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Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Opening of Pacific Whaling
Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Opening of Pacific Whaling
Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Opening of Pacific Whaling
Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Opening of Pacific Whaling

Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Opening of Pacific Whaling

Associated (Frogmore House, Windsor, England, 1900 - 1979)
Medallist
DateMay 2004
Object NameMedal
MediumSterling Silver
ClassificationsMedals
AcquisitionPresented in 2004 by Dr Joan M Burrell.
LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub
Object numberABDMS072500.30
About MeSamuel Enderby has been called the father of whaling. His family were shipowners and merchants, and among the trades they specialised in was the importing of whale oil, the product of the American colonial whaling industry, into Britain. The American Revolution cut off these supplies and in 1785 Samuel Enderby decided to send his own ships out to hunt whales. They were very successful, and the Enderbys decided to try whaling in the Pacific. Because of the East India Company's monopoly they had to have special authority from the British Government, but this was obtained and the Emilia's pioneering voyage in 1789 was an unqualified success. In 1819 another Enderby ship, the Siren, discovered the Japanese whaling grounds and 12 years later John Biscoe, in an Enderby vessel, discovered that part of the Antarctic which was later known as Enderby Land.

Despite these pioneering activities, it was the American whaling industry, revived after the Revolution, which exploited the Pacific whale fishery to the full in the I9tll century. At one time more than 700 American vessels aggregating nearly a quarter of a million tons were engaged on the Pacific whaling grounds. British enterprise and capital were channelled into other and more lucrative forms of seafaring in support of the great industrial expansion which took place in Britain at this period.

Nevertheless British whaling continued and in Melville's' Moby Dick' is a classic description of a meeting between the American whaler Pequod and the British Samuel Enderby in the Pacific in 1851. The contemporary model of the hull of the Samuel Enderby, which was built in I834.is on display in the National Maritime Museum.

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