Captain (Royal Navy) in the context of "Matthew Flinders"

Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer who led three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans between 1768 and 1779. He completed the first recorded circumnavigation of the main islands of New Zealand, and led the first recorded visit by Europeans to the east coast of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands.

Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager before enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1755. He first saw combat during the Seven Years' War, when he fought in the Siege of Louisbourg. Later in the war he surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the St. Lawrence River during the Siege of Quebec. In the 1760s he mapped the coastline of Newfoundland and made important astronomical observations which brought him to the attention of the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This acclaim came at a pivotal moment in British overseas exploration, and it led to his commission in 1768 as commander of HMS Endeavour for the first of his three voyages.

The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service serves as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, also commonly known as MI6), which is part of the United Kingdom intelligence community. The chief is appointed by the foreign secretary, to whom they report directly. Annual reports are also made to the prime minister.

The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service typically signs letters with a "C" in green ink. This originates from the initial used by Captain Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, when he signed a letter "C" in green ink. Since then the chief has been known as "C".

Captain William Hobson (26 September 1792 – 10 September 1842) was a Royal Navy officer and colonial administrator who served as the first governor of New Zealand from 1841 to 1842. He was a co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi which he, as Crown representative, and several Maori chiefs signed on 6 February 1840. On 3 May 1840, he proclaimed British sovereignty over New Zealand. He also selected the site for a new capital, which he named Auckland. In May 1841, New Zealand was constituted as a separate Crown colony with Hobson promoted to governor and commander-in-chief. In his final months, Hobson was dogged by poor health which left him detached from political affairs. He died in office in September 1842.

Captain George Vancouver (/vænˈkuːvər/; 22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of what became the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. The expedition also explored the Hawaiian Islands and the southwest coast of Australia.

Various places named for Vancouver include Vancouver Island, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Vancouver River on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, Vancouver, Washington, in the United States, Mount Vancouver on the Canadian–US border between Yukon and Alaska, and New Zealand's fourth-highest mountain, also Mount Vancouver.

Colonel (Col) is a rank of the British Army and Royal Marines, ranking below brigadier, and above lieutenant colonel. British colonels are not usually field commanders; typically they serve as staff officers between field commands at battalion and brigade level. The insignia is two diamond-shaped pips (properly called "Bath Stars") below a crown. The crown has varied in the past with different monarchs; Elizabeth II's reign used St Edward's Crown. The rank is equivalent to captain in the Royal Navy and group captain in the Royal Air Force.

Commander (Cdr) is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. It is immediately junior to captain and immediately senior to the rank of lieutenant commander. Officers holding the junior rank of lieutenant commander are not considered to be commanders.

Commodore (Cdre) is a rank of the Royal Navy above captain and below rear admiral. It has a NATO ranking code of OF-6. The rank is equivalent to brigadier in the British Army and the Royal Marines and to air commodore in the Royal Air Force. Commodore has been a substantive rank in the Royal Navy since only 1997. Until then the term denoted a functional position rather than a formal rank, being the title bestowed on the senior officer of a fleet of at least two naval vessels comprising an independent (usually ad hoc and short-term) command. (In this case, for instance, a lieutenant in substantive rank could be a commodore for the term of the command.)

Captain John Albert Bentinck, FRS (29 December 1737 – 23 September 1775) was a Royal Navy officer, inventor and politician who represented Rye in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1761 to 1768.