The couple had six children: James (1763–94), Nathaniel (1764–80, lost aboard HMS Thunderer which foundered with all hands in a hurricane in the West Indies), Elizabeth (1767–71), Joseph (1768–68), George (1772–72) and Hugh (1776–93), the last of whom died of scarlet fever while a student at Christ's College, Cambridge.

When not at sea, Cook lived in the East End of London and the family attended St Paul's Church, Shadwell, where their son James was baptised.

[3] Elizabeth Cook is buried in the central aisle of St Andrew the Great Church, Cambridge with her sons, James and Hugh.

She left a bequest to pay the minister, support five poor aged women of the parish and to maintain the family's monument.

This garden is located within the Sutherland Shire, which also contains the place of Captain Cook's first landing on continental Australia at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770.

The shock of these deaths confined Mrs Cook to her bed for two years and forever afterwards she observed four days of solemn fasting on the anniversaries of her bereavements, staying in her room praying and meditating with her husband's Bible.

Mrs Cook was known to be a skilled needlewoman and at the time of her husband's death in Hawaii she was embroidering a waistcoat for him to wear at court.

Mrs Cook lived for another 56 years after her husband's death, and one of her proudest possessions was a gold medal, struck in his honour by the Royal Society.

Her portrait, painted when she was 81, depicts a handsome, venerable lady with an oval face and an aquiline nose dressed, as always, in black satin.

She wore a ring with a lock of her husband's hair in it and she entertained the highest respect for his memory, measuring everything by his standard of honour and morality.

Before her death on 13 May 1835 at the age of 93, Mrs Cook went to great lengths to destroy all her private papers and correspondence with her beloved husband, considering them too sacred for other eyes.