A history of polar discovery would be incomplete without some notice of the whaling trade in the Spitsbergen Seas and in Davis Strait, for scientific observations were taken by some of the whaling captains, and many discoveries were made. Their duties, of course, obliged them to give the first place to the work on which they were employed. Sir Martin Conway puts it very well when he says of Scoresby that “he never neglected business in the cause of science, but was always mindful of science when business permitted.”

The Dutch, at first our rivals, were for a long series of years far superior to the English as successful whale-fishers. While the English continued to fish round Bell Sound and the number of their vessels decreased year by year, the Dutch, when the whales ceased to come to the bays, sought them by facing the dangers of the open sea, abandoned Smeerenburg, adopted new methods, and became very expert.

When the learned Frederik Martens of Hamburg made a voyage to Spitsbergen in 1671, on board a whaling ship called the Jonah in the Whale, he found Smeerenburg quite deserted. His history of the voyage contains the first detailed account of Spitsbergen, with notices of the fauna and flora106. Although Smeerenburg was so early abandoned, the Dutch fishery continued to flourish for another century, enriching the communities of the Netherlands with products annually yielding great wealth. In 1709 their fishery in Davis Strait was commenced. In the unsuccessful whaling captain Zorgdrager the Dutch found a diligent historian107.

The revival of the English whale-fishery was due to the fostering care of Sir Robert Walpole’s government. In 1733 a bonus of 30s. per ton was offered to owners of whaling ships, increased to 40s. in 1740. Then the fishery began to flourish. Previously there were only from three to six ships going north, but in 1749 there were 40, soon increased to over a hundred from Hull and London. In 1787 there were 162 English and 23 Scottish whalers, and in 1788 there were 255 ships going to the Spitsbergen seas and Davis Strait, bringing back 5989 tons of oil, 380 tons of whalebone, and 13,386 skins of seals and bears. It was then considered safe to reduce the bounty, the British whale-fishery being established on a firm basis. From 1788 to 1790 London was the chief port, Hull being a good second in 1788 with 29 sail for Spitsbergen, and 7 for Davis Strait. Whitby began the whaling business in 1753. Mr Pitt, by an Act of Parliament (26 Geo. III, c. 41) enumerated the conditions constituting a whaling ship, the crew, boats, implements, lines, etc., with so many apprentices according to tonnage, to be indentured between the ages of 12 and 20. The Act was altered and amended by later Acts down to that of 1815 (55 Geo. III, c. 32).

The whalers were vessels of 300 to 400 tons, doubled and strengthened with plates of half-inch iron round the stem. The working of the sails was arranged so as to be done by the fewest men, a bentick boom being fitted for the foresail instead of tacks and sheets108. The look-out had to be many hours at the mast-head, watching the ice and looking out for whales. As this duty had often to be performed in the intensest cold, the “crow’s-nest” was invented to protect the look-out men from the weather. The improved top-gallant crow’s-nest, used since 1807, was invented by Scoresby. It was fixed at the head of the main top-gallant mast, with nothing above it and consisted of a cylindrical frame 4½ feet by 2½, covered with painted canvas, open above, and closed below with a square hatch which served as the entrance. There was a small seat, and places for the telescope and other instruments. A screen worked on the upper hoop of the crow’s-nest, 2 to 3 feet long and 1 foot high, which was moveable, and adjusted to windward. The vessels carried six or seven boats, carvel-built, 26 to 28 feet long by 5 feet 9 inches beam, of fir planks half an inch thick; the keel, gunwales, stern and stem posts being of oak. They had six oars, 16 feet long, the steer oar being 18 to 20 feet. The oars were fixed to thole-pins by rope grummets. When the ship reached the fishing ground, the boats were kept at the davits, ready to lower. The whale lines, beautifully “flaked down” in the boats, were of 2½-inch rope, and a total of 4320 feet of length was carried in the six lines supplied to each boat, each line being 120 fathoms. A bollard for passing them round was fixed near the boat’s stem.

