West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Wednesday 17 April 1935, page 11


WHALING DAYS.

Early Romance and Adventure.

(By N.B.)

In the porch of the Perth public Library are blocks, harpoons, darting guns, knives, blubber forks, scrapers, ladles, skimming pans and other strange

utensils which are a vivid reminder of the days when whaling was a consider-able industry in Australian waters. There are old people in the coastal towns of this State who still remember when whalers used to boil down blubber on the sea shore and when hard-living sailors brought a tang of the sea and high adventure into the quiet routine of col-onial rural life. Sir MaCPherson Robert--, son is visiting England to initiate a movement for the development of the southern seas .but if, as a result of his efforts, whaling is, again operated from Australia, such scenes will not occur for the technique of the, whaling fleets has changed to an extent the old whalers would not have believed possible. There are two methods of whaling; bay whaling and deep-sea whaling. The former was most popular in Western Australia. There were two stations at Doubtful Island and two at the Swan River, but French: and American .deep-sea whalers operated, all along, the south-ern coast. It is estimated that as early as 1837 whalers working off the Western Australian coast secured £30,000 worth of oil. Bay whalers went after the Black whales, a somewhat sleepy species, in small boats. This 'method of capture was practised in Tasmania, .South Aus-tralia and Western Australia. A station was established on the coast and the whalers harpooned the monster in the mariner so graphically described, by Her-mart Melville in "Moby Dick' and by Oswald Brierly, a 'striking figure in the Australian industry who subsequently be-came Marine painter to Her Majesty the Queen. Between 1837 and 1845 com-panies were operating from Fremantle, Bunbury, King George's Sound and other centres but the industry soon died out in this State and remained dead until revived at Point Cloates.

. . . Early Developments. The possibilities of whaling in Austra-lian waters were early recognised. Shjp-masters in charge of transports coming to New South Wales waxed enthusiastic over(the number of whales they saw. One ship's master told Governor Phillip .that he had seen more.whales in one trip to Australia than he had seen in three years along the coast of Brazil. Ebor Bunker, master of the.William and Ann, was so impressed by what he saw that he made representations to the Champions, - a whaling firm of note in London, and persuaded them to fit him out for a whaling cruise. He broke the record to Australia in the Albion, a 362-ton ship, in 1799, by completing the voyage in three months 15 days, and in 1801 he took-bact with him 155 tons of oil. As early as 1790 excitement was caused in Sydney Harbour by the appearance of a sperm whale, and in 1804 William Col-lins, harbour master of .Hobart, reported that he had seen 50 or 60 whales at a time in the Derwent River. The observations of travellers and colonists aroused interest in England and several whalers were .soon operating. Sam Enderby and Sons, London ship-owners, were early in the field. One of their vessels, the Emilia, was the first whaler to round Cape Horn into the Pacific, the vanguard of a host of others, mostly American. By August, 1800, the Enderbys and Champions were-able to tell Lord Liverpool that they had suc-ceeded in establishing "a whale fishery on the coast of New South Wales." On December 26, 1797, the "merchant ad-venturers in the southern whale fishery" had asked the British Government to allow their ships to refresh at ports and islands in the southern Pacific. At that time they were restrained from proceed-ing north of the equator and east of Madagascar because the Government had subsidised the northern fisheries and had restricted the operations of the southern whaleman in the interests of the East India Company. This caused bitter feel-ings among the southern whalers, but the Government was sympathetic and by December. 1801, the boundaries, of the whale-fishery had been extended. .Per-mission had also been granted for the whalers to sell goods in the colony so that they could buy sufficient provisions to equip them for long voyages. The Americans Appear. On June 28, 1804, there were nine Lon-don whalers on the New South Wales coast, Assistant-Surgeon Thomson, re-turning to London about that time from the colony, said that Sydney merchants were also taking an interest in the in-dustry And were fitting small vessels to engage in the trade and were building warehouses to store oil. In Tasmania, Willlam Collins, harbour master at Hobart, was urging the establishment of whaling in the Bass Strait and adjacent islands. It was estimated that the cargoes of boats operating off Australia that year would lie, worth £121,500. But the Ameri-cans had already begun to Challenge the British interests. The American whaling industry had begun early in the I8th eentury when Christopher Hussey, of Nantucket, New England,- was blown out to sea and chanced to sight and capture a sperm whale. Previously the Ameri-cans, had been content to follow in the footsteps of .the Red Indians, who were experts at bay whaling, but Hussey's suc-cess at deep-sea whaling encouraged others to push out from the shore. On August 14, 1804, .and again on De-cember 20, Governor King reported that the New England whalers were serious competitors of the local men in the whalifig industry. In an attempt to re-strict their operations he had issued a proclamation forbidding foreigners to build any boat or vessel of any kind in Bass Strait but this had little: effect on the daring Americans who were ex-perts at their trade. There were clashes between the rival whalers and some of the American masters forcibly expelled local men from the fishing grounds. They also recruited men from the colony and in I805 Governor King- complained, that there was a great dearth of agricultural labour, because so many men had gone off in the American whalers. Frenchmen were also active along the Australian coasts. Despite subsidies from the Eng-lish Government the British whalers were no match for the New Englanders, who had experience and initiative and a tra-ditions to uphold. The American. Civil War, however, brought them in conflict with Confederate cruisers and ruined the Industry.

