C17th Arctic whaling

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C17th Arctic whaling

Editorial history

15/10/12: CSG created page


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




Suggested links



People mentioned in case


Richard Batson (London merchant; part owner and freighter of the Owners Adventure and the Greyhound)

Humfrey Beane (London merchant; part owner and freighter of the Owners Adventure and the Greyhound)

Gowen ?Golderne (alt. Goldagne) (Part owner and freighter of the Owners Adventure and the Greyhound)

Thomas Damerell (Captain of the Owners Adventure and Commander of the Greyhound)

Edawrd Gosling (alt. Goslin) (Masters mate and harpooner)

Richard Maundrie (alt. Maundrey) (Masters mate and harpooner)

Pybus (alt. Pibus) (Captain of another whaling ship)

Child (Captain of another whaling ship)


Places mentioned in case


Detail showing Bell Point and Bell Sound, from Edge's map, ca. 1611[1]

CAPTURE EXTRACT Map Edges Greenland ca1621 Travis JT 1921 facp58 CSG DL IA 151012 copy.JPG

Bell point(alt. "Bell Poynt") (HCA 13/71 f.463v, f. 469v, f.474v)

- "neere Bell Point" (HCA 13/71 f.469v)

- "Bell Pointe in Greeneland" (HCA 13/71 f.479v)

Bell sound (HCA 13/71 f.465r)

Blackwall

- "all which when it was boyled at Blackwall after the retourne home of the sayd shipps from the sayd voyage, amounted to eighteene Tonnes of oyle or thereabouts" (HCA 13/71 f.480v)

  • Worth exploring what can be found about whale oil processing at Blackwall and Blackwall docks in 1650s


- The English East India Company leased (1653), then sold (1655) the Blackwall docks to the shipwright Henry Johnson, who had been apprenticed to Phineas Pett, the Royal shipwright at Deptford[2]

- The Survey of London has provides some limited details of commercial and industrial activities in the mid to late C17th. Mention is made of a ropeyard on the west side of Blackwall Causeway, of several ship building and repair yards, a wharf and warehouses, but no whale processing activities are described[3]

- Plan of Old Blackwall and Coldharbour, 1740


Darke Cove (HCA 13/71 f.477v)

Greene harbour

- "Bell Sound or Greene harbour" (HCA 13/71 f.479v)

Greeneland

- "at Greeneland the Ice doth usually open and shutt, and men that goe thither when great yeares of Ice are most watch their opportunitie to get into harbour" (HCA 13/71 f.477r)

Hope islands (HCA 13/71 f.466v)

- "the backside of Greeneland" (HCA 13/71 f.466v)

Point Negro (HCA 13/71 f.475r)

- "Point Negro being a Point to the Eastward beyond darke Cove" (HCA 13/71 f.475r)

Port of Bell point

the West Ice

- "hee hath heard the sayd Damerell say that the Owners Adventure and Greyhound were designed first for the West Ice which is called commonly Greane land, and there to goe to the Coast of Greeneland to fish in any place according to his the sayd Damerells direction" (HCA 13/71 f.477r)


Ships mentioned in case


The Owners Adventure

The Greyhound


Animals and technology mentioned in case


Sea horse (?walrus)

- "(on Hope Island) the dutch having killed about a hundred sea horses" (HCA 13/71 f.466v)

- "about twenty butts of blubber of sea horses" (HCA 13/71 f.480v)

Shallop (small boat)

Pinke

- "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" (HCA 13/71 f.479r)


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..."[4]


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" [5]


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"[6]


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)


C17th maps


Edges’s map of "Greenland" (Spitzbergen), ca. 1611[7]

Sources


Primary sources


TNA

C 6/134/15 Short title: Batson v Colvile. Plaintiffs: Richard Batson and Gowen Goldagne. Defendants: Robert Colvile, John Colvile and William Clarkson. Subject: money matters. Document type: answer only. 1657

- CSG: There must be a very good chance that the above Chancery case involves two of the three partners of Richard Batson and Company

- CSG: Gowen Goldagne (and variants of that name) is mentioned in HCA 13/71 f.479r; there is also a mention of "Mr. Covell" (one of the owners of the Owners Adventure) (HCA 13/71 f.466v)


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)[8]

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

Ch. 2: The economics of whaling (pp.39-58)
  1. ↑ 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), facing p.58, http://archive.org/stream/historyofwhalefi00jenkrich#page/n65/mode/1up, viewed 15/10/12
  2. ↑ 'The Years of Expansion: Henry Johnson, senior, and Blackwall Yard, 1653–83', in 'CHAPTER XIX - Blackwall Yard', Hermione Hobhouse (ed.), 'Blackwall Yard: Development, to c.1819', Survey of London: volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs (1994), pp. 553-565. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=46533 Date accessed: 15 October 2012
  3. ↑ 'Hermione Hobhouse (ed.), 'Old Blackwall', Survey of London: volumes 43 and 44: Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs (1994), pp. 548-552. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=46532 Date accessed: 15 October 2012
  4. ↑ Deposition of John Ely of Saint Mary Magdalen Bermondsey in the County of Surrey Mariner aged twenty eight yeares, TNA, HCA 13/71 f.464r
  5. ↑ Deposition John Colvile of Ratcliff in the parish of Stepney and County of Middlesex Mariner Gunner of the Owners Adventure aged thirty sixe yeares, TNA, HCA 13/71 f.469r
  6. ↑ Case: Richard Batson Humfrey Beane Gowan Golderne and Company against Edward Goslinge Richard Maundrie and William Humfreye: 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, TNA, HCA 13/71 f.479r
  7. ↑ 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), facing p.58, http://archive.org/stream/historyofwhalefi00jenkrich#page/n65/mode/1up, viewed 15/10/12
  8. ↑ http://archive.org/stream/historyofwhalefi00jenkrich#page/n7/mode/2up, viewed 15/10/12

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