The first European known to have sighted the island was Captain James Cook, in 1774, on his second voyage to the South Pacific on HMS Resolution. He named it after the Duchess of Norfolk, wife of Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk (1685-1777). The Duchess was dead at the time of the island's sighting by Cook, but Cook had set out from England in 1772 and could not have known of her May 1773 death.Cook went ashore on Tuesday 11 October 1774, and is said to have been impressed with the tall straight trees and New Zealand flax plants, which, although not related to the Northern Hemisphere flax plants after which they are named, produce fibres of economic importance. He took samples back to the United Kingdom and reported on their potential uses for the Royal Navy. Andrew Kippis as the biographer of this voyage puts it as follows: