Harpoon guns, the lost Greenland settlement, and penal colonies: George Manby's Arctic obsessions

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Barr, William
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2001
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Arctic; Greenland; Scoresby; Penal; Baffin; East Greenland; Polar Record
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247400017046; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247400017046

Abstract George William Manby (1766–1854) was an English inventor best known for his idea of firing a line from shore to a wrecked ship so that the crew might be saved by means of a breeches-buoy. Around 1819 he turned his attention to new typesof whaling harpoons, bothahand harpoon andagun harpoon. In 1821 he went on a voyage to the Greenland whaling grounds on board Baffin , Captain William Scoresby Jr, with the aim of trying out his inventions, but the experiments were foiled by the reluctance of the crew to cooperate. As a result of that voyage, Manby espoused three ideas that he pursued obsessively for the rest of his life: that there might still be Norse survivors in the so-called ‘Lost Colony’ in East Greenland; that Britain should claim the area of East Greenland north of the area claimed by Denmark; and that this area should be developed as a penal colony.