John James Lambrecht was baptised on 09 June 1756 at St. Andrew, Holburn, the son of John and Prudence Lambrecht. John Lambrecht and Prudence Lenton had married at Lewknor in Oxfordshire in 1745. As well as John James, there was a daughter, Letitia, and a son, Joseph. In 1753, the Lambrechts were living at Tooke Court in Holburn but by 1757 they were living in Kensington.

Lambrecht sailed on Cook's second voyage on the Adventure and, though he was mustered as AB, he messed with the midshipmen. However, he only managed to last a month and a few days of the voyage as he died at sea in the North Atlantic on 25 August 1772 as the Adventure sailed southeast towards the Equator. During the stopover at Sao Tiago in the Cape Verde Islands, Lambrecht had gone swimming and suffered sunstroke. The after effects worsened and, ten days after leaving Port Praio, he died.

Michael Lane was born about 1739 in London. There is a baptism record for a Michael Lane on 16 February 1739 at St. Botolph without Aldgate, London, the son of David and Anna Lane. Some of the little we know about Lane comes from a letter written in December 1766 by Hugh Palliser, at the time Governor of Newfoundland, to Phillip Stephens, Secretary to the Admiralty:

He had attended Christ's Hospital (the Bluecoat school) in Newgate Street in London and had gone to sea under the patronage of Peter Denis. Denis had made captain in 1745, was created a baronet in 1767 and later rose to be a vice-admiral. In 1757, Lane spent a year as a midshipman on the Namur under Denis. Lane then followed Denis to the Dorsetshire and served two years as an AB and schoolmaster on the ship, including the Battle of Quiberon Bay.

Denis and Lane then transferred to the Bellona but Lane remained when Denis moved on and he completed three years as schoolmaster.

Lane then began serving on ships in Newfoundland waters. A year on the Antelope as schoolmaster preceded over two and a half years in the same role on the Guernsey. The Guernsey was Palliser's flag ship in Newfoundland from 1764.

On Palliser's recommendation, Lane succeeded William Parker as master's mate and assistant surveyor on the Grenville in 1767. He then succeeded Cook in charge of the Newfoundland survey in 1768 when Cook moved to the Endeavour. Lane spent seven years with the Grenville completing the survey. Eventually, his and Cook's work (together with work done by Joseph Gilbert) was published.

In 1774, Lane was in command of HMS Lyon. However, in 1776, command was given to Richard Pickersgill, with Lane as his deputy, for an expedition up Davis Strait to west of Greenland in search of the Northwest Passage. Lane was angry about being passed over and he and Pickersgill quarrelled during the voyage. Lane called for Pickersgill to be court martialled after the voyage.

He became a lieutenant at the relatively late age of 37 on 27 October 1777. He was in command of the schooner Lion from 1782 until 1785 (probably not the same vessel as he served on during the 1770s. Lane is supposed to have died in 1794.

William Lanyon was baptised on 02 April 1745 at Tregony with Cuby in Cornwall, between Truro and St. Austell. His father, John Lanyon (born 1704), came from Gwinear in West Cornwall where the family had been established as landowners for over two hundred years. C.S. Gilbert in his An Historical Survey of Cornwall Part II (1820) records William Lanyon as the current owner of Gwinear.

Lanyon joined the Royal Navy when he was about 18. His first recorded service was 14 months as an AB on the Orford followed by 2 years on the Mars, also as an AB. Lanyon then served 19 months on HMS Jason as a midshipman. He next served as an AB and midshipman on HMS Terrible before, in 1772, possibly through Cornish connections, he joined HMS Adventure, Cook's companion vessel on the second voyage. From September 1772 he served as a midshipman but following the deaths at Grass Cove in December 1773 he became a master's mate.

