Thomas Edge
Encyclopedia
Thomas Edge was an English
merchant, whaler, and sealer who worked for the Muscovy Company
in the first quarter of the 17th century. Edge was born in the parish of Blackburn, Lancashire
in 1587/88. His father was Ellis Edge. Edgeøya
(Edge Island, which was rediscovered by English whalers in 1616) is named after him. He also had the eastern point of Recherchefjorden
named after him, but it is now known as Lægerneset
.
, master and pilot, on a whaling voyage to Spitsbergen
. Edge, in his A Brief Discovery of the Northern Discoveries, which appeared in Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625), says the ships left Blackwall
for Spitsbergen on April 20 (Poole says April 11) and arrived there on May 20.
On June 12, he says one of the six Basque
whalemen recruited from the French town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz
caught the first Bowhead whale
, "which yielded twelve Tuns of oil, being the first Oil that ever was made in Greenland." While hunting Walrus
in or near English Bay (Engelskbukta
) on June 28 or June 29, a "small quantity of Ice" came out of Foul Sound (Forlandsundet
) and "put the Ship from her Mooring." Steven Bennet
, master of the Mary Margaret, along with ten other men, were aboard the ship at the time. They lowered the sheet anchor to save the ship from being driven ashore, but "the Ice coming upon her again, brought her Anchor home and ran the Ship ashore." With the ship lost, Edge ordered the ship's boat and their four shallops made ready for sea. The boats were loaded with what provisions they could carry, and the men (totalling nearly fifty) left Forlandsundet on July 15 and sailed south.
One of the shallops and the ship's boat "lost company" with the other three boats while off Horn Sound
. Here they met the Hopewell, of Hull
, under Thomas Marmaduke
, who, after hearing £1,500 worth of goods had been put ashore where the Mary Margaret had been lost, allowed the men to led him to the place to retrieve said goods, as well as to hunt Walrus.
On July 29, after having rowed and sailed for two weeks, the three boats landed on the south side of Bear Island. Edge sent three men to see if Poole and the Elizabeth where on the north side of the island. Here they found him. Poole sailed to the south side of the island, picked up the rest of the men, and sailed for Forlandsundet. Edge says they arrived at Forlandsundet on August 14, where they found the other two boats' crews as well as Marmaduke. In attempting to transfer the goods of the Mary Margaret unto the Elizabeth, Poole allowed his ship to capsize, forcing them to freight themselves and what goods survived on the Hopewell. They arrived at Hull on September 6, where Edge shipped their goods to London
.
In 1612, Edge sailed to Spitsbergen as master of the Sea Horse. From 1613 to 1619 Edge served either as commander or co-commander of the English whaling fleet. He appears to have spent several of these seasons aboard ships that anchored in Bell Sound (Bellsund
), the principal area for English whaling. He often had to deal with foreign interlopers intent on whaling in Spitsbergen. For example, in 1615 several Danish men-of-war, led by Gabriel Kruse
, tried to force him to pay a fine in order to whale in what was claimed by the Danish to be part of Christian IV
's territory, but he refused. In 1617 he ordered away a whaleship from Vlissingen but also allowed two Danish whaleships to hunt whales in Horn Sound, while in the following year he had to deal with several more vessels from the Dutch provinces. In 1620, in order to cover debts, the Muscovy Company handed over the whaling side to four members of the company, one being Edge. In 1621 and 1622 Edge and his partners again sent ships to Spitsbergen.
, at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. In November 1623 Edge, now of London, purchased the Manor of Bulsnape, in the parish of Kirkham
, Lancashire. In August 1624 he purchased the manor of Little Hoole, Lancaster
.
Edge died on December 29, 1624. He was survived by his wife Bridget, who had a child at the time, his two sons, Richard and George, and two daughters, Bridget and Ellen.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
merchant, whaler, and sealer who worked for the Muscovy Company
Muscovy Company
The Muscovy Company , was a trading company chartered in 1555. It was the first major chartered joint stock company, the precursor of the type of business that would soon flourish in England, and became closely associated with such famous names as Henry Hudson and William Baffin...
in the first quarter of the 17th century. Edge was born in the parish of Blackburn, Lancashire
Lancashire
Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...
in 1587/88. His father was Ellis Edge. Edgeøya
Edgeøya
Edgeøya, occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is an uninhabited Norwegian island in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; it is the third largest island in this archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the South East Svalbard Nature Reserve, home to polar bears and reindeer. Its eastern...
