Samuel Enderby (17 January 171919 September 1797) was an English
whale oil
Whale oil is oil obtained from the blubber of whales. Whale oil from the bowhead whale was sometimes known as train oil, which comes from the Dutch word ''traan'' (" tear" or "drop").
Sperm oil, a special kind of oil obtained from the head ...
merchant, significant in the history of
whaling in the United Kingdom
Commercial whaling in Britain began late in the 16th century and continued after the 1801 formation of the United Kingdom and intermittently until the middle of the 20th century.
The trade was broadly divided into two branches. The northern fisher ...
. In the 18th century, he founded
Samuel Enderby & Sons
Samuel Enderby & Sons was a whaling and sealing company based in London, England, founded circa 1775 by Samuel Enderby (1717–1797). The company was significant in the history of whaling in the United Kingdom, not least for encouraging their ...
, a prominent shipping,
whaling
Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution.
It was practiced as an organized industr ...
, and
sealing company.
Stuart Ash, ''The Eponymous Enderbys of Greenwich'' (2015) atlantic-cable.com
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Family
The Enderby family had been tanners Tanners may refer to:
* Tanners (company), a British wine company
* Tanners, Virginia, an unincorporated community located in Madison County, United States
* Jerald and Sandra Tanner, opponents of the LDS Church (Mormons)
* Leatherhead F.C., a fo ...
(leather workers) at Bermondsey
Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham ...
, and supported Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...
. Daniel Enderby I raised money for the army in the Long Parliament, as recorded in Hansard. The family was granted forfeited estates at Lismore, County Waterford
Lismore () is a historic town in County Waterford, in the province of Munster, Ireland. Originally associated with Saint Mochuda of Lismore, who founded Lismore Abbey in the 7th century, the town developed around the medieval Lismore Castle. ...
, Ireland, which were sold in 1660. After that time, the family was active in the 'oil and Russia trade' and traded with the New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...
colonies.[K.M. Dallas, 'Enderby, Samuel (1756-1829)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, Melbourne University Press, 1966, p. 357.]
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On 2 June 1752, Samuel Enderby II married Mary Buxton, a daughter of his business partner, at St Paul's Wharf in London. Enderby died in 1797, leaving the company to his three sons Charles, Samuel III, and George.
/ref>
Samuel Enderby III (1755-1829) owned ''Britannia'', the ship that made the first successful whale catch off Australia (10 November 1791). He was the grandfather of Major-General Charles George Gordon
Major-General Charles George Gordon CB (28 January 1833 – 26 January 1885), also known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British Army officer and administrator. He saw action in the Crimean War as an officer in ...
.
Fictional references
* In Chapter 100 of the novel ''Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...
'', the ''Pequod Pequod or Pequot may refer to:
*The Pequod, or Pequot
The Pequot () are a Native American people of Connecticut. The modern Pequot are members of the federally recognized Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, four other state-recognized groups in Conne ...
'' of Nantucket meets a whaling ship of London named the ''Samuel Enderby'',[Herman Melville, 'Moby-Dick', Harper & Brothers, New York, 1851, Chapters 100 & 101] which has also encountered the White Whale. The ''Samuel Enderby'' was a real ship, which was in fact among the three Enderby company ships (the other two were the ''Fancy'' and the ''Brisk'') from England that arrived at Port Ross in 1849 carrying the 150 colonists for the new Enderby Settlement.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Enderby, Samuel
British people in whaling
English businesspeople
Sealers
1719 births
1797 deaths