Lanyon gained his Lieutenant's certificate in August 1774. However, he was taken on again for Cook's third voyage, somewhat surprisingly in the lower rank of master's mate. Lanyon began the voyage on the Resolution but his chance came when, following Clerke's death in August 1779, he was promoted to second lieutenant on the Discovery. Lanyon kept a log during the voyage. He is also supposed to have collected vocabularies of Pacific languages, which were assembled and published as Captain Cook's South Sea Island Vocabularies by Peter Lanyon-Orgill in 1979. Their authenticity has, however, been questioned by Paul Geraghty and it is probable that some of the vocabularies are fabricated.

William Lanyon may have married. A William Lanyon married Jane Lanyon in 1784. Jane was possibly the daughter of Tobias Lanyon, William Lanyon's cousin. They do not appear to have had any children.

Lanyon's subsequent naval record is sketchy. He was in command of the Spider, a cutter based at Plymouth from March 1790 until May 1796. In 1799, Lanyon commanded the Kent, another cutter, in the English Channel and, on 26 November 1799, he captured a French privateer, the Four Brothers, out of Calais. In January 1800, Lanyon took command of the Matilda. His last recorded command was of HMS Genereux, a prison ship, at Plymouth from February 1805.

William Lanyon was listed as a superannuated commander on 17 March 1814. He retired to St. Austell, Cornwall, a sick man, and was buried on 26 March 1818. The burial records state he was paralytic. A Jane Lanyon, most probably William's wife, was buried at St. Austell a year earlier on 27 March 1817. Lanyon left a will (PROB 11/1604) proven on 15 May 1818.

Lanyon, in his will, left things to nephews and nieces, the children of another William Lanyon of Surrey. The exact nature of the relationship remains unclear.

John Law, who sailed Cook's third voyage, was born either in or near Stamford in Lincolnshire about 1750. His family had strong connections with Kings Cliffe, a few kilometres to the southwest in Northamptonshire. Law's great uncle was William Law (1686-1761), the religious writer and thinker, who lived in Kings Cliffe and set up a charitable school in the village.

Law joined the Discovery on 04 May 1776 as surgeon and remained in that position until 04 August 1778. When William Anderson, the surgeon of the Resolution, died Law then transferred to take his place on that ship. During the voyage, Law kept a journal, a part of which is held by the British Library (B.M. Add. MS 37327). Law did not hand in this document and it remained in his family until a descendant of his brother Thomas presented it to the British Museum in 1907. Beaglehole describes the journal as "a vile scrawl ... hardly more than rough notes", though acknowledges its content by quoting several passages.

After the voyage, Law remained in touch with James King and attended him when King had gone to Nice in the south of France to recuperate in 1784. Law was attached to HMS Trusty at the time, based in Civita Vecchia in Italy. James Trevenen records Law's attendance on King and states that Law himself was a sick man.

Law appears to have left the navy and returned to his home in Stamford where he died in 1786 leaving a will (PROB 11/1147). He expressed a wish to be buried at Cliffe.  

John Ledyard (III) sailed on the third voyage on the Resolution as the marine corporal. He was later promoted to sergeant in 1780.

Ledyard's great-grandfather, Ebenezer Ledyard, was originally from Bradford in northern England, being born about 1668. He moved to Bristol where his son, John Ledyard (I), was born in 1700. This John Ledyard went to sea and by 1717 was living in the New York - Connecticut region. In 1727, John married Deborah Youngs and together they had ten children of whom John Ledyard (II) (baptised 27 July 1729 in Groton, Connecticut) was the oldest.

This John Ledyard (II) (Cook's Ledyard's father) went to sea and became master of a merchantman in the West India trade. He eloped with his cousin Abigail Hempstead (their mothers were sisters, Deborah and Mary Youngs, and none of the family approved of the relationship) and they married on 06 May 1750. Together they had six children.

John Ledyard (II)'s sister, Mary Ledyard, married Colonel Thomas Seymour. Seymour became young John Ledyard's guardian after death of his grandfather in 1771 and would later be a valuable source of information about Ledyard.

