Famous People from Whitby and the surrounding area
Captain James Cook Captain James Cook, RN was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer. He made three voyages to the Pacific Ocean, accurately charting many areas and recording several islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. His most notable accomplishments were the British discovery and claiming of the east coast of Australia; […]
William Scoresby Junior Also born in Cropton near Whitby in October 1789 was William Scoresby Junior. His schooling was very broken, going to 3 different ones before settling in a private schoool in Whitby run by Mr Routh whom Routh Walk in Skinner Street is named. Scoresby junior made his first voyage at the age […]
Other whaling ships Whitby Then in 1807 Scoresby invented the Crows Nest. It is believed the pulpit in St Mary’s Parish Church, at the top of the 199 steps, near Whitby Abbey, was the inspiration for this. Scoresby went on to to sail for a further ten years on board other whaling ships making four […]
The ‘Resolution’ Whitby In 1803 Scoresby was offered captaincy and one eighth ownership of a new Whitby ship the ‘Resolution’ a brand new ship built by Fishburn and Brodrick. The ‘Resolution’ set sail from Whitby with the captain’s son, William Scoresby Jnr at just 13 years old, and was a huge success. With another 7 […]
The ‘Dundee’ Whitby Soon offers were being made to Scoresby and eventually he finally became commander of the London ship the ‘Dundee’, a much larger vessel than ‘Henrietta’. In 1798 the Dundee set sail for the Greenland Fishery and returned with an enormous 36 whales. This was Scoresby’s record catch. For 5 years he sailed […]
The ‘Henrietta’ Scoresby’s first command, the ship the Henrietta, came in 1791 when he took over from Captain Chrispin Bean. Its was a bad first season for the Whale Fishery, 4 out of 7 ships came home with empty holds, one ship was lost and the 2 remaining ships came home with 1 ‘fish’ each. […]
William Scoresby, Senior (1760 – 1829) One of Whitby’s famous son’s is William Scoresby, the famous whaler and explorer spending most of his life around the Whitby area when not at sea catching whales! Few other names in the history of Arctic exploration are so well known as that of Captain William Scoresby. Born on […]
Robin Jarvis Whitby A trilogy of young adult novels, The Whitby Witches, makes much of the town’s setting and history, embellishing local traditions whilst incorporating them into the narrative. The author, Robin Jarvis, recalls “The first time I visited Whitby, I stepped off the train and knew I was somewhere very special. It was a […]
Charles Dickens Whitby Charles Dickens is known to have visited Whitby and in a letter of 1861 to his friend Wilkie Collins who was staying in Whitby at the time. Dickens states “In my time that curious railroad by the Whitby Moor was so much the more curious, that you were balanced against a counter-weight […]
The Resolution Hotel Whitby This unpretentious hotel in an Edwardian-style building is a 3 minutes’ walk from Pannett Park and a 5-minute walk from Whitby train station. Traditional rooms feature flat-screen TVs, and tea and coffee-making equipment. A room with a 4-poster bed offers direct views of Whitby Abbey (a landmark in Bram Stoker’s Dracula). […]
