![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Whaling is a largely under-researched aspect of Georgian Liverpool's maritime heritage. Nevertheless, some broad features of this trade are known. Indeed, Liverpool began sending whaling vessels to the Arctic in 1750, but by 1823 this trade had effectively collapsed at the port. However, there is one area in particular that has been especially overlooked by the existing literature: the relationship between Liverpool's business–political lobby and the local whaling industry. By analysing this issue, we gain a broader understanding of the patterns of Liverpool's northern whaling trade to 1823. Evidently, if a maritime business is to succeed then it requires consistent lobbying and support on dry land.
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the assistance of the Society for Nautical Research, which financed trips to the Hull-, Whitby- and London-based archives. He also thanks Professors Peter Cain and Tony Webster for writing references for his application to the above award. Equally, feedback from Dr John Appleby and the anonymous peer reviewers is appreciated. A special mention must go to Fiona Barnard and colleagues at Whitby Museum, who were most generous in their support while I used their collections. The author also exchanged several useful correspondences with the History of Parliament project and the International Whaling Commission.
Notes
1 For comparisons of the number of ships dispatched from Liverpool to the northern and southern whaling grounds see An Account of the Number of Ships Which Have Been Employed in the Whale Fishery, to Davis's Streights, and the Greenland Seas, 1786 (hereafter Account of the Number of Ships Employed in the Whale Fishery) and Account of Number of Vessels Employed in Whale Fisheries in N. America and Southern Fisheries: Quantity of oil and blubber imported into Great Britain from Newfoundland and British N. America, 1793–1822 (hereafter Account of Number of Vessels), both UK Parliamentary Papers Online; https://parlipapers.proquest.com (accessed 15 February 2018). Also see Jackson, British Whaling Trade, 91–115.
2 Hyde, Liverpool and the Mersey is a good example. See also Morgan, ‘Liverpool's Dominance in the British Slave Trade’, 15.
3 Brooke, Liverpool as it was, 238–42 and Williams, History of the Liverpool Privateers, 80–4, 304.
4 Jordan, ‘Captains and Crews’, 185–204.
5 Jarvis, Liverpool, 35–6.
6 Account of the Number of Ships Employed in the Whale Fishery. This states there were 20 northern whaling vessels in Liverpool in 1776, but Jordan claims that there were 21. Jordan, ‘Captains and Crews’, 187.
7 Jackson, British Whaling Trade, 54–67.
8 Account of the Number of Ships Employed in the Whale Fishery, and Account of Number of Vessels. See also Jordan, ‘Captains and Crews’, 186–8.
9 Jordan, ‘Captains and Crews’, 187–8, and Jackson, British Whaling Trade, 117–30.
10 Sanger, ‘Environmental Factors’, 77–86.
11 Jackson, British Whaling Trade, 78, Mladenov, Marine Biology, 28–32 and Liverpool Athenaeum (hereafter LA), Gladstone Manuscripts, Heywood Notebook, MS no. 25. Bowheads (the Greenland Right Whale) were often caught. Yet given uncertainties over the size of early modern whale populations, as well as gaps in human records, it is unclear precisely how many whales were captured by the various whale-hunting nations at the time. Ross, ‘Annual Catch of Greenland (Bowhead) Whales’, 91–121.
12 Account of the Number of Ships employed in the Whale Fishery and Account of Number of Vessels.
13 Jordan, ‘Captains and Crews’, 188–203.
14 Liverpool Record Office (hereafter LRO), Board of Trade, 352 MIN/COU I/2/1, East India Committee, 352 MIN/COU I/2/8, American Chamber of Commerce, 380 AME, and West India Association, 380 WES/1/1.
15 Ascott, Lewis and Power, Liverpool, 78–81. But by the early nineteenth century Liverpool- based manufacturing was declining due to the economic turbulence of the French wars, as well as rising competition from Liverpool's industrial hinterland. Longmore, ‘Civic Liverpool’, 135–7.
