From the
http://carolineld.blogspot.com Friday, 15 April 2011.
A Deptford whale.
Whales in the Thames are not unknown, but they're certainly unusual.
When one swam up the river a few years ago, the media followed its
every move. The public was equally fascinated in 1842 - but the poor
animal had met with a very different reception. While efforts were
made to save its modern counterpart, the Victorian stray was killed
and immediately put on public display.
On Sunday 23 October, a young whale made its way to Deptford Pier.
There, it was spotted by watermen who immediately set off in armed
pursuit. The Illustrated London News describes what followed:-
Illustrated London News, 29 October 1842, 'catching a whale
off Deptford Pier'
Five of them put off in their boat, and one of them, armed with a
large bearded spear, commenced the attack upon the monster, which
soon showed symptoms of weakness, and threw up large quantities of
water from the aperture on its back. The other boats surrounded the
animal and pushed it along with their boat-hooks close under the
pier, where they finally despatched him, and with strong cords and
pullies raised him, with much difficulty, upon the pier. In a short
time afterwards such immense numbers of persons congregated to
gratify their curiosity, that Mr John Taylor, the high constable of
Deptford, was compelled to call for the aid of the R division of the
police to keep order.
The gory spectacle over, the whale was moved to the "Bull and Butcher"
pub in Old King Street and put on display. No time was lost in
circulating publicity material:-
EXTRAORDINARY AND SURPRISING NOVELTY!
MAY BE SEEN,
On the Premises of Mr. Williams,
BULL & BUTCHER,
Old King Street, Deptford,
A FINE YOUNG WHALE,
WHICH WAS KILLED OFF DEPTFORD PIER,
Yesterday, (Sunday,) October 23rd 1842,
By a Number of Watermen.
The above measures in length above 20 Feet; in circumference 10
Feet, and weighs above 2 Tons.
May be viewed daily, from 9 o’Clock in the morning till 10 o’Clock
at Night.
The Illustrated London News account identifies it as a finback
whale, 14 feet 6 inches long (it seems to have grown in the flyer
quoted above). It also suggested how the whale came to be in such an
unlikely location: 'He is supposed to have gone blind in the river
while in pursuit of herrings.'
In 1891, a writer to the Kentish Notebook suggested that after being
displayed in Deptford, the whale went on to be shown at the "Half
Moon Inn" in Borough. Finally, it was dissected and its skeleton
given to the British Museum.
Perhaps even more strangely, this was not the first Deptford whale.
John Evelyn described one meeting an equally brutal end there in
June 1658:-
A large whale was taken betwixt my land butting on the Thames and
Greenwich, which drew an infinite concourse to see it, by water,
coach, and on foote, from London and all parts. It appeared first
below Greenwich at low water, for at high water it would have
destroyed all the boats; but lying now in shallow water, incompassed
with boats, after a long conflict it was killed with a harping yron,
struck in the head, out of which it spouted blood and water by two
tunnells, and after a horrid grone it ran quite on shore and died.
Its length was fifty-eight foote, height sixteen, black skin'd like
coach-leather, very small eyes, greate taile, and onely two small
finns, a picked snout, and a mouth so wide that divers men might
have stood upright in it; no teeth, but suck'd the slime onely as
thro' a grate of that bone which we call whale-bone; the throate yet
so narrow as would not have admitted the least of fishes. The
extremes of the cetaceous bones hang downwards from the upper jaw;
and was hairy towards the ends and bottom within-side; all of it
prodigious; but in nothing more wonderful than that an animal of so
greate a bulk should be nourished ony by slime through those
grates. |