John Ledyard (III) (Cook's Ledyard) was the oldest of John and Abigail Ledyard's children and was born in November 1751. He had four brothers and one sister. When Ledyard was ten his father died at sea on 17 March 1762. His mother took the family to Long Island to live with her father but Ledyard was sent to live with his grandfather in Hartford, Connecticut. Meanwhile, Abigail Ledyard remarried, this time to Micah Moore on 06 January 1765.

Ledyard's grandfather died in 1771 and Ledyard was placed in the care of his uncle, Thomas Seymour, a lawyer. Ledyard worked for a short time in Seymour's law office before his mother arranged for him to attend John Wheelock's Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, with a view to becoming a missionary to the Indians. Ledyard went there in 1772 but, in 1773, he rebelled and ran away (he actually paddled away in a canoe!).

He joined a ship, which took him to Gibraltar where he enlisted in a British regiment but his ship's captain objected and Ledyard was returned to the ship and sailed with her back to New York via the West Indies. His wanderlust had not been diminished and, in March 1774, he sailed to from New York to Falmouth to seek out family connections in Bristol where his grandfather was born. He was unable to make contact or he was not able to furnish proof of his identity and prove his links to British members of the family so it came to nothing. Being out of money (a situation in which he ibvariably found himself), Ledyard enlisted in the Marines joining 24 Company at Plymouth on 15 July 1775.

On 09 July 1776, Ledyard joined Cook's third voyage as marine corporal on the Resolution. Three days later, the expedition sailed from Plymouth on 12 July 1776. Ledyard played a prominent part, including going as envoy to the Russians on Unalaska in October 1778. Ledyard was sent across the island where he located a Russian settlement, returning to the Resolution with three Russian seamen and the Russian factor, Gherasim Ismailov. If Ledyard kept a journal during a voyage, he did not hand it in at the end of the voyage.

With the death of Samuel Gibson, the sergeant of marines on 22 September 1780, close to the very end of the voyage, Ledyard was raised to sergeant. This was confirmed after the voyage on 25 November 1780. Ledyard remained in the marines but transferred to 27 Company. He waited for promotion or recognition and, when none was forthcoming, he sent a letter to the Earl of Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, supported by a letter from John Gore, who had commanded the voyage for its last year. Gore wrote on 21 June 1781:

Gore included Ledyard's letter in which he himself wrote:

Nothing eventuated from the letter however. His situation was complicated by the fact that Britain was still at war with America. Ledyard, coming from America, refused to fight Americans so he was confined to barracks in Britain. However, he sailed to America in 1782 and deserted onto Long Island before crossing to Hartford to live with his uncle, Thomas Seymour.

Ledyard then set about writing his account of the third voyage with Cook, drawing heavily on, even plagiarising an anonymous account (usually attributed to Rickman) published in London in 1781. Ledyard's A Journal of Captain Cook's Last Voyage to the Pacific Ocean and in quest of a North-West Passage was published in Hartford in 1783.

Like several others who had sailed on the third voyage, Ledyard recognised the commercial possibilities of the sea otter fur trade on the Northwest Coast of America. He tried to interest traders and merchants in New York and Philadelphia in backing a venture but without success. In June 1784, he returned Europe travelling via Cadiz in Spain to Paris where he based himself. He became friends with John Paul Jones, the privateer, and Thomas Jefferson, the newly appointed American ambassador to France. However, both men while showing interest would not invest in Ledyard's project and French merchants also declined to back him.