16 Chapman, Merchant Enterprise in Britain, 3, and Ascott, Lewis and Power, Liverpool 1660– 1750, 138–56.
17 Power, ‘Growth of Liverpool’, 35–7.
18 Sanderson, ‘Structure of Politics in Liverpool’, 65–89.
19 Bennett, Voice of Liverpool Business, 1–23, 67–99.
20 Checkland, ‘American Versus West Indian Traders’, 142–3.
21 Bennett, Voice of Liverpool Business, 101–16.
22 Bradley, Religion, Revolution, and English Radicalism, 283–9.
23 O’Gorman, Emergence of the British Two-Party System, iix–xi.
24 Account of the Number of Ships employed in the Whale Fishery.
25 Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions, 71–7.
26 House of Commons Journals, 29 Jan. 1767, UK Parliamentary Papers Online; https://parlipapers.proquest.com (accessed 8 Mar. 2018). Also see Namier and Brooke, House of Commons vol. 2, 486, and vol.3, 130.
27 For more on provincial whaling see Barrow, Whaling Trade of North-east England.
28 Namier and Brooke, House of Commons vol. 1, 350, 427, 435.
29 Namier and Brooke, House of Commons vol. 2, 94–6 and vol. 3, 22–3, 107, 352–3, 405–9, 617–8.
30 House of Commons Journals, 19 Jan. 1768.
31 Ibid., 8 Feb. 1768.
32 Ibid., 19 Feb. 1768.
33 Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions, 77.
34 House of Commons Journals, 16 Feb. 1769.
35 Ibid., 20 Feb. 1769.
36 The National Archives, Kew, Treasury Papers, Excise Office to Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, 15 Feb. 1769, T1/470.
37 House of Commons Journals, 16 Mar. 1769.
38 Ibid., 11 Apr. 1769.
39 Liverpool General Advertiser, 25 Mar. 1768.
40 House of Commons Journals, 14 Nov. 1770.
41 Ibid., 5–6 Dec. 1770.
42 Ibid., 6–7 Dec. 1770.
43 Ibid., 4 Mar. and 11 Mar. 1771. See also History of Parliament, http://www.historyof parliamentonline.org/volume/1754–1790/member/whitworth-charles-1721-78 (accessed 19 Jun. 2018).
44 House of Lords Journals, 8 May 1771, UK Parliamentary Papers Online; https://parlipapers. proquest.com (accessed 8 Mar. 2018), and Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions, 77.
45 House of Commons Journals, 18 Apr. and 22 Apr. 1771.
46 LA, An Abstract of the Proceedings and Resolutions of the Several Committees of the Chamber of Commerce for the Port of Liverpool, 14 Feb. 1775, Athenaeum Miscellaneous Pamphlets 65, 828 PAM.
47 Ibid. and Hill, ‘Liverpool Economy’, 840.
48 Starkey, British Privateering Enterprise, 193–235, 268–82.
49 Namier and Brooke, House of Commons vol. 3, 130–2, 262.
50 Ibid., 349.
51 Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions, 81–2.
52 LRO, Board of Trade, 28 Feb. 1781, 352 MIN/COU I/2/1.
53 House of Commons Debates, 28–29 Jan. 1782, UK Parliamentary Papers Online, https:// parlipapers.proquest.com (accessed 8 Mar. 2018). Also Namier and Brooke, House of Commons 2, 250–1.
54 Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions, 81–2. Also Account of the Number of Ships employed in the Whale Fishery.
55 Cobbett, Parliamentary History 25, 1376–84. The transcript refers to ‘Mr Pitt’. This was likely the Younger Pitt because the two other Pitts in Parliament at the time, George Pitt of Strathfieldsaye and William Morton Pitt, are not known to have spoken in Westminster then. See History of Parliament, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/pitt-george- 1751-1828, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/pitt-william- morton-1754-1836 and http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/ jenkinson-charles-1729-1808 (all accessed 15 Aug. 2018). Also Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions 2, 83.
56 House of Commons Journals, 20 May 1789.
57 Scoresby, Account of the Arctic Regions 2, 87–95.
58 House of Commons Journals, 26 Mar. 1792. See also http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/ryder-hon-dudley-1762-1847 (accessed 19 Jun. 2016).
