Blue Latitudes by Tony Horowitz - Reg Firth: Keeper of Cook
From the Staithes Museum Newsletter January 2026
I never met Reg Firth, yet reading Tony Horowitz’s chapter in Blue Latitudes—found for me by Bill Hinchley—was like meeting him through the pages. What comes across most vividly is his deep, personal connection to Captain Cook and to the museum he created in Staithes.
Reg was a man of meticulous care and boundless energy. He reconstructed Sanderson’s shop—the place where Cook once worked—as a two-story display, complete with a cobbled floor, a counter fashioned from the old pulpit, and shelves full of goods. Every detail mattered: the height of the windows, the authenticity of the shutters. “The only thing wrong is the windows,” he fretted, “they’re four feet high and they should be five, but I was restricted for space.” Small imperfections vexed him almost as much as the treasures themselves delighted him.
Horowitz captures Reg’s reverence for both objects and history. From blue bottle shards possibly from Cooktown to Sanderson’s will, every item was treated with care, carefully contextualised, and shared enthusiastically. “If you get hold of something, you have to see it through to the end. Cook was like that, wasn’t he?” he said, echoing the same sense of duty he admired in Cook himself.
Reg’s dedication was personal and absolute. He and his wife Ann sold everything they owned, lived in a trailer for seven years, and poured years of effort into turning a derelict chapel into a museum. He had once been a fishing boat captain and Whitby mayor, yet he gave it all up to devote himself to this collection. “Cost me me boat, me house—everything—and years of hard work building this brick by board,” he said. His attachment wasn’t just to the objects but to the act of preserving Cook’s story in Staithes, rooted in the town where the great navigator once worked.
Reading the chapter, what struck me most was Reg’s philosophy about Cook—and about life. He admired Cook’s humility, plain living, and focus on the work itself. “Most places, they go for aristocracy, or people who seek it. When you go down to London, the museums are all Horatio Nelson. They’ve no time for Cook, who taught himself and didn’t have money to buy into his job,” he observed. For Reg, championing Cook was about celebrating these quiet virtues, the diligence, and the grounded humanity that resonated with him as a Yorkshireman.
Reg’s personality—fussy, warm, slightly eccentric, and endlessly enthusiastic—shines through Horowitz’s account. He called out drawers, instructed his invisible assistants, and bounded up stairs to highlight particular objects, all with a sense of devotion that was almost theatrical. But underlying the bustle was an unmistakable love for the work he had chosen, and for the man who inspired it.
Horowitz’s chapter paints Reg not just as a collector or curator, but as someone for whom the museum was a vocation, a mission, and a joy. His life was entwined with the collection: every object, every display, every careful reproduction reflected a man who had made it his purpose to honor Cook. Reading it, I felt as if I could sense Reg standing beside me, eager to show the next treasure, insisting on precision, yet quietly proud of what he had built.
Update in 2026
A gallery of Reg at work on the museum.
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