At one point, Ledyard arranged to travel to the north-west coast of America in a British ship but the monopolies held by a few companies prevented the ship sailing and the plan was abandoned. Jefferson then suggested that Ledyard could walk to Kamchatka across Russia and Siberia. From there, he could sail to Nootka on the American Northwest coast and then cross the American continent. Ledyard took up this somewhat incredible idea. Jefferson wrote to Lafayette on 09 February 1786:

Jefferson sought a passport for Ledyard from the Empress Catherine, but this was refused. In a letter to Baron de Grimm, who had written to the Empress on Jefferson's behalf, Catherine wrote in July 1786:

Ledyard set off anyway on his great trek with a little financial backing from Sir James Hall and Sir Joseph Banks. He walked via Copenhagen and reached Stockholm in late January 1787. He then supposedly walked right round the Gulf of Bothnia as mild weather meant it was not ice covered and could not be traversed on foot. Ledyard arrived penniless in St. Petersburg in March 1787.

Ledyard made another attempt to obtain a passport and Simon Pallas, the naturalist and member of the Royal Society helped obtain one through the French Embassy. In June 1787, he set off again accompanying William Braun, a Scottish surgeon who was returning to Billings's expedition with supplies. Ledyard knew Billings having sailed on Cook's third voyage with him. Billings was then astronomer William Bayly's assistant and was now employed by the Russian navy. They travelled by stage coach to Barnaul and then on to Irkutsk with the mail courier.

All the while, Ledyard was making observations and sending letters to Jefferson and others back in Europe. He was one of the first to state that native Americans originated in Asia and not the other way round as claimed by Buffon and others. Ledyard was well received and entertained in Irkutsk though he was representing himself as Colonel Ledyard, which probably helped his reception. Among the people he met there was Ismailov, who had been the Russian factor in the Aleutian Islands nine years earlier. The local governor, General Yakobi, arranged for Ledyard to continue eastwards and gave him a letter of introduction to Gregory Marklovsky, the commandant at Yakutsk.

Ledyard reached Yakutsk on 18 September but he had been overtaken by winter. Marklovsky explained it would be impossible to reach Okhotsk and invited him to stay with him. In early November, Billings and members of his expedition arrived to winter over in Yakutsk. Ledyard noted that he:

Martin Sauer, Billings's secretary and translator wrote:

In late 1787, Russia went to war with Turkey and attitudes to foreigners travelling about the country changed. A.V. Khrapovitsky, the private secretary of the Empress recorded in his diary on 16 December 1787:

Ledyard was arrested on 24 February 1788 and escorted back to Moscow and after questioning was sent to Moghilev (present day Mahilyow in Belarus). The local governor, General Passek, gave him food, money and clothing before having him taken to the Polish border where he was expelled from Russia and ordered never to return.

Ledyard made his way to London and once more sought out Joseph Banks. A new expedition was mooted by Banks and the African Association to explore overland routes from Alexandria in Egypt to the Niger. Ledyard was offered the task and he departed on 30 June 1788 and reached Cairo in August. However, he died in Cairo in November 1788, either from dysentery or an excessive dose of tartar emetic intended as a cure.

Some years later, James Burney wrote about Ledyard:

On 24 July 1790, The Times reproduced a piece that had previously appeared in the Proceedings of the Association for promoting the Discovery of the interior Parts of Africa:

In 1964 Edward Dorn published a poem about Ledyard called Ledyard. The Exhaustion of Sheer Distance. It contained the lines:

Richard Lee joined the Resolution for Cook's second voyage on 13 April 1772 as an AB. However, he was discharged on 28 April 1772 to a supernumerary list but on 01 July 1772 he was re-entered on the muster as an AB. During the voyage, Lee was punished 3 times; on 11 September 1772 for insolence; on 22 November 1773 for theft; and on 22 February 1774 for drunkenness.

Despite his punishments, Lee was ready to join the third voyage on 10 February 1776 as an AB, again on the Resolution. This time he was only punished on one occasion on 29 August 1778 for drunkenness.

Lee was born in London about 1752.

Henry Lightfoot joined the Adventure on 28 January 1772 as a midshipman.

Lightfoot kept a log (Adm 51/4523/5 23 November 1772 to 14 May 1773).

Lightfoot became a lieutenant on 15 November 1782.

He is recorded as dying on 24 December 1790.Nothing else is known about Lightfoot.

