Whaling in the United Kingdom
Modern whaling, using factory ships and catchers fitted with bow-mounted cannons that fired explosive harpoons, continued into the 20th century and was mainly focused on the Antarctic and nearby islands where shore stations had been established.
A 5,000 year old whalebone figurine was one of the many items found in the Neolithic village of Skara Brae in Scotland after that Stone Age settlement was uncovered by a storm in the 1850s.
[8] Sustained British interest in the trade began in 1577 when the Muscovy Company in London was granted a Crown monopoly to hunt whales "within any seas whatsoever.
[12] It was not till Dutch involvement began to falter in the 1690s, due to political turmoil and warfare in Holland, that the British saw an opportunity, which led to the creation of the Greenland Company.
[13] The initiative was unsuccessful and the losses incurred were so large they discouraged further British involvement in the trade till the 1720s, when Henry Elking persuaded the South Sea Company to try the Spitsbergen fishery.
[14] Two dozen new vessels were built and equipped and sent forth under the direction of Elking as agent and superintendent for the Greenland Fishery on a salary of £100 a year plus 1.5% of gross sales.
The Industrial Revolution needed lubricants for machinery, and growing urbanization increased the demand for lamp fuel, including in street lighting.
Scottish ports involved in the trade, in order of importance, were, Leith, Dunbar, Borrowstounness (Bo'ness), Dundee, Aberdeen, Montrose, Glasgow, Anstruther, Greenock, Kirkcaldy and Alloa.
[29] Additional English and Welsh ports participating during the "bounty period" (1733–1824) were Berwick, Dartmouth, Grimsby, Liverpool, Lynn, Milford, Scarborough, Stockton, Sunderland, Whitehaven and Yarmouth.
These included war in Europe in 1756, which saw the crews of some northern whalers depleted by the press-gangs, regardless of exemptions granted to harpooners, line-managers and boatsteerers[31] A fall in the price of oil at the same time also impacted the industry and led shipowners to leave the trade.
The high tariff barrier remained after peace was declared and acted as an accelerent to British involvement in South Sea whaling.
[36] The number of vessels involved in northern whaling slowly picked up as the turn of the century approached, largely unaffected by the French Revolutionary period and Napoleonic Wars.
This prompted British entrepreneurs, particularly those who had previously imported the oil, to send their own ships into the South Seas to obtain this high-value commodity.
Ten whalers left Britain in 1775, including nine from London, and crossed the equator into the South Atlantic in search of sperm whales.
[48] The first British whaler to enter the Pacific was the Emilia, owned by Samuel Enderby & Sons and commanded by Captain James Shields.
Spain resented the intrusion of British vessels into the Pacific, especially when they engaged in clandestine trading at Spanish colonies in South America.
In 1789, rising tension over the issue saw Spanish warships, thousands of miles away on the west coast of what is now Canada, seize British vessels engaged in the maritime fur trade in Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island.
This was not always enough and in 1797 a number of the British whalers were captured when they called at ports on the coast of Chile and Peru for supplies, unaware that war had broken out between Spain and Britain.
[55] Some whaling shipowners, such as Samuel Enderby & Sons and Mather & Co., chartered their vessels to serve as convict transports and store ships to the Australian colonies on the outward voyage to the South Seas.
Contraband trading at South American ports and bays could be lucrative but, if detected by the Spanish colonial authorities, might result in confiscation of the ship and a lengthy period of imprisonment for the crews.
[58] The end of subsidy payments in 1824 played a part in the decline, as did the reduction in the duty on imported foreign-caught oil in 1843, and its total abolition in 1849.
[60] The last British vessel involved in South Sea whaling in the Age of Sail was the Cowlitz (Captain Bushell) which returned to London in 1859.
[61] As well as the Enderby family, other prominent shipowners in the southern whale fishery included Daniel Bennett, Alexander Champion, John St Barbe and Thomas Sturge.
[69] Christian Salvesen established a new whaling company in 1908 which began operations at West Falkland in January 1909 and, later in the year, at South Georgia.
[71] A second British firm, the Southern Whaling and Sealing Company of North Shields, was established in 1911 to operate at Prince Olav Harbour on South Georgia.
Advances in hydrogenation allowed the oil from baleen whales to be hardened to make margarine, a substitute for butter, in short supply due to the war.
[79] This massive oversupply led to a rise in inventories and a dramatic fall in price which resulted in the decision by the Norwegians to keep their vessels in port for the 1931–32 season.
[80] Continued overfishing and the resulting depletion of whale stocks in Antarctic waters turned thoughts to greater regulation and how the industry might be made sustainable.
[81] More effective in limiting the catch was the ongoing surplus of oil in storage and the resulting low price that continued to restrict the number of factory ships at sea.
[86] The renewed activity by British, Norwegian and other producers postponed any plans for regulations to limit the number of whales taken and make the industry sustainable.
