This is a study of what was Britain's leading whaling port. Today, Dundee captains and the city's whaling fleet have a permanent place in the geography of the world. Cape Adams, Cape Milne, Artic Bay and Eclipse Sound recall an era when the city's stoutly built ships, manned by heroic adventurers, discovered new routes, made new friends, but seldom sailed far from danger. In Dundee itself, streets such as Whale Lane and Baffin Street serve as reminders of an era in which Dundee dominated the whaling grounds. Moreover, the Dundee fleet has excelled as polar exploration ships, providing vessels for Captain Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Admiral Byrd, leaving a permanent reminder of the city's historic role at Dundee Island, Antarctica. An appendix lists all the ships and their captains.

At the end of the 19th century, Dundee was Europe's premier Arctic whaling port. From humble beginnings in the 1750's this national industry had survived French and American wars, privateers, economic slumps, storms, heart-wrenching disasters and some amazing triumphs.From 1860 until the 1880's, Dundee built the most efficient Arctic vessels in the world. Despite being only a small city on the east coast of Scotland, as the 19th century closed, it was the most important Arctic whaling port in Europe.The Dundee Whaling Fleet gives an overview of Dundee's experience in Arctic whaling, including a valuable guide to every ship in the fleet with statistics, dates and a thumbnail history. It also gives sketches of the most prominent of the whaling masters, Dundee shipping companies and 350 of the tens of thousands of seamen who took the ships north.

Describes Scotland's 150-year involvement in Arctic bowhead whaling using previously unpublished research from port records and newspaper accounts.

Narrative of voyage from Dundee to Davis Strait, 1884.

Few trades were so demanding and dangerous as whaling. The hunt for the whale and its precious oil, bone and ambergris took sailors to the frozen ends of the earth, on voyages that lasted years at a time. Harpoons were thrown by hand from an open boat, which at any moment the whale could reduce to matchwood with a single blow of its tail. This book is not a history of whaling, but the story of the whalehunters themselves. It tells of the experiences of men from little Scottish ports who risked everything for a tiny share in whatever their whaling ships managed to catch. Making a living in this way involved extraordinary adventures, harrowing ordeals and grinding labour: and a courage that was prepared to confront the mystery and terror of the sea.

This book provides a comprehensive economic history of the British Whaling Trade, divided into two eras of significant technological difference. The first part concerns the traditional whaling trades that structured the industry for three centuries, from 1604-1914. The second part concerns the modern whaling trade between the years 1904-1963, characterised by technological advance and tremendous international competition. Gordon Jackson approaches the enormous subject of British Whaling from the perspectives of both the national economy of Britain, and the international whaling industry as a whole. The book consults official statistical material to determine the size and performance of various whaling fleets; eye-witness accounts and state papers for the early history of the trade; log books, and trade and customs records for the eighteenth century; and the documents of the Southern Whaling Company, Salvesen, and Unilever for insights into the modern whaling period. The book concludes with appendices containing statistical data concerning whale oil, whale stocks, and the price of goods, two bibliographies of further reading, and a conclusion that free competition and market demand simply exhausted whale stocks beyond any possibility of restoration.