Richard Littleboy (1744-?), Michael Littleboy (1748-?) and Timothy Rarden all sailed on first voyage on the Endeavour.

The Littleboy brothers, Richard and Michael, who were sons of Richard and Susannah Littleboy of Woolwich, both sailed as ABs. Richard was punished during the voyage on 02 December 1769 for theft.

Richard Littleboy was apprenticed as a waterman from 1758 until 1765. In 1765, he married Rebecca Neale at St. Magdalene Church, Bermondsey. They had five sons, only one of whom survived beyond infancy. Rebecca died in 1778 but it is unknown when Richard died. Their surviving son, another Richard Littleboy, petitioned Banks describing himself as an orphan.

Michael Littleboy was also apprenticed as a waterman, this time from 1761 until 1771. He married Sarah Chappell at St. Alfege Church, Greenwich in June 1775 and they had a son and three daughters. Sarah died in 1781 and Littleboy remarried in 1783 to Hannah Large. He had another son and two more daughters. Michael fell on hard times, having lost his boat and petitioned Joseph Banks on 03 February 1787.

The family was friendly with Timothy Rarden (sometimes Rearden), who sailed on the Grenville as an AB with Cook in Newfoundland in 1766 and 1767. He was discharged into sick quarters on 11 January 1767, but rejoined using surname Bearden on 07 March 1767. Rarden then followed Cook onto the Endeavour as an AB.

Rarden was born in Cork in 1743. He died during the Endeavour voyage in Jakarta on 24 December 1770. He left a will (PROB 11/969). In the will, he leaves his "Worldly Estate and Effects" to his "beloved friend Richard Littleboy and Susannah his wife", the parents of the brothers who sailed on the Endeavour with him.

Most of the information about the Littleboys has come from Pam Basley in the UK, for which many thanks.

Charles Loggie was born in Plymouth about 1755, the son of James Loggie, a captain in the Royal Navy. It is probable that the Loggies were originally from Scotland, possibly Moray. In 1764, James Loggie was still serving in the navy and was in command of the Burford, a 3rd rate. Shortly after leaving the Burford, Loggie lost his sight and was awarded a pension. Loggie senior died in 1779.

Loggie sailed on the second voyage on the Resolution as an AB. He joined on 07 January 1772 from the Nautilus. He kept a journal (Adm 51/4554/207 Journal 18 January to 26 July 1773). Beaglehole decribes it as "a very cursory production" and "all that one could expect from the unhappy Loggie".

Loggie had an miserable voyage being involved in several incidents and suffering punishment on more than one occasion. He was sent before the mast on 06 January 1773 for arguing with the boatswain. John Elliott wrote in his Memoirs:

A month later, on 07 February 1773, Elliott wrote:

However, Loggie was in trouble again on 02 January 1774 for assaulting James Maxwell, for which he was disrated. Charles Clerke wrote:

(See also Elliot's version of the above events in the Elliott text reproduced below.)

Logie was the apprehended on 18 March 1775 for threatening violence. Clerke wrote:

Elliott described Loggie as "From misfort. drinking". He also wrote:

Elliott described Loggie's experience on board at some length, showing a certain sympathy for his colleague:

At the end of the voyage, Elliott and Loggie were involved in a boxing match while the Resolution was at Greenhithe, occasioned apparently by Elliott having knocked a "spy glass" against Loggie's eye. According to Elliott, Loggie was left with both eyes so swollen he could not go ashore for a week.

Loggie became a lieutenant in March 1776 and, about the same time, married Elizabeth Hewett (baptised on 13 August 1756 at Holy Trinity, Gosport) on 15 September 1776 at Holy Trinity, Gosport. They had two children: Charlotte Loggie, baptised on 01 December 1778 at Stoke Damerel, Plymouth; and Edward Wills Loggie, baptised on 21 June 1780 at Alverstoke near Portsmouth. Charlotte married a man called Robinson and died as Charlotte Robinson in Demerera, Guyana in 1807.

