Written in Bone by Dale Chatwin

Engraved whale’s tooth, ca. 1850 William L. Roderick (1826–74) Sperm-whale ivory and ink; 7 x 2 x 1 1/4 in. Gift of Sara Jo Kobacker 2017.23.1

Written in Bone

NANTUCKET’S CONNECTIONS TO BRITAIN’S WHALING FLEETS

By Dale Chatwin

Throughout the nearly 200 years of Nantucket’s prominence in the whaling industry, the island maintained strong ties with British whaling. In particular, the British Southern Whale Fishery, which commenced in 1775 when the British sought to transfer Nantucket efficiency in whaling to London, might never have existed without the ships and skills of Nantucket. In its early years, many of the ships and even more of the masters in the southern fleet were from Nantucket. The British fleet learned to use try-works from Nantucket whalemen, and over 160 Nantucketers commanded British whaleships on over 600 voyages. Research into three outstanding artifacts in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association reveals those bonds.

The first is a recently acquired oil painting depicting whaling in the Arctic by William John Huggins (1781 – 1845), marine painter to King William IV of Great Britain.

The second is a large sperm-whale panbone engraved with a scene depicting British whaleships.

The third is an engraved sperm-whale tooth by an acknowledged master of the art of scrimshaw, William Lewis Roderick, a surgeon on three British whaleship voyages between 1847 and 1856, as seen to the left.

The painting depicts the American built vessel, Harmony of Hull, and four other ice-bound whalers operating in the Davis Straits between Baffin Island, Canada, and Greenland in 1828.

The British Northern Whale Fishery traced its origins to the early 1600s, and, after the exhaustion of bowhead whale stocks by the Dutch, British, and Danish whaling fleets around Spitzbergen, moved west toward and then past Greenland again seeking the bowhead whale, with Scottish whalers still taking whales in the 1890s. The primary focus of the British Northern Fleet was always oil, and, for much of its life, baleen, the other key product from a bowhead, was of little value.

The American-built bark Harmony of 292 tons was first registered in Hull in 1804. In the painting, the Harmony sits right of the center anchored to the ice with the other vessels including one (far left of the scene) foundering as the ice closes in to crush the hull. Members of that ship’s crew can be seen rowing away from their vessel having surely tried to salvage all they could.

This is the second version of this scene and was likely commissioned by Robert Bell, (son of Thomas Bell, owner of the Harmony). Between 1806 and 1834, the Harmony took over 300 whales totaling 2500 tons of oil.

Huggins, who once served on an East India Company ship, was noted in The Gentleman’s Magazine, in December 1828, as being engaged in painting this scene with the express intention of having it reproduced and disseminated broadly.

In 1829 a colored lithograph based on the painting was published in London by Huggins’ soon-to-be son-in-law Edward Duncan, and, as predicted by The Gentleman’s Magazine, the print quickly became a popular source of public knowledge of the rewards and risks of Arctic whaling.

The original 1828 painting, now in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, depicts a busy scene with a range of animals and activities represented. In the 1835 painting, Huggins’s has revisited the scene, enlarging and editing it based on more specific information about the animals that were present and practices specific to the Northern fishery.

Nearly every aspect of Arctic whaling is depicted in the painting – including the chase and capture of whales and the activities involved in processing, or cutting-in,

The Northern Whale Fishery, 1835 William John Huggins (English 1781–1845) Oil on Canvas Purchased with support from Kaaren & Charles Hale, Shelley & Graham Goldsmith, Caroline & Jeffrey Paduch, the Richard E. Griffin Family Acquisition Fund, and an anonymous gift 2020.1.1

the catch alongside. On board we see smoke rising from a galley at the front of the vessel; an enclosed crows-nest for protection from the Arctic weather; and washing hanging between the main and mizzen masts.

Birds circle the ships hoping for scraps. In the foreground on the left great auks (large penguin-like birds) gather at the front of an ice floe; less than ten years later these large birds had been hunted to extinction. On the extreme right, a polar bear and cub are shown.

British Arctic whalers voyaged annually, sailing in March either to the waters east of Greenland or to the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay lying off its west coast, returning by September or October. Unlike American or British Southern Fishery vessels, the oil taken was not rendered down on-board using a try-works but was instead coopered into casks and processed upon returning to the home port. It was whalemen from Nantucket who perfected the technique for boiling down the oil on board a whaling vessel.

Strapped to the foremast in the painting we will also see a set of jawbones. Bowhead jawbones could often be over twenty feet in length and were the property of the captain to sell. In 1820, Harmony had returned with nine pairs of jawbones.

A large bowhead whale could also provide an enormous amount of oil – up to one-third of its weight – a tongue yielding up to four tons and lips two tons of oil, respectively. Records show that 1828 was a particularly mild season in the Arctic (perhaps explaining the washing on the line), and a very successful one for Hull whaleships including the Harmony, which took 13 whales.

This large and important piece of scrimshaw by the anonymous artist known as the “Panbone Engraver” uses the entire “pan” section from the rear of a sperm whale’s jawbone. The scrimshaw is characterized by an extraordinary level of detail.

The scene, which can be dated to the late 1830s, portrays a whaleship on the right cutting-in, with two others engaged in the hunt. On the left a whale is smashing a whaleboat, sending the crew flying into the air.

The ship-rigged vessel on the left of the panorama is flying the house flag of the London-based firm of Alexander Birnie & Co., which identifies the subject vessel as either Tuscan, Ann, or Toward Castle. Alexander Birnie and his brother James were involved in the whaling

trade from the turn of the century, and Birnie whaleships made 80 voyages to the South Seas through the mid-1830s, when the company experienced financial difficulty.