The hey-dey, of deep-sea whaling in Australian waters was between 1790 and 1850. When it was at its height bay whaling suffered an eclipse and Tas-manian seamen operated in competition with Americans in the frozen Behring Sea at the other side of the world. In 1841, however, there were 35 bay stations in Tasmania and; most of them. had four whaleboats, each manned by seven. men. In 1848 there were 37 whalers registered at Hobart. About 1850 there was a fall in the value- of whale products and the gold discoveries' offered a counter at-traction for the adventurous. Gradually the industry declined. In 1859 there, were 27 locally-owned whalers operating from Hobart. By 1870 only 17 locally-owned vessels were engaged in the trade and five years later these had been reduced to 12. In June, 1896, the barque Helen was the sole survivor. There was an even more rapid decline in New South Wales and in Western Australia the whaling boom lasted only about 12 years. In Australia generally a little bay whaling was carried on out there was nothing on a big scale until 1912 when the vanguard of the Nor-wegians came to Australian was with an 8,000-ton whaler and three steam gun boats. This was the beginning of a new era in whaling, an era of steam and scientific harpooning from bow guns and factory treatment at sea. : -The Sealers. Sealing was a sister industry -to whal ing in Australia during the early days. The islands off the coasts were thick with the -animals and mobs of men landed there and battered them to death until their- arms ached. So great was the slaughter that the seals soon became scarce and they have never since ap-peared in such numbers. Major Lockyer, the first' commandant of Albany, visited the sealers' haunts in 1827 and said that the men were mostly runaway convicts and seamen deserters. He said they were little better- than- pirates and were the terror of the ships which called -for the skins. Their headquarters was Kan-garoo Island and Major Lockyer described it as a dreadful scene of villainy. The sealers were as brutal as the bushrangers of the mainland hi their treatment of the aborigines and it is little wonder that the Tasmanians have become an extinct race. Apart from the risks and excitement incidental to the calling the whalers were concerned in many exciting and romantic incidents which makes one regret that there was not an Australian Herman Melville- among them. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, when England was at war, many of the whal-ers were given letters of marque. Some of those which, came across the Pacific to New South Wales had been driven

from the Peruvian coast by Spanish cruisers. They, waited their opportunity, skipped back when the naval force had been reduced,: seized several prises and brought them triumphantly into Syd-ney. In the, north there were frequent clashes with Malay pirates and during the war between America and England in 1812-13 the American 32-gun frigate Essex and the sloop Young Essex harassed British whalers to such an extent that the Phoebe (36 guns) and the Cherub (24 guns), of the British Navy, were sent to see what could be done about it. After a brisk action the British vessels were successful and the Essex was cap-tured. These and. many similar incidents are the ingredients for a stirring Aus-tralian historical novel, one full of ad-venture and romance which will remind readers that the chain-gang and the bushrangers are not. the only fields for fiction in the records of early Australia.