Montrose Whaling Fleet

[Chilternbirder]

Searches on the web have only found me fairly general information about the Montrose Whaling Fleet. I am trying to find out if there is any repository holding crew lists or ships logbooks for the first 35 years of the 19th century. I am not looking for somebody to do lookups, just to know if which location, if any to visit.

I am trying to fill in background information on my ggg grandfather John Fraser (1799-1834). He was a harpooner and was lost at sea in 1834 so I suspect that he was on the London, which I believe was the only Montrose whaler to be lost in that year.

[hdw]

The standard work on Arctic whaling is Eric Lubbock "The Arctic Whalers", but there isn't an entry for Montrose in the index so it wouldn't be easy to find information about whaling from that port.

Apparently a new book has just come out from Birlinn -

http://www.birlinn.co.uk/Scottish-Arctic-Whaling.html

A couple of years ago the historian Dr. Eric Graham was advertising in genealogy journals for volunteers to transcribe whaling records, which are very precise, with details of crewmen, etc., but his project doesn't seem to have got off the ground. I would have been interested as I had ancestors and other relatives who went to the whaling from Kirkcaldy and Dundee.

Harry

[amberdog]

Try contacting Montrose Museum. They used to display whaling related items, probably still do. Montrose library and Angus Archives might be able to give you some leads too.