Thomas Welcome Roys (c. 1816 - d. 1877) was an American
whaleman. He was significant in the
history of whaling
This article discusses the history of whaling from prehistoric times up to the commencement of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. Whaling has been an important subsistence and economic activity ...
in that he discovered the Western Arctic
bowhead whale population and developed and patented whaling rockets in order to hunt the faster, more powerful species that had until then eluded European whalers.
Open-boat whaling
On 23 July 1848, in the
Sag Harbor
Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiner's Bay. The population was 2,772 at the 2 ...
bark ''Superior'', he sailed from the north Pacific through the
Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean, where he discovered an abundance of "new fangled monsters" (bowhead whales). The following season fifty
whalers (forty-six Yankee, two German, and two French vessels) sailed to the Bering Strait region on Roys's success alone.
Roys, in the
Cold Spring Harbor vessel ''Sheffield'', spent the summers of 1851-1853
cruising in the Sea of Okhotsk, obtaining in all over 4,500 barrels of oil.
Rorqual whaling
Iceland and other Atlantic hunting grounds
In 1855, while
cruising south of Iceland in the 441-ton ''Hannibal'', he was able to kill a "sulphurbottom" (
blue whale
The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known to have ever existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...
) with a Brown's bomb gun. He realized that if he had a better way to dispatch such large
rorquals, he could easily fill his ship's hold with
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 ...
. Due to his ship having taken a beating in a heavy gale in these waters, he was forced to put into
Lorient, France. While there, he ordered for "two rifles in pairs for killing
orqualwhales," staying long enough to see them nearly completed, then leaving for home in a steamship, and, when finished, having the guns sent by way of England to the US.
The following spring, he went out in the 175-ton brig ''William F. Safford'' to test his experimental whaling guns. The guns Roys had ordered from France were lost on the voyage out, so he had to persuade C. C. Brand of
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
, Connecticut., to let him use his
bomb lance, but to increase his bomb missiles to three pounds in order to ensure greater success. Roys sailed to
Bjørnøya, where he encountered vast numbers of blue, fin, and humpbacks. He fired at around sixty, with only a single blue whale being saved. He then sailed to
Novaya Zemlya, capturing two humpbacks there. After cruising off Russia and Norway, he came to anchor at
Queenstown, Ireland
Cobh ( ,), known from 1849 until 1920 as Queenstown, is a seaport town on the south coast of County Cork, Ireland. With a population of around 13,000 inhabitants, Cobh is on the south side of Great Island in Cork Harbour and home to Ireland's ...
, and thence went to England to reconstruct his lost French-made guns. He had Sir
Joseph Whitworth
Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet (21 December 1803 – 22 January 1887) was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for scre ...
manufacture him some
rifled whaling guns and shells. Roys returned to his ship, sailing from Queenstown on 26 November for the
Bay of Biscay. Here, when testing one of the guns, he blew off his left hand, having to amputate it "as well as we could with razors." They sailed to
Oporto, Portugal
Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...
, where Roys's lower arm had to be amputated.
Having failed in securing whales on another cruise in 1857, Roys redesigned his gun. This time, the rocket-powered harpoons proved too weak to penetrate the whales correctly. Undaunted, he made another cruise, this time to
South Georgia, but he wasn't able to take any whales. He cruised north to put into Lisbon, sailed to Africa, then west to the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...
in early 1859, where he was able to capture several humpbacks.
In 1861 Roys joined forces with the wealthy New York pyrotechnic manufacturer Gustavus Adolphus Lilliendahl in order to perfect his "whaling rocket". In mid-May 1862 Lilliendahl purchased the 158-ton bark ''Reindeer'', appointing Roys as her master. Unfortunately, she was seized on suspicion of being a
slaving ship, and when everything was finally cleared up, she sailed to Iceland, but arrived too late for the summer whaling season, and had to return home and wait until next year.