59 House of Commons Journals, 27 Feb. 1798. Also see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/hobart-hon-henry-1738-99 (accessed 19 Jun. 2016).
60 History of Parliament Online, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/tarleton-banastre-1754-1833 and http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/fox-hon-charles-james-1749-1806 (accessed 24 May 2018). See also Conway, ‘Tarleton, Sir Banastre, baronet’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter ODNB) and Bass, Green Dragoon, 409, 416–8, 443–51.
61 History of Parliament Online, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/ member/gascoyne-isaac-1763-1841 (accessed 15 Jun. 2018).
62 Macnaughton, ‘Roscoe, William’, ODNB.
63 Beales, ‘Canning, George’, ODNB.
64 Morgan, Slavery and the British Empire, 148–98.
65 House of Lords Journals, 10 Feb. 1813.
66 Kumagai, Breaking into the Monopoly, 115–34. However, Webster argues that while provincial lobbying was an important factor in breaking the EIC's monopoly, one cannot ignore the role of the government in encouraging liberalization, and splits within London's mercantile community. Webster ‘Political Economy of trade Liberalisation’, 416–8.
67 For more on diversification see Pope, ‘Shipping and Trade in the Port of Liverpool 2’, 476.
68 Cobbett, Parliamentary History 30, 86, and 35, 1000.
69 One such example is Cobbett, Parliamentary History 33, 573
70 Morgan, Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy, 36–48.
71 House of Commons Journals, 4 Mar, 1808, and Tolley, ‘Liverpool Campaign Against the Order in Council’, 101–32.
72 Kumagai, Breaking into the Monopoly, 115–34.
73 Milne, Trade and Traders, 12–7; 219–21.
74 Jackson, British Whaling Trade, 76–89.
75 Jordan, ‘Captains and Crews’, 187–8.
76 Account of Number of Vessels.
77 Jackson, Arctic Whaling Journals, xvii–xli. Also see Baigent, ‘Scoresby. William, junior’ and Laughton, ‘Scoresby, William, senior’, ODNB.
78 Whitby Museum (hereafter WM), Scoresby Archive, Autobiography, no date, WHITM:SCO843.9. Scoresby declined the proposed arrangement by the authorities.
79 WM, Scoresby Archive, Draft memorandum, Jan. 1822, WHITM:SCO1294.
80 WM, Scoresby Archive, letter by William Scoresby Junior, 4 Feb. 1822, WHITM:SCO577.9.
81 Scoresby, Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery, xv–xvii.
82 Baigent, ‘Scoresby. William, junior’, ODNB.
83 WM, Scoresby Archive, Scoresby Junior, Strand, to Secretary of the Board of Trade, 2 Feb. 1822, WHITM:SCO577.8.
84 WM, Scoresby Archive, Petition from the Owners of Liverpool Greenland ships, 6 Feb. 1821, WHITM:SCO648.1.
85 House of Commons Journals, 11 Feb. 1823.
86 Ibid., 12 Feb. 1823.
87 Hull History Centre, Book of Statistics relating to the Hull Whaling Industry, 1763–1842, LDMWH/2/2 suggests that no vessels sailed northwards from Liverpool to engage in whaling after 1823. Still, 1823 was not the complete end of Liverpool's association with whaling. During the late nineteenth century, the hydrogenation of fat for soap and margarine meant that there was increased demand for whale oil. Henceforth Lever Brothers, with soap-making operations at Port Sunlight on the Wirral near Liverpool, required whale oil. By 1918 Lever were the world's largest consumers of whale oil. The Southern Whaling and Sealing Company was also owned by Lever Brothers for a time, and in 1921 the Liverpool firm Henry Tyrer & Sons were appointed the Managing Agents of the Southern Whaling and Sealing Company. Davies, Henry Tyrer, 77, 82, 119. Also see Jackson, British Whaling Trade, 178–86.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Simon Hill
Simon Hill is a sessional lecturer in history at Liverpool John Moores University and visiting research associate at the University of Chester. His work focuses on Liverpool's interaction with the wider world between 1750 and the present. He was the acting director of the Liverpool Centre for Port and Maritime History between 2016 and 2017.