaman and navigational officer in India. He was captured during the Mysore Wars . After his liberation, he made a small fortune in the colonial trade and quit his service with the British East India Company in 1792. Back in England, Wilson joined the London Missionary Society (LMS) founded in 1795 .

Captain the Duff

The LMS had acquired a merchant ship, the Duff , in 1796 to bring missionaries to the South Pacific islands. James Wilson was accepted as captain by the mission community and assigned to take a group of missionaries and their families to Tahiti , Tonga and the Marquesas . When the ship departed from Portsmouth on August 10, 1796, the captain James Wilson, his nephew William Wilson as first mate and a crew of 21 were on board. There were also four ordained clergy and 20 lay preachers of all possible professions, including shoemakers, bricklayers, butchers, joiners and weavers, as well as six women and three children aged 2 to 12 as passengers.  

The Duff in 1797 off Tahiti

On November 12, 1796, the Duff reached Rio de Janeiro and on March 5, 1797, Matavai Bay on Tahiti, where 18 lay missionaries left the ship. On March 26th, the Duff sailed on to Tongatapu , where another mission station was planned. On the way to the Marquesas, the ship reached a group of islands on May 19, 1797, which Wilson named Gambier Islands after the Huguenot James Gambier , who had financially supported the expedition. The highest mountain on Mangareva is still called Mont Duff today. On June 28, 1797, the Duff anchored off the island of Puka Rua , another new discovery Wilson named "Serles Island" after Ambrose Serle (1742-1812), the secretary of Lord Howe and author of the book "Horae Solitariae", a pious treatise very popular at the time . The onward journey led to Tahuata , where Wilson put another missionary ashore. After a short stopover on the neighboring islands of Ua Pou and Nuku Hiva , the Duff sailed back to Tahiti and anchored again in Matavai Bay on July 6, 1797.

On September 17, 1797, Wilson returned to England via China . On this trip he discovered the Lau Islands belonging to the Fiji archipelago with the largest island Sir Charles Middleton's Island ( Vanua Balavu ), which Wilson named after Admiral Sir Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham (1726-1813). Then the Duff passed through the Nanuku Passage in the northeast sector of Fiji and passed a group of islands on September 25th, which Wilson baptized the Duff Islands . The archipelago had been discovered by the Spanish in 1606, but Wilson was the first to determine the precise coordinates and draw a map. On his onward journey to China, Wilson discovered several islands in what is now Micronesia for Europe ( Woleai , Ifalik , Elato , Lamotrek and Satawal ). On November 21, 1797, the Duff reached Macau . Necessary repairs were carried out there and Wilson picked up a shipment of tea for England. On January 5, 1798, the Duff sailed and joined a convoy of merchant ships, finally entering the Thames on July 11, 1798 .

Next life

Back in England, James Wilson married, settled in London and never returned to seafaring. He died at the age of 45, leaving behind a wife and five children.

literature

  • James Wilson: A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, Performed in the Years 1796–1798, in the Ship Duff, Commanded by Captain James Wilson. T. Chapman, London 1799 Digitized

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John Griffin: Memoirs of Captain James Wilson, containing an account of his enterprises and sufferings in India, his conversion to Christianity, his missionary voyage to the South seas; and his peaceful and triumphant death, London 1819
  2. ↑ a b c d e John Dunmore: Who's who in Pacific navigation. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu HI 1991, pp. 269-71, ISBN 0-8248-1350-2
  3. ↑ James Wilson: A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, Performed in the Years 1796–1798, in the Ship Duff, Commanded by Captain James Wilson. T. Chapman, London 1799
  4. ^ Robert W. Kirk: Paradise Past - The Transformation of the South Pacific, 1520-1920 . McFarland & Company, Jefferson (North Carolina) 2012, pp. 48-50, ISBN 978-0-7864-9298-5
  5. ^ Edward H. Tatum, Jr.: The American Journal of Ambrose Serle, Secretary to Lord Howe, 1776–1778, New York 1969
  6. ^ A b Andrew Sharp: The Discovery of the Pacific Islands. Greenwood Press, Westport (CT) 1960, pp. 178-181
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British captain and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH 1769
DATE OF DEATH August 12, 1814
Place of death London