Oil merchant Elhanan Bicknell purchased the Birnie fleet. As part of the sale, Bicknell, also a patron of the arts, acquired at least two Huggins paintings of Birnie whaleships including one of the Ann. Bicknell is reputed to have shown these to another artist he supported, J.M.W. Turner, and the influence can clearly be seen in Turner’s painting Whalers (1845), now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The bark-rigged vessel in the center is flying the house flag of London shipbuilders and shipowners Green, Wigrams & Green. This very wealthy partnership owned the famous Blackwall Yard on the River Thames, a large merchant fleet, and six whaling vessels during the 1830s. Their whaleships were Narwhal, Matilda, Harpooner,

Vigilant, Eleanor, and Active. Only one of their vessels was built bark-rigged, which identifies the center vessel as the Narwhal. Narwhal had been built for London whaleship owner William Mellish, but following his death in early 1834 Green, Wigrams & Green deployed the vessel to their fleet. In all, their whaling fleet made 20 voyages.

Narwhal sailed in late December 1835 under the command of William Darby Brind, whose previous two commands had been the Birnie-owned Toward Castle. This raises the possibility that the scene on the panbone may have been commissioned by Brind as a composite of his career, with the Toward Castle depicted on the left, the Narwhal in the center, and the unidentified, shiprigged vessel on the right one of his earlier commands. This would explain the lack of any identifying land features in the scene.

Whilst the Panbone Engraver’s work provides no indication as to locale, William Lewis Roderick’s work can nearly always be broadly – or in some instances very accurately – located, as Roderick’s whaling voyages are well documented through logs, crew lists, and newspaper reports.

Roderick served as ship’s surgeon on three South Seas whaling voyages in the bark Adventure of London between 1847 and 1856. The vessel was owned by the shipbuilder George Waters Sweeting and merchant James Crichton.

Roderick was born in Swansea, Wales, though he must have soon moved to London as he was baptized there in mid-October 1826. Before going whaling he served a three-year apprenticeship with a surgeon in Swansea, followed by a year in a hospital in London. By his own admission, he never acquired formal qualifications in medicine. He married just before embarking on his second voyage in March 1851 and retired from the sea following his third voyage. He died in November 1874.

The majority of scenes on Roderick’s scrimshaw can be firmly placed in Indonesian waters, though at least two teeth are known to be the product of a shorter 18-month cruise to the Azores between April 1851 and October 1852.

Engraved panbone, ca. 1830 Unknown English artist Whale bone and ink; 39 5/8 x 14 1/2 x 6 in. Nantucket Historical Association Collection, acquired in trade from David Gray 1956.3.1

The scrimshaw tooth in the NHA collection is a double-sided polychrome engraved whale tooth depicting on the obverse front an active whaling scene with three whaleboats engaged in capturing a whale, a ship in the background, and a mountainous coast.

As in much of Roderick’s work, the vessel is flying a flag from the top of its main mast and is bark-rigged. The similarity of the vessel on the tooth to vessels depicted in much of Roderick’s other work suggests it must be the Adventure, the vessel on which Roderick served during all of his voyages. If that is the case, and given the sophisticated use of perspective in the composition of the scene, the mountainous coast is likely an island in Indonesian waters as is typical in the majority of Roderick’s work.

The reverse of the tooth reveals a stunning piece of engraving, depicting two whaleboats capturing a large whale (again presented in perspective) but with no locale depicted. In the background is a whaling bark which again must be the Adventure.

Large bull whales were found in Indonesian waters but were confined to a few bodies of water, including the Timor Strait, Savu Sea, and south-west of Sandlewood (Sumba) Island between Sumatra and the northwest

coast of Australia. North of Sumatra they might be encountered in the north of the Flores Sea and in the south of the Celebes Sea. The log of Adventure’s 1844 voyage records that it took large bull whales in a number of these locations.

Another Roderick tooth, held in a private collection, records that it was taken from a large whale captured on March 30, 1855, during Roderick’s third voyage. Roderick’s medical log describes that whale being taken 300 miles west of Shark Bay about half way down the Western Australian coast. Surprisingly, then, the scene engraved on the tooth depicts whaling near the volcanic island of Pulau Komba (also spelled Pulo Comba) in Indonesia, some 1,500 miles away from where the tooth was taken. Roderick’s log records that the Adventure was off Pulau Komba just months later in late July 1855.

Roderick produced a number of whaling scenes on teeth and panbones depicting whaling off Pulau Komba. Interestingly, there is also a watercolor by the English marine artist John Cantiloe Joy which almost certainly depicts whaling near Pulau Komba. As Joy never served on a whaleship or visited Indonesia it seems likely that Joy based his work on a Roderick scrimshaw tooth or sketch rather than the other way round. What does this all mean? It suggests to me that, at least in some circumstances (and probably in nearly all), Roderick acquired his raw teeth and bone and used them at a later date rather than rendering his scenes at the time. I would even further suggest that Roderick completed most of his finest work after he returned from his third whaling voyage. His most famous work, a large panbone depicting whaling off Pulau Komba, is dated July 30, 1858, when he was no longer at sea.

Returning to the NHA’s Roderick scrimshaw, I would argue, given the extraordinary command of perspective demonstrated, that this tooth was among Roderick’s later work although he was still depicting scenes he had witnessed or encountered in Indonesia.

This leads me to wonder if, besides keeping an official medical log on his third voyage, Roderick kept a journal or sketchbook in which he recorded events and sketched locales, only later translating them to teeth and bone. In doing so, Roderick would not be alone among British whaling surgeons. One of the best, a journal kept by whaling surgeon Eldred E Fysh on board the British whaleships Coronet and Elizabeth is in the collection of the NHA (Ms. 220, log 55). Just another example of the many links between Nantucket and the British Whale Fisheries.