A trade so uncontrollably uncertain : a study of the English southern whale fishery from 1815 to 1860

Abstract

My interest in the English southern whale fishery arose out ofa study in 1989 of the Journal of the whaleship, Vigilant, on a whaling cruise to the Pacific between 1831 and 1833. I The events of this voyage, made under the command of an American born, yet English-based whaling master, were fascinating, and on completion of the task I had a good record of one English whaling voyage but many incomplete answers to questions of a wider nature concerning the trade. The main problem, one which I had encountered numerous rimes as I attempted to determine who owned the Vigilant and how profitable was its whaling cruise, was that there was very little evidence about the business side of English whaling at either a detailed or wider level. This thesis then looks at this other side of the English southern whaling trade ; it does not deal in depth with the events of any single cruise, the catching of whales or the numerous visits made by English whaleships to the many attractive islands of the Pacific or East Indies. It instead looks at English whaling as a business in the period after the Napoleonic Wars. Following the peace there was considerable growth in factory based production in England and the southern whaling trade was one of maritime trades to benefit from this new activity. Machines needed oil and the best machine oil came from the sperm whale. Reference is also made to the wider political and economic circumstances which first nurtured the southern whaling trade then later squeezed it out of existence. By the 1840s the southern whaling trade was a matter insignificant in the Government's trade policy. The thesis al so charts the price of sperm oil between 1 81 0 and 1860 and examines the demand for oil over the period. The need for oil to lubricate machines was not the only reason why sperm oil was in high demand in the post war economy. There are hints here and there in the whaling literature but it seems incredible that the extent of the use of sperm and other whale oils in domestic lighting has never been clearly recorded. A result of the gas lighting of the streets of England's cities in the 1820s and 1830s was a concomitant desire to light the interior of houses, particularly amongst the wealthy elite.2 The nature ofwhaleship ownership is also examined and changes in the structure of the trade brought about by pressures within the shipping industry and wider developments in the growing British economy are highlighted and discussed. The circumstances of three firms involved in the whaling trade during the period are detailed and an attempt to determine the profitability of whaling using the prices index, cargo returns and some recently unearthed information detailing costs is made. Finally, the thesis returns to the men and the ships. Arising out o:( and compounding difficulties imposed by changes made by the government, occurred a significant deterioration in the performance of the English ships 'on the whaling grounds' from the mid 1830s. By the 1840s, in the words of one owner, 'fiscal and other changes ... (had] nearly annihilated both the northern and southern whale fisheries.