The painting of Newcastle-on -Tyne in 1765 depicts the city of Newcastle as it appeared before the Industrial Age brought great changes to the area. The painting also shows Newcastle as it would have appeared to the young James Cook who spent his formative years as an apprentice on board the ship “Freelove” . The Freelove, like hundreds of such vessels, spent its time carrying coal from Newcastle to London. The lessons that the apprentice Cook learned in seamanship and coastal navigation in these high tidal waters, would serve him well as he took similar ships such as the Freelove into dangerous uncharted seas on the other side of the globe.
This view is of a bright summer day that shows off well the bright tile roofs of picturesque medieval Newcastle. The city wall still girdles the town and the old Tyne Bridge arches over the river. The Old Castle and Saint Nicholas Cathedral dominates the skyline. And at this time the River Tyne ran clean and full of fish. I chose this time for the painting partly because it was an end of an era. In a very few years, acts of nature and the industrial age, with its ever increasing hunger for coal, would sully this fine valley.
A point of interest is the ship being careened on the left of the painting. The fact that these stout ships engaged in the coal trade could be left aground by the tide or hove down on any mud flat to repair the bottom, would be for Cook an indispensable lesson when it came to choose ships that would have to be years away from a dockyard.

Note: Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, is the birthplace of the artist.

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