Whalers at an Ice Floe by Albertus van Beest (1830-60)
Today, whaling is a dirty word. People turn aside from the idea of men sailing to the Arctic and Antarctic to pursue and slaughter whales. Yet for over 150 years, whaling was a respectable Scottish industry that employed thousands of men and an unknown number of women. The masters of whaling ships were among the elite mariners in their home ports, and men chose to sail to some of the most hostile seas in the world. There were many whaling ports in Scotland, including Leith, Dunbar, Montrose, Aberdeen, Peterhead and Fraserburgh, but of them all Dundee is arguably the most interesting. The Dundee Arctic whaling industry lasted longest, from 1752 until 1914; Dundee was the last major Scottish whaling port; Dundee pioneered steam whaling; and Dundee mariners were also involved in polar exploration. For these reasons, and because Dundee has a plethora of records that are easily accessible, this article will concentrate on that couthy, friendly, boisterous east-coast city.
Although time has altered perceptions so that what was once deemed necessary is now scorned, nobody can ever deny the hardihood of the ‘Greenlandmen’, the whaling seamen. The Montrose customs and excise records, held in Dundee City Archives, can conirm the danger with an entry from March 1797: ‘No accounts whatever have been had of the ship George Webster, whence it is inferred that she must have foundered at sea’.