(Edge Island, which was rediscovered by English whalers in 1616) is named after him. He also had the eastern point of Recherchefjorden
Recherchefjorden
Recherchefjorden is a small fjord on the south side of Bellsund, Spitsbergen.-History:The fjord is named after the French cruiser La Recherche, which visited Spitsbergen in 1838 and 1839. Before being renamed, it had been called Schoonhaven by the Dutch since the early 17th century. The English...
named after him, but it is now known as Lægerneset
Lægerneset
Lægerneset is a point on the eastern side of Recherchefjorden, Svalbard. It was once known as "Whale Head" or "Edge's Point", which was named after the English merchant and whaler Thomas Edge. An English whaling station was situated on the point in the first half of the 17th century.-References:*...
.
Sealing, 1609-1610
In 1609 Edge served as supercargo of the Paul on a sealing voyage to Bear Island. In 1610 he again sailed to the island for sealing, this time as commander of the Lioness.Whaling, 1611-1619
In 1611, Edge was given command of two ships, the 150-ton ship Mary Margaret (which he sailed on as factor), and the 60-ton bark Elizabeth, Jonas PooleJonas Poole
Jonas Poole was an early 17th century English explorer, sealer, and whaler. Although Henry Hudson has often been dubbed the "father of English whaling," Poole, who's 1610 voyage led to the establishment of the English whaling trade, deserves the title.-Voyages to Bear Island, 1604-1609:He served...
, master and pilot, on a whaling voyage to Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
. Edge, in his A Brief Discovery of the Northern Discoveries, which appeared in Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625), says the ships left Blackwall
Blackwall, London
Blackwall is an area of the East End of London, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets on the north bank of the River Thames.The district around Blackwall Stairs was known as Blackwall by at least the 14th century. This presumably derives from the colour of the river wall, constructed in...
for Spitsbergen on April 20 (Poole says April 11) and arrived there on May 20.
On June 12, he says one of the six Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
whalemen recruited from the French town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Saint-Jean-de-Luz is a commune in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in south-western France.Saint-Jean-de-Luz is part of the province Basque of Labourd and the Basque Eurocity Bayonne - San Sebastian .-Geography:...
caught the first Bowhead whale
Bowhead Whale
The bowhead whale is a baleen whale of the right whale family Balaenidae in suborder Mysticeti. A stocky dark-colored whale without a dorsal fin, it can grow to in length. This thick-bodied species can weigh to , second only to the blue whale, although the bowhead's maximum length is less than...
, "which yielded twelve Tuns of oil, being the first Oil that ever was made in Greenland." While hunting Walrus
Walrus
The walrus is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the Odobenidae family and Odobenus genus. It is subdivided into three subspecies: the Atlantic...
in or near English Bay (Engelskbukta
Engelskbukta
Engelskbukta is a 1.5 km wide bay on the eastern side of the northern reaches of Forlandsundet, the sound that separates Prins Karls Forland and Spitsbergen. It derives its name from the fact that English whalers resorted to the bay in the first half of the 17th century...
) on June 28 or June 29, a "small quantity of Ice" came out of Foul Sound (Forlandsundet
Forlandsundet
Forlandsundet is an 88 km long sound separating Prins Karls Forland and Spitsbergen. Its northern limits are Fuglehuken to the west and Kvadehuken to the east. Its southern limits are Salpynten to the west and Daudmannsodden to the east.-References:...
) and "put the Ship from her Mooring." Steven Bennet
Steven Bennet
Steven Bennet was an early 17th century explorer, sealer, and whaler.-Life:In 1603 he was master of the 50-ton ship Grace, sent by Sir Francis Cherry on a trading and exploratory voyage. After sailing to the Kola River, they went to the northwest, intending to make "some further discoveries"...
, master of the Mary Margaret, along with ten other men, were aboard the ship at the time. They lowered the sheet anchor to save the ship from being driven ashore, but "the Ice coming upon her again, brought her Anchor home and ran the Ship ashore." With the ship lost, Edge ordered the ship's boat and their four shallops made ready for sea. The boats were loaded with what provisions they could carry, and the men (totalling nearly fifty) left Forlandsundet on July 15 and sailed south.
