C17th Arctic whaling

C17th Arctic whaling

Editorial history

15/10/12: CSG created page

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Purpose of this page

This week (W/C 15/10/12) Jill's and Colin's teams are working on a case involving a failed whaling adventure to the Arctic Ocean ("Batson against Goslin and others")

We plan to publish a blog article on the case, placing it in a broader context of the whaling fisheries off Spitzbergen in the 1650s. (The first thing to not is that C17th "Greeneland" is what we now call "Spitzbergen")

Jill and Colin would like to encourage their team members to use this page to share quotes, and to explore places, people and activities mentioned in the pages they are transcribing

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Ships mentioned in case

The Owners Adventure

The Greyhound

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Depositions

1. John Ely of Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey in the County of Surrey Mariner aged twenty eight yeares

- Deposition made on 18/12/1656

"the sayd Damarell sawe some fish spoute among the Ice neere where the sayd shipp lay and cryed out to the Company a whale a whale and commanded the sayd Maundrey and Gosling and the rest of the harponeeres to manne their shallops and make after the sayd ffish which they did, and comming up with the sayd ffish found them to bee certaine ffish called Jubartas, which are a ffish the English use not to fasten upon by reason of their swifte motion and for that they are of smale profitt and more dangerous to deal with than whales are; which the Company having discovered did not strike at the sayd fish..."

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2. John Colvile of Ratcliff in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Mariner Gunner of the Owners Adventure aged thirty sixe yeares

- Deposition made on 29/12/1656

" did expect that the sayd Damarall the Master would have given order to have wrought the sayd shipp further into the Ice or at least made her fast to the Ice"

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X. Thomas Damerell of Lymehouse in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Mariner Master of the shipp the Owners Adventure and Commander alsoe of the Greyhound aged 37 yeares

- Deposition made on 23/12/1656

"did alsoe committ the Ordering and Command and direction of the sayd shipp Greyhound for the same voyage to him this deponent shee being a Pinke appointed to attende the sayd shipp Owners Adventure, and bee assistant to her in her sayd ffishing voyage"

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6. Richard Kirton of Ratcliff in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Overseer of the Landsmen in the XXXX XXXX XXXXX aged forty yeares

- Deposition made in 29/01/1656 (i.e. modern 1667)

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C17th maps

Edges’s map of "Greenland" (Spitzbergen), ca. 1611

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Sources

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Secondary sources

James Travis Jenkins, A history of the whale fisheries: from the Basque fisheries of the tenth century to the hunting of the finner whale at the present date (London, 1921)

Ch. 1: A history of the whale fisheries (pp.11-38)

Ch. 2: The economics of whaling (pp.39-58)