James Cook died on 14 February 1779 in Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii. When did his wife Elizabeth hear about his death?
According to Captain Cook: The Life, Death and Legacy of History's Greatest Explorer, by Vanessa Collingridge -
ON 11 JANUARY 1780, an announcement appeared in the London Gazette:
Captain Clerke of His Majesty’s Sloop Resolution, in a letter to Mr Stephens, dated 8th of June 1779, in the Harbour of St Peter and St Paul, Kampschatka, which was received yesterday, gives the melancholy account of the celebrated Captain Cook, late commander of that Sloop, with four of his private Marines having been killed on 14th of February last at the island of O’Why’he, one of a group of new discovered Islands in the 22nd Degree of North Latitude, in an affray with a numerous and tumultuous Body of Natives.
Captain Cook. Ebury Publishing (2011).
Collingridge goes on to note -
There is no record of how Elizabeth heard of her husband’s death, though one presumes a messenger was sent from the Admiralty. After all she had endured, it is hard not to hope that Stephens, Palliser or Sandwich might have gone to Mile End personally to help break the devastating news.
Where Stephens refers to Sir Philip Stephens, Secretary to the Admiralty (to whom all ships correspondence was addressed), Palliser was Admiral Sir Hugh Palliser and Sandwich was John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich who was First Lord of the Admiralty. All three were closely involved with Cook's career.