author
David Samwell
1751–1798
A Welsh naval surgeon and poet, he is best remembered for serving on Captain James Cook’s final voyage and for leaving one of the most important eyewitness accounts of Cook’s death in Hawaiʻi. He also became a lively supporter of Welsh literary and cultural life, writing under the name Dafydd Ddu Feddyg.
1 Audiobook
A Narrative of the Death of Captain James Cook
by David Samwell
About the author
Born in Nantglyn, Denbighshire, in 1751, David Samwell trained for naval medicine and joined the Royal Navy as a surgeon. He sailed on Cook’s third Pacific voyage and served aboard both the Resolution and the Discovery, placing him at the center of one of the most famous expeditions of the eighteenth century.
Samwell’s lasting fame comes largely from his written account of Captain Cook’s death, published in the 1780s. Because he was there in person, his narrative became an important historical source, and it helped secure his place not just in naval history but in travel writing as well.
He was also a poet and an active figure in Welsh cultural circles, known by the bardic name Dafydd Ddu Feddyg. Later in life he continued his naval and medical work, including service connected with British prisoners of war during the French Revolutionary period, before dying in London in 1798.