The harpoon consisted of socket, shank, and “mouth” or point with barbs or “withers,” and was 3 feet long. Later, the harpoon gun came into use. Lances were 6 feet long, the socket, into which is fitted a stock or handle, a shank 5 feet, and a sharp point 8 inches long. The fore ganger is an important part of the harpoon gear. It consists of 8 or 9 yards of 2½-inch rope, spliced round the shank of the harpoon, the swelling socket preventing it from being drawn off when the harpoon is thrown. When a harpoon is ready with stock and foreganger, it is said to be “spanned in.” The point, when not in use, is guarded by a shield of oiled paper.

Each boat had two harpoons, six or eight lances, a pole and flag to signal when a whale is struck, and a tail knife to perforate the tail or fins of a dead whale. There was also an axe for cutting the line if necessary, the mik to support the stock of the harpoon, and a piggon for baling and for wetting the running lines to prevent the bollard from catching fire.

It was thought politic to arouse the zeal of the chief officers by giving them an interest in the work. The captain got three guineas for each fish, 10 to 20 shillings per ton of oil, and a twentieth of the value of the cargo besides. A harpooneer got six shillings per ton of oil and 10 shillings for every fish he struck. The chief mate was generally a harpooneer. The “speksioneer,” who directs the cutting of the blubber, the boat-steerers, line managers, coopers, carpenters, etc., were also given an interest in getting a full ship.

Sailing in the end of March the whaling fleet made the ice in 70° to 72° N.; the sea between 78° and 79° being most productive. Then the captain was in the crow’s-nest for long hours at a stretch, conning the ship through the ice, watching every change, and looking out for whales; all on board being on the alert and watching for every sign from the crow’s-nest.

Foremost among a splendid set of men stand the two Scoresbys for the Spitsbergen fishery, and Captain Marshall for that of Davis Strait.

Thanks to the pious tribute of his son we can trace the career of the senior William Scoresby from his boyhood. He was born at Nutholm farm near Cropton, about 20 miles from Whitby, and was intended to follow his father’s profession of a farmer. But at the age of eighteen he resolved to go to sea, and got a recommendation to Mr Chapman, an opulent ship-owner at Whitby. He walked to Whitby one February day, and got a berth in a ship destined for the Baltic, but as she was not sailing until April, he set out for his home, taking a short cut across the moors. When miles from any house, he encountered a furious gale with a blinding snow-storm, and lost all the tracks. He was in no little danger. But he had noted the angle of the wind while he was on the road, and by that means he recovered the track and finally reached a house nearly exhausted. The intelligence and endurance he evinced on this occasion foreshadowed his future career. In his Baltic voyages, while doing his duty as a foremast hand and learning seamanship, young Scoresby also diligently studied the theory and practice of navigation.

In 1782 Scoresby joined the Speedwell cutter, taking stores to Gibraltar, but he had the ill-fortune to be captured and became a prisoner of war in Spain. He fled from San Lucar, and his final escape appears to have been due to the sympathy of some Spanish girls for the handsome young Englishman. They fed him and concealed him, until at last he got on board a cartel, and returned home. After his return he married and was two or three years at home. In 1785 he entered the whaling trade on board the Henrietta, Captain Crispin Bean, and devoted himself to the work. After his fifth voyage he was made speksioneer and second mate, when the whaler was laid up. When Captain Bean retired, he recommended Scoresby to succeed him, and in 1792 he became Captain of the Henrietta and afterwards of the Resolution of Whitby, 290 tons.

We may here glance for a moment at the ordinary mode of procedure in the taking of a whale. Directly one is viewed from the crow’s-nest the look-out man gives notice, and instantly a boat is lowered and another follows. The harpooneer pulls the bow, the line manager the stroke oar. The whale is dull of hearing but quick of sight. He seldom remains more than two minutes on the surface, and is generally 10 to 15 minutes below, moving half a mile or more. The knowledge and skill needed to harpoon him during his short stay on the surface will be understood. There is often danger when the fish is struck, from the violent movement of fins and tail.

The moment a wounded whale goes down the flag is shown from the boat, and there is a cry on deck, “A fall! a fall!” In an instant all hands are on deck, boats lowered, and many of the crew go away half dressed. When struck a whale goes down to a great depth. Sometimes a whale gets under the ice and will run all the line out in ten minutes, when it is probably lost. One or two turns of the line are taken round the bollard, but the line flies out at such a pace that smoke rises and it has to be kept wetted. If the line runs foul the boat is drawn under water.

