Whaling carried on in Dundee later than any other Port in Britain because of the use of whale oil in the local jute processing industry.  One of the great benefits to me of this is that Dundee has a fantastic collection of whaling photographs, of ships, whaling and the arctic locations. This is also one of the reasons that the Discovery was built in Dundee as they still had expertise in building wooden ships suitable for polar seas.

The Whale Ship Eclipse,

As you might expect the McManus Museum and Art Gallery in Dundee has an extensive whaling collection and good displays on the local history of whaling.  In addition to this in one of the galleries is a skeleton of a humpback whale which was unfortunate enough to swim up the Tay to Dundee in 1883 during the winter when the whalers were in port.  It was eventually harpooned and put on display finally ending up in the museum.

Transfer Dye on textile

The excellent on line catalogue at the McManus has some fascinating images of cigarette cards about whaling.  I was able to find and purchase my own set and some of the imagery from my Greenland Fisheries series is inspired by these.