Whaling in Australian waters began in 1791 when five of the 11 ships in the Third Fleet landed their passengers and freight at Sydney Cove and then left Port Jackson to engage in whaling and seal hunting off the coast of Australia and New Zealand. The two main species hunted by such vessels in the early years were right and sperm whales. Humpback, bowhead and other whale species would later be taken.
Whaling went on to be a major maritime industry in Australia providing work for hundreds of ships and thousands of men and contributing export products worth £4.2 million by 1850.
Modern whaling using harpoon guns and iron hulled catchers was conducted in the twentieth century from shore-based stations in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland.
A government inquiry into the industry in 1978 resulted in a ban on whaling in Australia and a commitment to whale protection. Whale watching is now a significant tourist industry in its own right.
Aboriginals, whales and whaling
Whales played a part in the lives of coastal Aboriginals in pre-colonial Australia. They were a totem animal for some clans in Western Australia.Martin Gibbs (1995), ‘'The historical archaeology of shore based whaling in Western Australia 1836-1879,’’, PhD thesis, University of Western Australia, p.20 & 91. Their depiction in rock art in New South Wales indicates whales also had significance in eastern Australia.Peter Stanbury & John Clegg, A field guide to Aboriginal rock engravings; with special reference to those around Sydney, Sydney, Sydney University Press, 1990, pp.19-20. Four or five Aboriginal rock engravings near Sydney have been identified as depicting whale feasts.Peter Stanbury & John Clegg, p.22. Beached whales, or drift whales that died at sea and washed ashore, were an occasional food source for coastal Aboriginals. The smell of the decomposing whale would attract the first arrivals and messages would be sent to neighbouring groups to come and attend the banquet.Phillip A. Clarke, "The significance of whales to the Aboriginal people of southern South Australia," Records of the South Australian Museum, 34 (1) p.22.
There is no record of any traditional hunting of whales employing the frail bark canoes or hollowed out logs used as fishing vessels. However, it has been claimed some had the ability to hunt them by other means, as in dolphin drive hunting. The Kondoli clan in South Australia were supposed to have been able to ‘’ sing'’ whales inshore in the hope they would beach themselves.Clarke, p.29. According to stories recounted at the Eden Killer Whale Museum, Aboriginals at Twofold Bay in New South Wales somehow combined with killer whales to drive right whales ashore. What can be said with certainty is that the discovery of a dead whale was a major event for those living near the coast. One such group was encountered with a whale on a beach at Port Jackson on 7 September 1790.
The bones of whales were also prized for certain purposes. The ear bones were retrieved to make drinking vessels and the ribs were sometimes used as the frames for gunyahs or huts.Gibbs, p.22.
Europeans were aware that whales were to be found off the coast of Australia from at least 1699. That was when the British maritime explorer, naturalist and buccaneer William Dampier (1652-1715) sailed along the coast of Western Australia. There, he reported, "the sea is plentifully stocked with the largest whales that I ever saw."William Dampier, "A voyage to New-Holland and, &c, in the year 1699, Vol III," third edition, 1729, London, James Knapton, p.106.
Bay whaling stations established on the coast by colonists in the nineteenth century attracted tribal Aboriginals who would camp nearby and feast on the discarded whale carcasses after the blubber had been removed. Some Aboriginal men served on boats at bay whaling stations as pulling hands or manned lookout posts where their keen eye-sight allowed them to see approaching whales without the aid of a spyglass. A few served on pelagic or deep-sea whaling ships operating out of Sydney and Hobart.Lynette Russell, Roving mariners; Australian Aboriginal whalers and sealers in the southern oceans, 1790-1870, New York, State University of New York Press, 2012.
Early visiting whalers
British whalers and sealers began to call at Sydney soon after European settlement began in 1788. Some came under charter as convict transports or store ships and after landing their passengers and cargo began whaling or sealing voyages from Port Jackson. The first to return to Sydney after taking whales off the coast was Captain Thomas Melvill who commanded the Britannia owned by Samuel Enderby & Sons. To mark the occasion Governor Phillip presented Captain Melvill with a cup that was later inscribed as follows,
Hunting the sperm whale could be a lucrative activity. Britannia returned to Britain in 1793 with 118 tuns of sperm whale oil and 1,900 sealskins.British Southern Whale Fishery (BSWF) web site. The other Third Fleet whalers which returned to Britain in 1793 were William and Ann (Captain Eber Bunker) with 68 tuns of sperm whale oil and 8,468 seal skins, Mary Ann (Mark Munro) with 25 tuns of oil and 1,900 seal skins and Scamander (John Nichol) with 117 tuns of oil and 6,100 seal skins.BSWF Britannia had been at Dusky Sound on the South Island of New Zealand where some or all of the seal skins may have taken.Cumpston, p.27. Another Third Fleet whaler, Matilda (Matthew Weatherhead), was lost at sea. One other British whaler was reported off New Holland (Australia) between 1791 and 1793. This was Canada (Captain Alexander Muirhead) which returned to Britain in 1793 with 15 tuns of sperm whale oil, 6 tuns of right whale oil and 7,000 seal skins.A. G. E. Jones & Dale Chatwin, Ships employed in the South Seas trade, 1775-1859, Volume 3, Hobart, Navarine Publishing, 2014, p.90.
