The Southern Whale Fishery Company, Auckland Islands

• Main Author: Fotheringham, Brett
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Scott Polar Research Institute 1995
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; Pacific; Antarc*; Auckland Islands
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.8086; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/262798

The Southern Whale Fishery Company was a colonising whaling company, with a Royal Charter granted in early 1849. The Company was set up as an attempt to re~establish the declining British Southern Whale Fishery, and was actively promoted by Charles Enderby. The Company was formed after The Messrs. Enderby were granted a lease to the Auckland Islands in 1847 and subsequently based their whaling operation from there in 1849. The Company was undercapitalised for the project they were undertaking and a reduction in the abundance of Right whales in the South Pacific meant that whaling returns were less than estimated. It was hoped that there may be a viable stock in the Antarctic Seas, and this was investigated but no Right whales were found. The Company soon exhausted its capital and were forced to abandon its settlement at Port Ross and later wound up the company after the last of eight whaling vessels owned by the Company returned to England in 1854. The Company had underestimated fixed capital expenditure and overestimated potential revenue, particularly after the capital was reduced to one third of the original estimate. The colony was a private venture and had little impact upon British colonial history. It had a shortterm impact upon the whale fishery but its short life and relatively small scale limited this to the early 1850s