Matilda_1836
British Southern Voyage
| WRI | BV058320 |
| Vessel | Matilda |
| Master | William Swain / J. Crighton |
| Departure | 1836-10-21 |
| Return (days) | 1840-07-20 (1369) |
| Port (dock) | London (East India Dock) |
| Destination | Pacific Ocean |
| East/ West | West |
| Owner (Agent) | Green, Wigrams & Green (Owner) |
| Cargo | 175 casks + 2 tuns train + 40 cwt bone |
| Sources | SST1; SST3 ; ATSUU; HNL |
| Reports | At Honolulu 5 to 31 May 1837 out 7 months with 50 barrels with Mrs Swain and child; spoken by the Roman at Lahaina 20 October 1837 with 100 barrels; at Honolulu 1 to 31 November 1837 with 100 barrels; reported 4 October 1838 at New Zealand 20 April 1838 with 140 barrels; reported 9 May 1839 at the Bay of Islands 20 October 1838 with 300 barrels; reported 29 June 1839 at the Bay of Islands 2 March 1839 with 300 barrels; at the Bay of Islands 23 June 1839 with 600 barrels; reported 10 July 1840 at New Zealand 18 February 1840 with 1000 barrels |
| Notes | Matilda sailed on her 3rd cruise from London in late October 1836 under the command of one of the most famous English south seas whaling commanders, Nantucket born William Swain who was accompanied by his wife and child. Swain's career has been reasonably well chronicled, although it is likely that his career has been confused with that of another William Swain by some biographers. What is certain is that Swain's previous command was Sarah & Elizabeth owned by Thomas Sturge, a small but well established owner in the trade. In May 1837 Matilda was at Woahoo (Oahu) making it highly likely that Swain had sailed to the Pacific via the Horn. As the ship was again reported at Woahoo in November it is also likely that the summer months of 1837 were spent on either the 'Japan' or 'line' grounds. In April 1838, the ship was reported in New Zealand waters with 140 barrels, a poor result considering the length of time the vessel had been at sea. By November the cargo had increased to 300 barrels as Matilda continued to fish the waters around New Zealand. Matilda was again recorded at the Bay of Islands in March 1839; again in June and August 1839, and finally in January and February 1840. On this last call at the Bay of Islands, William Swain left (the Crew List records 'deserted') the ship with the first mate taking command. What prompted Swain to desert is unknown though he owned property near the Bay of Islands. The ship arrived in London on 19 July 1840 with a cargo of 170 casks of sperm and whale oil and 40 cwt of whalebone. This was the first time a Green Wigrams & Green vessel had brought back cargo other than sperm oil. It was also their poorest whaling cargo result though the high prices being paid for oil at the time may have compensated. |
Search help
- Limiting your search
- The dropdown menus beside the Search button will limit your search to a single database or single entity (masters, vessels...) You can use either dropdown separately or both together.
- Multiple words
- The search engine treats multiple words as if they were combined with AND. For example, if you enter
Morgan Charles
you will find any records that contain bothMorgan
ANDCharles
, in any order. - Stemming
- Words you enter are automatically treated as 'stems', that is, as if there were a wildcard at the end. So, if you enter
whal
you will find records containingwhale
,whaleboat
,whalers
, orwhaling
. This also works with dates. Entering183
will match all years in the 1830s. - Exact match
- To match an exact phrase, enclose in quotation marks, for instance,
"Charles W. Morgan"
- Case-insensitive
- Searches are not case-sensitive.
- Punctuation
- Punctuation marks are anathema. If you want to search for something that includes punctuation, enclose your search in quotation marks.
Search Results
- Results tabs: Click on any tab Voyage (52) to display a table of results.
- Full records are available: Click on the icon at the left edge of any search result to view the full record.
- Sort by columns: Click on any column heading (Destination△▽) to sort results by that column. Click again to reverse the sort order.
Share Whaling Resources
- Every item in the databases has a Whaling Resource Identifier (WRI).
- Click on the "Click to copy…" button below any WRI to copy its URL to your Clipboard.
- Share in email, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress… by pasting from your Clipboard (ctrl-P or cmd-P).
Code tables and Column definitions
For each database there is a page with values for codes and abbreviations used in the tables as well as definitions and usage information for each database column. Find it through the Databases entry in the main menu.
Advanced search: Data Viewers
Researchers who want more sophisticated data management capabilities should explore the Data Viewers available for each database. Data Viewers are listed under the Databases main menu entry. There is also a Getting Started page that explains how to use all Data Viewer features: The Data Viewer Interface.
- Search within individual columns or combine searches in multiple columns
- Sort by any column or by multiple columns
- View or hide columns, and access every column available in the data
- Select a set of records for copying or printing
- Download a set of records to the desktop
Data Downloads
Data files and supporting material for most databases are available for download from the Download Whaling History Data page.