The Dundee Whaling Fleet

Ships, Masters and Men

Malcolm Archibald

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Year: 2019
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781474463966
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

At the end of the 19th century, Dundee was Europe's premier Arctic whaling port. From humble beginnings in the 1750's this national industry had survived French and American wars, privateers, economic slumps, storms, heart-wrenching disasters and some amazing triumphs. From 1860 until the 1880's, Dundee built the most efficient Arctic vessels in the world. Despite being only a small city on the east coast of Scotland, as the 19th century closed, it was the most important Arctic whaling port in Europe. The Dundee Whaling Fleet gives an overview of Dundee's experience in Arctic whaling, including a valuable guide to every ship in the fleet with statistics, dates and a thumbnail history. It also gives sketches of the most prominent of the whaling masters, Dundee shipping companies and 350 of the tens of thousands of seamen who took the ships north.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Progress of British Arctic Whaling
• 2 The Hunting Process
• 3 Prizes, Privateers and the Press
• 4 The Dundee Whaling Industry
• 5 Why They Hunted
• 6 The Greenland Whaling Ships
• 7 The Business of Whaling
• 8 The Whaling Masters
• 9 The Greenlandman’s Experience
• 10 The Last Hurrah: The Dundee Antarctic Expedition
• 11 Farewell to the Whaling
• 12 Twentieth Century Scottish Whaling
• Appendices
• Appendix 1 Ships of the Dundee Fleet
• Appendix 2 Dundee Ship Masters
• Appendix 3 Dundee Whaling Men
• Appendix 4 Dundee Whaling Ships Lost
• Appendix 5 Dundee Whaling Ship Companies
• Appendix 6 Letter about Impressing Seamen, 1803
• Appendix 7 Jute Batching Oil Advert
• Appendix 8 Dorothy Whaling Company Expenditure, 1830
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index