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INTRODUCTION FOR PROFESSOR BRIDGES’ ADDRESS
FOR THE LAUNCH OF
The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger 1789-1857
At Whitby Museum on 16 December 2003
The Hakluyt Society has published Volume I of The Arctic Whaling Journals of William Scoresby the Younger 1789-1857, Volume 12 in the Third Series, edited by C. Ian Jackson.
The launch of this volume took place at the Whitby Museum, North Yorkshire, on 16th December 2003 when the President of the Society, Professor Roy Bridges, delivered the following address.
It is a great pleasure to be here in Whitby and, more particularly, with the Literary and Philosophical Society. I would like to say a few words on behalf of the Hakluyt Society which is very strongly represented here this afternoon....
I am afraid that, compared with your Society, the Hakluyt Society is a rather junior organisation: we were not founded until twenty three years after yourselves, in 1846. On the other hand, I think we would claim to be in the main line of a tradition of collecting, editing and publishing accounts of voyages and travels which does go back to the man after whom we are named, Richard Hakluyt and his famous volume of 1589, The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation.
However, as I say, the Hakluyt Society as such was founded in 1846 and since that time has published well over 350 volumes. It is a record of which we are very proud. We have tried to produce editions which will be good reading for the general reader interested in voyages and travels and the cultural encounters to which they so often lead but also editions which are properly edited, annotated and introduced for the benefit of specialist scholars. I think the volume we have today, incidentally, illustrates those qualities wonderfully well as a result of Ian Jackson’s work and all the help I know he received here in the Library and Museum. The Hakluyt Society also tries to produce handsome books which are a pleasure to read and handle as I hope any of you not familiar with our volumes will discover today.
To return to 1846 for a moment, I can say that when the Society was set up, there was some debate about whether it should concentrate, as Hakluyt himself had done, on English or at least British explorers and travellers. In fact, the founder, William Desborough Cooley, wished his new creation to be called the ‘Columbus Society’ to emphasise the more universal appeal and it very nearly became that. Although the name Hakluyt was preferred, in practice, the Society has done what Cooley wanted and published editions in English translation of the work of navigators and explorers from many nations. One of our other current projects is an edition of the journals of the great Enlightenment hero of the Spanish navy, Alejandro Malaspina.
But we certainly do not neglect British figures. I think that people here will be very much aware of the Hakluyt Society’s publications of records relating to that greatest of maritime navigators associated with Whitby, Captain Cook. Altogether, thirteen volumes have appeared, most notably the five volumes of the journals, two of coastal views and charts plus the definitive biography by JC Beaglehole.
Another British figure from the generation after Cook but still, I think, a product of the Enlightenment is, of course, the man we are here today to honour, William Scoresby the Younger. I use the term ‘British’ and refer to the Enlightenment very deliberately. As Ian Jackson’s Introduction so admirably shows, it was his attendance at Edinburgh University classes and association with the intellectual elite of that City which made him the great scientist and observer that he became. The Scottish connections went beyond Edinburgh, of course, as sailors and stores were picked up in Orkney or Shetland for the whaling expeditions.
Whatever national designation one attaches to Scoresby, what a remarkable and interesting man he was. Clearly, he earned the respect attention not only of the intellectuals in Edinburgh but also of Sir Joseph Banks and the scientific establishment in London. Beyond that, the Royal Navy and the Admiralty itself in the shape of its irascible Second Secretary, John Barrow, had to take account of Scoresby and his recommendations. Very unwisely, Barrow and the Navy did not always follow Scoresby’s advice as well as they should have done. Nor did they always treat Scoresby very fairly. Be that as it may, Scoresby undoubtedly may be said to have inaugurated the renewed British search for the North West Passage and scientific polar expeditions in the nineteenth century Scoresby and his father had themselves reached further north than anyone else before recorded when they got to 81˚ 12’ 42’’ a record which stood until 1827. The Scoresby achievement remained the second furthest north until, I think, someone born in the parish where I live in Scotland, Admiral Nares, took the Alert and Discovery to 82˚ and then sent land parties beyond 83˚ in 1875.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, Scoresby had become a clergyman and chaplain in the Church of England but remained a respected scientific figure. In the 1850s, the key figure, indeed the dominating figure, in the British scientific and geographical establishment was Sir Roderick Murchison. Among many other positions he held, incidentally, was the Presidency of the Hakluyt Society. I think Murchison must have met Scoresby at various meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science from the 1830s and they were both present at the dispatch of Lt. Inglefield and the Isabel to the Arctic in 1852. Five years or so later, Murchison produced a long and handsome obituary tribute to Scoresby in an address to the Royal Geographical Society despite the fact that Scoresby was not actually a member of the RGS (nor, incidentally, of the Hakluyt Society as far as I can discover). The obituary mentioned Scoresby’s Arctic work, his experiments in magnetism and his religious career. Murchison said that Scoresby’s sermons were made stronger by his ‘philosophical reflections which imparted to them much dignity and freshness’. Altogether, according to Murchison, Scoresby sustained the reputation and extended the influence of the British name by the peaceful triumphs of science and philanthropy.
That is a pretty good and just verdict. Yet Scoresby was also capable of inspiring and informing that most admirable of the Victorian novelists, Mrs Gaskell. I have found her story of ‘Monkshaven’ and Sylvia’s Lovers there a fascinating introduction to Whitby and the background from which Scoresby came.
On behalf of the Hakluyt Society, I can repeat that we are very glad to be here and proud to be able to assist in maintaining and enhancing interest in William Scoresby. The Society is pleased to be the medium by which the scholarship of Ian Jackson will reach an audience which is literally world-wide. Our profound thanks go to him but I am sure he will agree with me that the fact that this edition has begun to appear owes a great deal to Will Ryan, Professor Will Ryan, the Society’s Joint Honorary Secretary who has acted as midwife, as it were. I would also like to mention the work of our printing adviser and manager, Stephen Easton, whom illness has prevented from attending today.
Perhaps you will allow me to add my thanks to Mr Graham Pickles, Mr Roger Pickles and their colleagues who have organised this ‘launch’. I trust that the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society will continue to flourish and on behalf of the Hakluyt Society, and I am sure, all your other visitors today, I thank you most warmly for inviting us to be present on this occasion.
December 2003 Roy Bridges
President of the Hakluyt Society |
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