The struck whale goes down into the depths at a rate of ten miles an hour, and keeps under water for half an hour or more. The longest recorded time is 56 minutes. When, after a dive to 700 or 800 fathoms, the great beast returns to the surface, he is again harpooned and plied with lances, blood rises from the blow holes, he turns on his side and expires.

All the boats in a line then tow the carcase to the ship, and it is cleared of lines and placed alongside with the tail abreast the fore chains and the head at the ship’s stern. The process of flensing follows, the blubber being 2 or 3 feet thick. The band between the fins and head is called the kent. The kent purchase is passed from the kent to the head of the mainmast, and the fall taken to the windlass. The upper surface of the carcase is then raised one-fifth out of the water, with the belly up. The harpooneers then go down with “spurs” (iron spikes strapped to the foot) to prevent slipping, and boys in boats are in attendance with knives. The speksioneer directs the operations. The blubber is divided into oblong pieces or strips by blubber spades and knives. Spek tackles109 are fixed to each strip and flay it off, being worked with winches. The spek tackle consists of two single blocks, one fast to guys between the fore and main mast, the other fast to the blubber by a strop. The blubber pieces, half a ton to a ton in weight, are received on deck by the boat-steerers and line-managers, the former dividing it into smaller pieces with strand knives, the latter passing it between decks with pick haaks down the main hatchway. It is received by two men called kings, who pack it in the flens gut. As soon as the strips are off, the whale is turned on its side by the kent purchase taken to the windlass. The whalebone is thus exposed, and is taken off on one side by bone handspikes and bone knives and spades, with the help of the spek tackle. It is split into junks on deck with bone wedges, and stowed away. Then there is another kenting. When the flensing is finished the carcase generally sinks. If it floats it is attacked by thousands of gulls and fulmars. The flensing of 20 to 30 tons of blubber can be completed in three or four hours, the average time. It is an extremely difficult operation, however, when the sea is rough.

Some casks have been cleared out of the hold, and the space is called the flens gut. When it is full of blubber comes the operation of making off110. This is the freeing of blubber from all extraneous matter, cutting it into small pieces, and stowing it in the casks. The skee-man directs these operations. The spek trough is an oblong box over the place where the casks are to be filled. The surface of the lid forms a table, on which pieces of the whale’s tail are placed as chopping blocks. A canvas tube, called a eull, is then led down to the hold. The kings then throw the blubber out of the flens gut. It is received by the krengers, who remove all the muscular parts called kreng. The harpooneers then slice off the skin, and the boat-steerers divide the blubber into blocks 4 inches in diameter. The line managers receive it in the hold by the eull, and put it in the casks through the bung-holes. Their cries were “let lob” when they wanted the blubber to come down, and “rip the eull” when it was to be stopped. In the early days of the fishery the making off was always done on shore. The jaw-bones, 25 feet long, were brought home to make posts and arches for gateways: still to be seen in the country round Hull and even further afield.

It will be seen that the catching of a whale was not the mere harpooning with the attendant danger and excitement, but that it entailed a long and very hard day’s work, with incessant labour and the exercise of much skill and intelligence. It was a splendid nursery for our seamen, combined with the dangers of ice navigation and the constant need for a bright look-out.

In 1806 Captain Scoresby had his son with him on board the Resolution as Chief Officer. Both were good sailors and navigators and unrivalled as whaling officers. The son had the advantage of a better education, and was devoted to scientific research. Both were unostentatiously religious, as all our great Arctic heroes have been.

