WhalingHistory.org is now hosting two important data sets documenting British whaling.
The databases contain voyage and crew information for the British Southern Whale Fishery, which operated from 1775 to 1859. The voyage database, which is primarily the work of A G E (Joe) Jones, documents the events of about 2550 voyages, whaling or sealing, to the south of Britain in over 930 different vessels. The crew database, which is primarily the work of Dale Chatwin, lists nearly 14,000 entries for men who sailed in the ships in the British Southern Whale Fishery.
For 350 years until the early 1960s the British were involved in several types of whaling. This involvement was divided into three distinct trades: the northern whale fishery between 1610 and 1914; the southern whale fishery or ‘south seas trade’ from 1775 to 1859; and the modern whaling trade, from 1904 to 1963. Each of these trades was distinguished by the geographical location in which it was undertaken, the types of whales pursued, and to some extent by the methods and techniques used to capture whales. The northern and southern whale fisheries were even differentiated and defined by law.
We are especially pleased to host the BSWF data because many American whalers also sailed from British ports in the years after the American Revolution. We are looking forward to making these connections explicit, linking records in the American Offshore Whaling databases with those in the British Southern Whale Fishery data.