According to Elliott, Charles Loggie was killed in duel in 1782, while first lieutenant of the Marion. Colledge's Ships of the Royal Navy has no ship with that name however.

Fulke Lowe sailed on the third voyage on the Discovery. He joined on 24 April 1776 as an AB. He was born in Newton Toney in Wiltshire in 1753.

The Greville family lived at Wilbury Park outside Newton Toney, just norhteast of Salisbury. Male members of the family over several generations had the first name Fulke. The Lowe family probably worked on the Wilbury estate for the Grevilles and felt entitled to use the name.

Temporary entry May 2007

Benjamin Lyon joined the Resolution for the third voyage on 22 April 1776 as an AB. He was punished on 25 January 1779 for being absent without leave. Lyon had previously trained as a watchmaker and tried unsuccessfully to repair Resolution's chronometers. This was described on 29 April 1779 by Clerke and King (Adm 55/118):

Lyon was born in Southwark, London about 1735.

John McDonald sailed on the Resolution during Cook's third voyage. He joined on 09 July 1776 as a marine private from 15 Company of the Plymouth Division. He was punished twice on the voyage. On the first occasion on 17 July 1777 it was for neglect of duty and on the second occasion on 07 September 1779 it was for insolence.

McDonald's will was written on 10 November 1780 shortly after the Resolution's return to London. A "trusty friend" Peter McMullen, Attorney at Law, was the sole beneficiary of the will with no mention of any family. Patrick Whealon and James Harding, who had sailed on the Resolution with McDonald were witnesses to the will. Nothing is known of his life before or after the Resolution voyage. His will (PROB 11/1143) was proven in June 1786.

Alexander McIntosh was born in Perth, Scotland about 1746. He sailed on the Resolution on the third voyage. McIntosh joined on 10 February 1776 as an AB and became a carpenter's mate on 12 March 1776.

McIntosh died in Petropavlosk in Kamchatka on 16 May 1779. In his will (PROB 11/1070 proven 12 October 1780) McIntosh left everything to his beloved Friend Duncan McAlpin of Deptford.

Robert Mackie was baptised at Airth, Stirling on 14 August 1754, the son of Robert and Mary (née Duncanson) Mackie. Airth is on the southern shore of the Forth, about 7 kilometres north of Falkirk. Other members of his family were sailors.

Mackie began his naval career by spending three years as captain's servant on the Liverpool. He then sailed on the Adventure during Cook's second voyage as servant to William Bayly, the astronomer. He does not feature in the record. Interestingly, his time on the Adventure does not appear on his lieutenant's certificate. However he must have impressed Tobias Furneaux and James Cook as Cook wrote to Philip Stephens, the Admiralty Secretary on 11 March 1776:

After the Adventure voyage, Mackie served as a midshipman on the Raisonnable and Nonsuch. Mackie joined Cook's third voyage from the Nonsuch. He sailed on the Resolution as a midshipman until 01 September 1777 when he became an AB. He was sent before the mast at Huahine on 31 October 1777.

After the voyage Robert Mackie became a lieutenant on 01 November 1780. He died in 1789 and his will, proven on 08 May 1789 (PROB 11/1080), lists his home as Carron in Stirling. Carron is situated between Falkirk and Airth.

James Magra was born in New York in 1746, the second of three sons of James and Elizabeth Magra. His father was born in Corsica but had fled the island and moved to Dublin in Ireland. Here he changed his name to Matra and became a doctor. After a few years in Ireland, Magra senior moved to America and settled in New York, being licensed to practice medicine in 1740.

Magra junior joined the Royal Navy on New York in May 1761 as captain's servant on the Fowey. The captain of the Fowey was George Tonyn and Magra would remain with him for several years. They transferred to the Brune in August 1761 and Magra sailed on her for 13 months as captain's servant, midshipman and AB. The Brune operated from Gibraltar off the Spanish coast and in the Mediterranean. In September 1763, Magra signed off and returned to New York.

