James Trevenen

Who was James Trevenen?

James Trevenen was an officer in the Royal Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy.

Born in Cornwall "of a very respectable family", he was educated at the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth and went to sea in 1776 as a midshipman on the Resolution under Captain James Cook, where he assisted Cook as a surveyor and navigator. On completing the voyage in 1780 he was promoted to lieutenant by the Earl of Sandwich, and sailed under James King, who he had served with in Resolution, until the end of the war in 1783.

Unhappy with peacetime life, he attempted to get employment from the Admiralty in 1787, but was unsuccessful. As a result, he drew up a plan for a voyage of exploration, seeking to establish a sailing route between Kamchatka and Japan and northern China. This plan was put before Catherine II of Russia, who took a strong interest in it, and promptly sent an officer to England to bring him to Russia and invite him to carry out the plan. This planned expedition is sometimes called the Mulovsky expedition.