In 1806, the Scoresbys determined to see how far north it was possible to go, entering the ice in 76° N. on the 28th of April. Captain Scoresby found the ice to be of extraordinary width and compactness. He pressed into a pack which, to ordinary apprehension, was impenetrable. There was a strong ice blink along the northern horizon which, to all minds on board but one, precluded hope. But Scoresby, narrowly scanning this ice blink from the crow’s-nest, discerned a blueish grey streak below the ice blink, and closely skirting the horizon. He knew this to be an indication of open water beyond the pack. The watchful veteran detected another sign. He perceived occasionally a very slight motion of the water between the lumps of ice near the ship. He knew that this could only arise from a distant swell, which must proceed from an open sea either to the north or to the south. The distance he had penetrated into the ice and the unmixed ice blink to the south, convinced him that it did not come from that quarter. With this conviction came the resolution to push on through the formidable body of consolidated ice before him. Every effort was made. It was then that Scoresby invented the practice of sallying, which consisted in the whole crew running across from one side of the ship to the other in order to make her roll, and so break up the ice close round her. Then boats were lowered quickly from the bowsprit to break up the ice ahead. When a lane of water was formed, there was tracking and towing. All this hard work and perseverance was finally rewarded, and at length an open sea was reached, bounded in the north by the solid polar pack. On the 24th May the latitude was found to be 81° 30′ in 19° E. Though the ice was fixed and solid to the north, there was an open sea, with a water sky, from E.N.E. to S.E. This is the furthest north ever reached by a sailing ship on the Spitsbergen meridians111.

With the distinction of this highest latitude Captain Scoresby returned with a full ship. After four more years of full ships, he resigned the command of the Resolution to his son in 1810. The elder Scoresby lived on until 1829 as a respected citizen of Whitby and saw his son’s successful career not only as a whaling captain, but also as a universally esteemed man of science.

The younger Scoresby went to the fishery for three years in the Resolution and in 1813 was transferred to the Esk, a larger ship. The dangers from the ice were far more serious than those to which men were exposed in capturing whales. Many ships were lost in this way, and the risks run are well exemplified in Scoresby’s account of the perilous position of the Esk in 1816. It was blowing hard with a heavy sea when the vessel came upon the ice on the 30th April. It freshened to a furious gale, the sea mountains high with huge blocks of ice tossing in the foam. Scoresby tried to wear ship, but she failed to go round, and fell off to leeward with terrible force. She continued to beat against the ice wall, threatened with destruction every moment. All the time Scoresby was in the crow’s-nest.

When the gale subsided it was found that there were 8½ feet of water in the hold. At first an attempt was made at fothering, passing a thrummed sail under the leak. But it was found that 22 feet of the keel and 9 feet of the garboard strake were broken and turned at right angles, so that the sail could not be passed under the leak. Then an attempt was made to heave the ship down alongside the ice-floe. Stores were landed on the ice, scuttles were caulked and hatches closed. Hawsers were passed under the bottom, clenched to the mainmast, and then led to purchases on the ice. The keel was in this way drawn to the edge of the floe, while anchors were suspended from the tops on the other side. The crews of other ships came to help. But the attempt had to be given up, though an effort to cut off the broken parts of the keel and garboard strake was successful, and it became possible to pass the thrummed sail under the leak. Half the cargo was given to another whaler, as the price of staying by the Esk on the way home; and Captain Scoresby was welcomed and rewarded on his return for his splendid seamanship in saving the good ship under his command.

In 1820 the Baffin was specially built at Liverpool, and Scoresby made commercial profit in her, as well as discovering and surveying part of the east coast of Greenland. In the same year he published his great work on the Arctic regions. He was devoted to science and corresponded with Sir Joseph Banks and Professor Jameson of Edinburgh. His book on the Arctic regions immediately became the standard work on the subject, and has not been superseded by anything of equal merit down to the present day. A few years after its publication Scoresby resolved to terminate his successful career as a whaling captain and take holy orders. With this object in view he went to Queens’ College, Cambridge, took his degree, was ordained, and became D.D. in 1839. For seven years, from 1840 to 1847, he was Vicar of Bradford, and after his retirement he lived chiefly at Torquay. He specially worked at terrestrial magnetism, but other branches of science received attention from him and he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. His last work was a most interesting life of the elder Scoresby entitled My Father. Dr Scoresby died at Torquay on March 21st, 1857112.

The Scoresbys stand in the front rank, combining most able and efficient work as seamen and whaling captains with zealous promotion of discovery and scientific research. At the same time Captain Marshall of Hull held a like position in the Davis Strait fishery.

By these fisheries, due to the discoveries of our earlier Arctic worthies, several communities in England and Scotland were enriched during a long series of years, and the welfare of the whole kingdom was advanced. Further discovery received advocacy through the reports of whaling captains, and an unequalled nursery for British seamen was securely established.