In July 1764, Magra returned to sea on the Hawk as a midshipman, stationed at New York. He remained with the Hawk for two years before joining the Coventry as an AB on which he served for seventeen months. The Coventry crossed to Britain and Magra left the ship in February 1768. He then had a short spell of two months on the Rose before joining Cook's first voyage to the Pacific.

Magra joined the Endeavour as an AB on 25 July 1768. On 27 May 1771, he became a midshipman. Richard Orton, the ship's clerk, was attacked on 23 May 1770 and Orton accused Magra. It would appear that Cook did not have a high opinion of Magra as, though there was no evidence to prove Magra guilty, Cook thought him capable of having made the attack:

A fortnight later after not being able to find the culprit Cook pardoned Magra and retored him to duty on 13 June. It was later suspected that Patrick Saunders had been the culprit.

After the voyage, in September 1771, an anonymous account of the Endeavour's voyage was published in London. It is now believed that Magra was the author of A Journal of a Voyage round the World. About the same time, Magra had become a lieutenant, his certificate being dated 20 August 1771 but it also marked the end of his naval career. Instead, in March 1772, he was appointed the British consul in the Canary Islands based at Tenerife. He remained there until 1775. Back in London, Magra petitioned successfully to change his surname to Matra in 1775 and from 19 February 1776 was known as James Mario Matra. In 1777 Matra went to New York on family business.

In mid-1778, Matra was appointed secretary to Sir Robert Ainslie, British Ambassador to the Ottoman Court in Constantinople. It was not a happy time and Matra left Constantinople in January 1781. Matra had corresponded with Joseph Banks and, in 1783, put forward plans to colonise New South Wales.

Matra was appointed British Consul in Tangier in July 1786. He left in early 1787 and spent the remainder of his life there and in Gibraltar. In October 1793, Matra married Henrietta Maxwell, the daughter of the army victualling agent in Gibraltar. They had no children.

Matra died in Tangier on 29 March 1806. Magra Islet off the north Queensland coast is named for him.

Temporary entry May 2007

Mortimer (Mortaugh) Mahony joined the Adventure for Cook's second voyage on 26 March 1772 as cook. He died of scurvy in the South Pacific on 23 July 1773.

Isaac George Manley was baptised on 03 March 1755 at St. Giles in the Fields, London, the second son of John and Anne Manley. His father was a barrister at Middle Temple. The Manley family were landowners at Erbistock, near Wrexham. An earlier Isaac Manley, Isaac George's great-grandfather, was Postmaster General in Dublin at the beginning of the eighteenth century and was a friend of Jonathan Swift. Isaac's grandfather, John Manley (~1683-1743), was a commissioner of customs in London. The early "feminist" writer Delarivier Manley was relative, being a niece of Isaac's great-great-grandfather.

Manley joined Cook's first voyage on the Endeavour on 17 June 1768 as the master's servant. He was made a midshipman on 04 February 1771. After the voyage, Cook wrote to the Admiralty Secretary in August 1771:

Manley joined Cook on the Resolution for the second voyage on 03 December 1771 as a midshipman. However, he was discharged on 08 April 1772 before the ships sailed and left to join HMS Terrible. He was promoted to lieutenant on 07 May 1777, commander on 18 December 1782, and captain on 22 November 1790. Later, he became a rear admiral in 1809, a vice admiral in 1814, and an admiral in 1830. Manley was a lieutenant aboard the Prince George in April 1782 during Rodney's victory at the Battle of the Saintes in the West Indies.

Isaac inherited the family fortunes when his father died in 1801, his older brother, another John, having died already in 1799 without issue. Manley acquired Brazier's Park outside Checkendon in Oxfordshire and he died there on 29 July 1837, leaving a will (PROB 11/1886). He had married Frances Pole in 1791 and together they had two children, Ann Frances and John Shawe Manley. John Shawe Manley became a barrister. Manley received a Doctor of Civil Law from Oxford University in 1814. Manley Island, an islet off the north Queensland coast is named for him.

