Papers of the Hobart whaling conference : 6-7 May 2019 /editors: Graeme Broxam and Dale Chatwin.

"The Inaugural Hobart Whaling Conference held in Hobart in May 2019 and hosted by the Maritime Museum of Tasmania sought to harvest the enormous amount of personal research which occurs outside of the funded university research scholarship and academic system. In addition to contributions by Australian whaling and sealing researchers the conference attracted papers by three British researchers and three New Zealand researchers. The range of topics explored whaling and sealing around Australasia and the Pacific by the British and Colonial Whale and Seal Fisheries. And through American contributions were not sought the Conference still managed to accommodate two papers related to American whaling - one on the American presence in Hobart in the 1840s and 1850s and the other on US bay whaling rock art left behind in norht-western Australia in the 1840s. In this volume you will find three papers on British Southern Whale Fishery. One on whaling to the north of Australia around Indonesia and New Guinea; the second, based on newly uncovered logs, on the remarkable whaling career of British whaling master, James Choyce; and the third on British south sea whaling surgeons who's importance as skilled observers and commentators is becoming ever more significant. This is followed by a three Colonial (Australian and New Zealand) papers including a project to create Track Charts for whaling voyages where no log exists; a paper on the Waiopuka Fishery based at Kaikoura in the 1840s; and a 'viewing' and discussion of the 'Whangamumu Whaling Film' made in the 1930s which sought to re-enact using original whalemen the techniques of chasing and taking humpback whales from open boats. Five papers on Tasmanian and Hobart whaling include a paper seeking to establish the true scale of Tasmania whaling; an examination of the story of Tasmanian whaling presented in popular 'histories'; a look at the whaling and sealing interests of Tasmanian George Meredith; a paper on the activities of the American Consul in Hobart in the 1840s and 1850s; and a paper examining Norwegian interests in the 1920s and 30s when they found Hobart a useful base of Antarctic whaling. Sealing papers include some preliminary thoughts on three Sydney based entrepreneurs from very early days in the Colony including JOhn Grono and a paper on the involvement of the Australian sealer Richard Siddins on the South Shetland Islands. Moving back to whaling the Proceedings final papers include an in-depth examination of whaling in Western Australian from drift to modern whaling and lastly a paper examining British whalers as collectors of cultural and natural history artefacts and specimens. All in all a tremendously varied and unique set of papers on what was the first Colonial industry."--Provided by the publisher.