Bones of a story at Whitby

THEY are as famous in Whitby as the Abbey, the 199 steps or fish and chips. Most visitors think the whale bones on West Cliff are original, but they were replaced by a new set in 2002, having become too weathered.

Nobody thought much more about the original bones, there was little interest from potential buyers and they ended up in Wilf Noble’s yard. The builder was finally given permission by the council to sell the bones and last week he listed them on eBay.

But the internet auction site took umbrage, accusing the firm of flouting regulations linked to the sale of animal matter and endangered species.

So now the bones have been withdrawn and still, it seems, nobody wants them. Mark Edwards, at Whitby Museum, says he was offered the bones, but with no guarantee what might fall off them – or indeed what might be living inside – he had to say no.

“They are even more dried out and delicate now,” he says. “It’s unfortunate, but nature didn’t design them to last for ever.”

The jaw bones symbolise Whitby’s most prosperous, if darkest, era. During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the town had a booming whaling industry with nearly five dozen ships plying the seas off Greenland in search of the elusive creatures.

Accounts of the often harrowing life at sea during the whaling era have just gone on display as part of Whitby Museum’s exhibition, Sailors’ Sixpence. These stories are revealed through 8,000 nationally important muster rolls, which were discovered in the attic of the Merchant Seamen’s Hospital in Church Street.

Rewards from whaling were irresistible. Success led to great wealth, as the fine villas on Esk Terrace reveal, but the stakes were high. Captain Johnston’s Aimwell lost its surgeon and three men when, as the shipping register logs, “a whale stoved in”. The vessel was finally lost 14 years later, after hitting a large piece of ice off the Greenland coast.

It wasn’t only Arctic conditions that threatened Whitby’s whaling crews. In 1758, Leviathan was captured by the French a year after its maiden voyage, and our navy wasn’t in the least bit interested in protecting the ships.

Quite the opposite. Henrietta was boarded by the press gang from HMS Princess of Wales in 1764 and 13 sailors were snatched for a very different life at sea.

Lively fared even worse, with its captain and part of the crew pressed by HM Brig Mosquito in 1805. The ship was lost with all hands 20 years later.

Some, however, were hugely successful. By 1768, Will Swales’ Jenny’s Adventure, was one of the two most successful whalers in the country. But the wealth wasn’t fairly shared.

While owners and skippers were making their fortunes, it was a different story for their crews as a ‘humble petition’ to Trinity House by John Knaggs, 62, testifies.

Mr Knaggs served at sea all his life and was finally discharged as master on Jenny’s Adventure. His petition states that he is “not now able to support himself and mother aged 95, without the charity of this corporation, having no property or income. And no pension or relief from any other public company or charity”.

Whitby’s most successful whaling captains were William Scoresby and his son, also William.

Scoresby senior joined whaling ship Henrietta in 1785 and rose through the ranks to become its captain by 1791. Fifteen years later he broke the British record for sailing furthest north, reaching latitude 80° 30’ and in 1807 Scoresby invented the crow’s nest, to provide shelter for the navigator at the top of the main mast.

A bronze cast on the harbour of Captain Scoresby and his son keeping watch, marks the achievement.

William Scoresby junior replaced his father as captain of the Henrietta and while at sea, studied the Arctic climate, currents and biology.

In 1820 he published The Account of Arctic Regions, which remains a standard work on the Greenland whale fishery.

Much of the research had been done by his father, who was unable to publish it thanks to his illiteracy.

Scoresby junior went on to map a large part of the east coast of Greenland, but perhaps his conscience eventually pricked when in 1823, aged 33, he finished with whaling to train for the ministry.

Whitby’s whaling fleet last set out for Greenland in 1837 after a succession of poor trips, culminating with the final ship returning empty. It marked the end of a 100-year golden age during which Whitby crews brought home 2,761 whales, 25,000 seals and 55 polar bears.

Vast boiler houses lined the harbour. Inside, blubber was turned into oil and, as the fleet returned, workers would go outside to look out for the tell-tale sign of a successful catch; a whale’s jaw bone strung high on the mizzen mast.

It’s a tradition marked to this day by the whale bone archway. However, the present bones flout no regulations linked to the sale of animal matter and endangered species. They were gifted by Whitby’s twin town of Barrow in Alaska, having been found abandoned after a legal hunt.

As for the old set, who knows? They can’t be sold on eBay and continue to languish unloved in a Wilf Noble’s yard.

Maybe someone will eventually take a fancy to them as an unusual garden ornament, even if nobody knows what’s living inside them.

• Sailors’ Sixpence runs until May 7 at Whitby Museum where you can also explore a collection of local fossils, natural history, model ships, carved scrimshaw (whale bone) and costumes. There are also relics of the Scorsesbys and Captain Cook. The Museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, 9.30am to 4.30pm (also Bank Holiday Mondays) at Pannett Park, Whitby, YO21 IRE.

Tel 01947 602908
whitbymuseum.org.uk