Joseph Baker (Royal Navy Officer) - Voyaging With Vancouver

Voyaging With Vancouver

Baker is thought to have come from the Welsh border counties. From 1787 he served on HMS Europa where he met then-Lieutenant George Vancouver and then-Midshipman Peter Puget. Vancouver picked Baker as 3rd Lieutenant (and Puget as 2nd Lieutenant) of HMS Discovery for a round-the-world survey, focusing on the American Pacific Northwest Coast. Baker proved a highly capable surveyor and chartmaker in addition to his other duties.

The voyage started with complications. Discovery put in at Tenerife where Baker was seriously beaten trying to put down a sailor's brawl. The voyage proceeded more smoothly to Cape Town, the south coast of Australia and New Zealand. In Tahiti and Hawaii, then called the Sandwich Islands, he accompanied Archibald Menzies in botanical explorations.

Most of the small-boat work in exploring the Northwest Coast of America was done by the more senior officers, while Baker specialized in converting their observations into nautical charts. When Discovery explored Admiralty Inlet, Baker was the first European to see Mt. Baker, a prominent volcano which Vancouver named after him.

In 1794, while Discovery wintered in Hawai'i, Baker accompanying Menzies, Midshipman George McKenzie and another man whose name is not recorded, on the first recorded ascent of Mauna Loa. Lacking any particular equipment for snow or altitude, they summitted at 13,681 feet (4170m) and took careful observation to accurately measure the height within a few dozen feet.

Baker frequently commanded Discovery when the other officers were away. After Vancouver departed the ship in Shannon, Baker brought her safely home to Long Reach on the Thames, completing her five-year mission on 20 October 1795.

Baker spent much of the next few years refining the expedition's charts for publication. After the Peace of Amiens caused the Admiralty to reduce the Navy, he lived at his family home in Presteigne.