John Marra was entered on the Endeavour's supernumerary list on 17 October 1770 at Batavia / Jakarta when Cook took on new men to replace the sick and dying. He was then transferred to the muster roll proper on 26 December 1770 as an AB. After the Endeavour voyage Marra followed Cook on to the Scorpion, joining that ship on 07 September 1771 as gunner's mate. Together with about 30 other me, he was discharged on 16 December 1771.

John Marra rejoined Cook for the second voyage. He joined the Resolution on 17 December 1771 as gunner's mate. Marra sold a narrative of the second voyage to John Newberry who published it anonymously in 1775. After Robert Anderson, who had been suspected of writing the work did some detective work, Marra owned up to being its author.

Marra was born in Cork about 1745. Marra's will (PROB 11/1101) was written in June 1781 and proven on 17 March 1783. In it Marra left everything to his "beloved Brother William Marra, Farmer in the County of Tipperary, Ireland".

John Henry Martin, who sailed on Cook's third voyage, was born about 1753, most probably in Pembrokeshire in west Wales and possibly in Manorbier.

Martin went to sea and had nearly five and a half years service on Royal Navy vessels before joining Cook. He began on the Peggy, an 8-gun sloop, serving for a year as a midshipman. This was followed by 3 months on the Yarmouth, a 3rd rate, two and a half years on the Romney, a 4th rate, and a year and a half on the Bonetta, a 10 gun sloop, all as a midshipman.

He joined Cook's expedition on 06 March 1776 as an AB on the Discovery. Shortly after the ship sailed, Clerke had him rated as a midshipman. He remained on the Discovery as such until late October 1777. On the 30th at Huahine, a local, who had been in custody, escaped and William Harvey, who had been on watch, was disrated to midshipman. As a result, Martin was promoted in his place and transferred to the Resolution.

Martin was involved on 01 March 1779 at Kauia when James King and two other men were scrambling to reach a pinnace and return to the ships. Martin was in charge of the pinnace and fired his musket, killing one Hawaiian. During the voyage, Martin kept a journal (Adm 51/4531/47. 01 December 1776 to 28 November 1779). Beaglehole desvribed it as:

After the voyage, Martin became a lieutenant on 11 December 1780 and a commander on 17 February 1800. He was in charge of HMS Xenophon, 22 guns, in the North Sea in 1800. Martin was replaced in charge of the Xenophonin January 1801 by Matthew Flinders. The Xenophon's name was changed to Investigator and Flinders sailed it to survey Australia.

Martin was next commander of HMS Explosion, a bomb ship, during Nelson's unsuccessful attack on Boulogne on 15/16 August 1801.

Martin married and he and his wife had a son, Henry Owen Martin, born about 1805. However, this first wife must have died as Martin was married to a much younger woman called Margaret when he died. The 1851 census for Templeton, near Narberth in Pembrokeshire, records Margaret Martin as aged 61 and "widow of a commander". That age means she was born about 1790 and so was appreciably (about 37 years) younger than her husband. Henry Owen Martin was recorded as son-in-law, (meaning stepson) to Margaret in the 1851 census. Margaret was born in Cilymaenllwyd in Carmarthen, about 10 kilometres north of Narberth and died in early 1862. John Henry and Margaret Martin had a son, John, baptised in December 1817 but the child probably died as there are no further records for him.

Henry Owen Martin became a solicitor and lived with his stepmother in Templeton. He died unmarried in 1883.

John Henry Martin died on 10 May 1823 and was buried at St. Elidyr's Church, in Ludchurch, Pembrokeshire. A memorial in the churchyard reads in part:

Martin left a will (PROB 11/1676) proven on 11 October 1823.