Thought Lost for 40 Years, ‘Globally Important’ Captain Cook Finds Reappear

A “globally important” shell collection from the 18th century, thought to have been lost for more than 40 years, has resurfaced.

The collection contains more than 200 specimens—among them rare creatures and even an extinct species—including several collected during famous explorer Captain Cook’s third and final voyage.

English Heritage—a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and other sites in England—has now recovered the collection that once belonged to a woman named Bridget Atkinson (1732-1814).

Over time, Atkinson, who hails from the northern English county of Cumbria, amassed more than 1,200 shells from around the world. Whereas some women of her era collected them for their decorative value, Atkinson was fascinated by conchology—the scientific study of mollusk shells. She collected both “pretty shells” and “ugly ones.”

“Bridget never left Britain, and rarely left the county of Cumbria, but her family and friends travelled across continents and sent her shells by ship, carriage, and cart,” Frances McIntosh, curator with English Heritage, told Newsweek.

“Her son Michael was based in Bengal as an employee of the East India Company, an organization which colonized large areas of South and Southeast Asia. Bridget’s brother-in-law, Richard ‘Rum’ Atkinson, was a director of the East India Company, and the owner of two slave-run sugar plantations in Jamaica. Following his death in 1785, Bridget’s children inherited these estates. The Atkinson family was one of thousands of British families to benefit from imperialism.”

One of Bridget’s neighbors, George Dixon, was an armorer on Captain Cook’s ill-fated third voyage and she co-opted him into her pursuit of shells. It was through this connection that shells collected during Cook’s final expedition came into her possession.

Captain James Cook (1728-1779) was a British explorer, cartographer and naval officer known for his three expeditions to the Pacific Ocean from 1768 to 1779.

During these voyages, Cook sailed thousands of miles, mapping parts of the globe that had never been charted by Western explorers. He also completed the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand, among other significant nautical achievements.

But while he is one of history’s most famous explorers, Cook’s legacy is complex and he remains a controversial figure. For example, he is considered by some to have been an enabler of British colonialism and his encounters with indigenous peoples in the lands he explored sometimes turned violent, resulting in the killing of locals.

In 1779, during his third voyage, Cook encountered the Hawaiian islands. But he was killed by villagers that year while attempting to kidnap the King of Hawaiʻi, Kalaniʻōpuʻu, for ransom.

Lost Shells

Atkinson’s shells were eventually passed down to her grandson, John Clayton (1792-1890), whose archaeological collections formed the basis of a museum at Chesters Roman Fort in northern England, next to where he grew up.

Most of Atkinson’s shells were sold along with the Clayton estate in 1930. But around 200 of the specimens remained on display in the museum as part of the Clayton Collection. They were subsequently loaned to the zoology department of Armstrong College in northeastern England, now known as Newcastle University.

At some point in the 1980s, the shells were thrown away during an office clear-out at the university and were thought to have been lost forever. But English Heritage has now revealed that a passing lecturer, the late marine zoologist John Buchanan, rescued the shells from a dumpster.

“He rescued the collection as he believed in conservation, and the shells remained in our family home for 35 years. Following the death of our mother, we discovered that the shells were part of the Clayton Collection,” the family of John Buchanan said in a press release.

The family has now returned the shells to the museum at Chesters Roman Fort—which is preserved by English Heritage. On Wednesday, the shells went on display at the museum for the first time in roughly 100 years.

“We were delighted to return the collection to English Heritage for future generations to enjoy,” the Buchanan family said.

McIntosh said in the press release: “We’ve always known about Bridget Atkinson’s collection but had believed it completely lost. To discover that the shells have not only survived but been kept safe and loved all this time is nothing short of a miracle.”

The shell collection contains a number of significant specimens, including several rare species such as creatures endemic to New Zealand obtained from Atkinson’s connections to Cook’s third voyage. The collection features the extinct mollusk Distorsio cancellina and others, like the giant clam, the largest bivalve in the world, which are now internationally protected.

“Some of the species within Bridget’s collection are today protected,” McIntosh told Newsweek. “So the collection she amassed would not be possible to create today, unless from shells already within a collection. Over-collection of shells puts a species at risk of extinction, and many laws now exist worldwide restricting shell collecting.”

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