In 1863 Roys refitted the ''Reindeer'' and once again sailed to Iceland, but he damaged his rudder while off the coast of the island, and was only able to save one of the many whales he shot that season. Roys was much more successful the following season of 1864, saving eleven of the twenty whales that were shot, in part because he was using stronger harpoons and better lines. In November 1864 Roys obtained the rights to establish a shore station on the coast of Iceland from the Danish government. He acquired the twelve-ton, sixty-two-foot iron steamer ''Visionary'' in Scotland, and returned to Iceland in the spring of 1865. He arrived at
Seydisfjordur on 14 May, finding his bark ''Reindeer'' had already arrived there in April, loaded with whaling equipment, boilers, steam engines, timber, bricks, and everything necessary for the construction of his shore station. Lilliendahl supplied them with defective rockets, and before the station was built, they were forced to tow the dead whales to the ''Reindeer'', where they were flensed and processed the old fashioned way.
After his rockets were rebuilt, Roys and his crew set out in the ''Visionary'', with
whaleboat
A whaleboat is a type of open boat that was used for catching whales, or a boat of similar design that retained the name when used for a different purpose. Some whaleboats were used from whaling ships. Other whaleboats would operate from the sh ...
s in tow astern, to search for rorquals. Once a whale was sighted, the crews went to their respective boats, and if a whale was successfully captured, they'd heave the carcass to the surface with a steam winch, fasten it to the side of the ship, and tow it back to Seydisfjordur. For the 1865 season they took twenty or more whales, but also lost another twenty. The next season, 1866, he used the ''Sileno'' and the iron steamers ''Staperaider'' and ''Vigilant''- identical ship, bark-rigged, 116-feet long, each carrying two whaleboats and equipped with steam tryworks and powerful winches to bring aboard large strips of blubber when flensing whales. They killed ninety whales this season, with forty-three or forty-four being saved to produce 3,000 barrels of oil. Roys and Lilliendahl parted company at the end of the season, with Lilliendahl continuing on in Iceland for another year. Using the ''Vigilant'' and ''Staperaider'', he only caught thirty-six whales. After this season, he departed as well.
British Columbia
In 1868 Roys chartered the 83-three-foot, 25-ton steamer ''Emma'' to catch whales in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
n waters. His first cruise was a disaster, while the second cruise from early September to October he reportedly struck four whales, killing three, but lost all three in dense fogs. Persistent as ever, Roys formed the Victoria Whaling Adventurers Company on 22 October, and in January 1869 he sent the ''Emma'' to erect a shore station in
Barkley Sound
, image = Fishing boat in the Broken Group Islands.jpg
, image_size = 260px
, alt =
, caption = Barkley Sound
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, alt_bathymetry =
, caption_bathymetry =
, locat ...
,
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...
. Again, Roys was met with by failure, having made fast to only one whale. The harpoon broke free, and the whale escaped.
The next season, seemingly undeterred, Roys returned to British Columbia in the 179-ton brig ''Byzantium'' on 10 May 1871. He constructed a station at
Cumshewa Inlet Cumshewa Inlet (), also recorded or referred to in exploration logs as Cumchewas Harbour and Tooscondolth Sound, is a large inlet on the east coast of Moresby Island in the Haida Gwaii islands of the North Coast of British Columbia. The inlet was t ...
in the
Queen Charlotte Islands
Haida Gwaii (; hai, X̱aaydag̱a Gwaay.yaay / , literally "Islands of the Haida people") is an archipelago located between off the northern Pacific coast of Canada. The islands are separated from the mainland to the east by the shallow Heca ...
, and fitted out the ''Byzantium'' with proper onboard tryworks. As usual, Roys fared poorly. The ''Byzantium'' struck the rocks in Weynton Passage,
Johnstone Strait
, image = Pacific Ranges over Johnstone Strait.jpg
, image_size = 250px
, alt =
, caption = Johnstone Strait backdropped by the Vancouver Island Ranges
, image_bathymetry = Carte baie Knight ...
, forcing the men to abandon her and row ashore, to spend a frigid night huddled on the beach. Roys never operated a whaling company again.
Death
Roys shipped aboard a vessel in
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...
and contracted
yellow fever
Yellow fever is a viral disease of typically short duration. In most cases, symptoms include fever, chills, loss of appetite, nausea, muscle pains – particularly in the back – and headaches. Symptoms typically improve within five days. ...
. He was put ashore in
Mazatlan, where he died in abject poverty on 29 January 1877 of a stroke.
[Schmitt et al. (1980), p. 181.]
Footnotes
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Roys, Thomas Welcome
1816 births
1877 deaths
American people in whaling
19th-century American inventors