One of the shallops and the ship's boat "lost company" with the other three boats while off Horn Sound
Hornsund
Hornsund is a fjord on the western side of the southernmost tip of Spitsbergen island.The fjord's mouth faces west to the Greenland Sea, and is 12 km wide. The length is 30 kilometres, the mean depth is 90 metres, and the maximal depth is 260 metres...
. Here they met the Hopewell, of Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
, under Thomas Marmaduke
Thomas Marmaduke
Thomas Marmaduke was an English explorer, sealer, and whaler in the early 17th century.-Career:In a list dated from September 1600 Marmaduke is mentioned as being a younger brother of the Hull Trinity House. He was master of one of the two Hull interlopers sent to Bjørnøya in 1609...
, who, after hearing £1,500 worth of goods had been put ashore where the Mary Margaret had been lost, allowed the men to led him to the place to retrieve said goods, as well as to hunt Walrus.
On July 29, after having rowed and sailed for two weeks, the three boats landed on the south side of Bear Island. Edge sent three men to see if Poole and the Elizabeth where on the north side of the island. Here they found him. Poole sailed to the south side of the island, picked up the rest of the men, and sailed for Forlandsundet. Edge says they arrived at Forlandsundet on August 14, where they found the other two boats' crews as well as Marmaduke. In attempting to transfer the goods of the Mary Margaret unto the Elizabeth, Poole allowed his ship to capsize, forcing them to freight themselves and what goods survived on the Hopewell. They arrived at Hull on September 6, where Edge shipped their goods to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
In 1612, Edge sailed to Spitsbergen as master of the Sea Horse. From 1613 to 1619 Edge served either as commander or co-commander of the English whaling fleet. He appears to have spent several of these seasons aboard ships that anchored in Bell Sound (Bellsund
Bellsund
Bellsund is a 20 km long sound on the west coast of Spitsbergen, part of the Svalbard archipelago.-History:Bellsund was first seen by William Barents in 1596. He simply referred to it as Inwyck . In 1610 Jonas Poole explored Bellsund, giving the fjord the name it retains to this day. He named it...
), the principal area for English whaling. He often had to deal with foreign interlopers intent on whaling in Spitsbergen. For example, in 1615 several Danish men-of-war, led by Gabriel Kruse
Gabriel Kruse
Gabriel Christoffersen Kruse of Tulsted and Hjulebjerg was an officer in the Royal Dano-Norwegian Navy. He became a captain in 1610 and fought in the Kalmar War and the War against the Emperor .-Family:...
, tried to force him to pay a fine in order to whale in what was claimed by the Danish to be part of Christian IV
Christian IV of Denmark
Christian IV was the king of Denmark-Norway from 1588 until his death. With a reign of more than 59 years, he is the longest-reigning monarch of Denmark, and he is frequently remembered as one of the most popular, ambitious and proactive Danish kings, having initiated many reforms and projects...
's territory, but he refused. In 1617 he ordered away a whaleship from Vlissingen but also allowed two Danish whaleships to hunt whales in Horn Sound, while in the following year he had to deal with several more vessels from the Dutch provinces. In 1620, in order to cover debts, the Muscovy Company handed over the whaling side to four members of the company, one being Edge. In 1621 and 1622 Edge and his partners again sent ships to Spitsbergen.
Social life
On January 31, 1614, Edge married Bridget Poyntell, spinster and daughter of Richard Poyntell, of the parish of St. Botolph, BillingsgateBillingsgate
Billingsgate is a small ward in the south-east of the City of London, lying on the north bank of the River Thames between London Bridge and Tower Bridge...
, at the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. In November 1623 Edge, now of London, purchased the Manor of Bulsnape, in the parish of Kirkham
Kirkham, Lancashire
Kirkham, or as it once was known, Kirkam-in-Amounderness is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire, England, midway between Blackpool and Preston and adjacent to the smaller town of Wesham. It owes its existence to Carr Hill upon which it was built and which was the location...
, Lancashire. In August 1624 he purchased the manor of Little Hoole, Lancaster
Lancaster, Lancashire
Lancaster is the county town of Lancashire, England. It is situated on the River Lune and has a population of 45,952. Lancaster is a constituent settlement of the wider City of Lancaster, local government district which has a population of 133,914 and encompasses several outlying towns, including...
.
Edge died on December 29, 1624. He was survived by his wife Bridget, who had a child at the time, his two sons, Richard and George, and two daughters, Bridget and Ellen.