A limitation on the industry in the early years were the Navigation Acts and Crown monopolies granting exclusive rights to all commercial maritime activity in the region by British vessels to the South Sea Company and the East India Company, or to vessels that had been licensed by these companies. Those restrictions were gradually eliminated in stages and allowed British vessels to whale, seal, go fur trading or engage in other forms of trading in the Pacific without a licence.Cumpston, p.16-19.
Taking general cargo on the outward bound voyage allowed whalers to supplement their income. The leading London whale ship owner Samuel Enderby confirmed in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks in 1801 that it was a great advantage to the owners of whalers to take freight or passengers to New South Wales.Margaret Stephen, Trade, tactics and territory, Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1983, p.84. His vessel Speedy returned to London from New South Wales in 1801 with oil worth £13,600 which Enderby said was the most valuable such cargo brought back till then.Stephen, p.84.
Bay whaling
Bay whaling involved the capture of right whales in sheltered bays on the coast of Australia and New Zealand where they came to breed in the winter months. The industry was well suited to the limited financial resources of the early colonists. A shore-based bay whaling station could be established with little more than a few boats, try-pots and wooden casks to store the oil.Dakin (1938) p.33-4. The men did not usually receive a set wages but, like pelagic whalers, were paid a share of the value of the catch, known as a "lay."Dakin (1938) p.62.
Soon after the first colonists arrived in Tasmania in 1803, and established Hobart at the head of the Derwent Estuary, they discovered the estuary was a breeding ground for the Southern Right whale. Bay whaling activities by the colonists began in the Derwent in 1805.Nash, p.2. At least 45 whaling stations operated in Tasmania over the next four decades.Nash, p.4.
The first whaling station on the Australian mainland was established in 1828 by Captain Thomas Raine (1793-1860) at Twofold Bay, in southern New South Wales. Bay whaling was underway at Portland Bay, Victoria, by 1833,Lynette Peel (ed.) The Henty Journals; a record of farming, whaling and shipping in Portland Bay, 1834-1839 Melbourne, 1996, p.3. at Encounter Bay, South Australia in 1834Parry Kostoglou & Justin McCarthy, Whaling & sealing sites in South Australia, Adelaide, 1991, p.43. and at Doubtful Island Bay in Western Australia by 1836Martin Gibbs, The shore whalers of Western Australia; Historical archaeology of a maritime frontier Sydney, 2010, p.14. as well as at many other locations. Australian bay whalers also went to New Zealand and were active at Cloudy Bay and Banks Peninsula (1835) on the South Island.Chris Jacomb, "Shore whaling sites of Banks Peninsula: An archaeological survey," p.68, in, Susan Lawrence and Mark Staniforth (eds.) The archaeology of whaling in southern Australia and New Zealand, Gundaroo, 1998.
Teams of whalers were landed by small vessels - usually schooners - to establish temporary settlements during the winter months. These vessels usually returned for the men, and the full oil casks, at the end of the season. Some of these support vessels remained offshore, serving as a dormitory and warehouse for the operation. Pelagic (deep-sea) whaling ships occasionally came in to compete with the shore-based whalers, especially toward the end of their cruise when they were trying to fill their oil casks before returning to port. Some of these whaling stations, such as those at Portland Bay and Twofold Bay, became the forerunner of permanent settlements, the pioneer settlers combining whaling with pastoral activities.Noel Learmonth, The Portland Bay settlement, Portland, 1934, p.65.
Australian Colonial whaling ships
Australian-owned whaling ships first sailed from Sydney in 1805. The 185-ton King George (Captain George Moody), owned by Henry Kable and James Underwood, departed Port Jackson in June and was "fishing" for southern right whales in the Derwent Estuary in Tasmania by July 1805.Ian Nicholson, Shipping arrivals and departures, Tasmania, Volume 1, 1803-1833, Roebuck, Canberra, 1983, p.16. The first sperm whaler was the 224-ton Argo (Captain John Bader) owned by John Mcarthur through his London agents Hullets & Co, and which departed Sydney in September 1805.Cumpston, p.55. Vessels owned or based in Australia went on to make more than 1,500 whaling voyages from colonial ports in the nineteenth century.Susan Chamberlain (1988), The Hobart whaling industry 1830 to 1900, PhD thesis, La Trobe University, Melbourne, p.53; Mark Howard, "Masters of the Sydney whaling fleet," 1805-1896, Descent, 44 (2) June 2014, p.73. Sydney and Hobart were the two main whaling ports.
Whaling ships were sometimes hired to transport people and freight between settlements, or to establish new colonies. The Albion (362 tons) arrived at Risdon Cove on 8 September 1803, with settlers who founded Hobart.Lloyd Robson, A history of Tasmania, Volume 1, Van Diemen’s Land from the earliest times to 1855, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1983, pp.34-5. The Amity (192 tons) landed the first white settlers at Western Australia in 1826.Les Johnson, She was the Amity brig, Albany, town of Albany, 1998, p.1. Lord Howe Island was settled by colonists landed from the Sydney whaler Caroline (192 tons) in 1834.Alan & Valarie Finch, Lord Howe Island, Adelaide, Rigby, 1967, p.20.
The large crews on such vessels – necessary to man the whale boats – meant the trade was a major employer of maritime labour. The forty-two whalers based in Sydney by 1837 employed about 1,300 men. Most were British-born seamen but as the years went by Australian-born mariners joined the fleet in increasing numbers.