Abraham “Bram” Stoker 8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) Bram Stoker was an Irish author, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel, Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned. Stoker was born on […]
Dracula One of the most popular stories ever told, Dracula has been re-created for the stage and screen hundreds of times in the last century. Yet it is essentially a Victorian saga, an awesome tale of thrillingly bloodthirsty vampire whose nocturnal atrocities reflect the dark underside of a supremely moralistic age. Above all, Dracula is […]
Caedmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals at the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy (657–680) of St. Hilda (614–680), he was originally ignorant of “the art of song” but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according […]
Sutcliffe Gallery Whitby Film and Photograph Library Address: 1 Flowergate, Whitby, North Yorkshire YO21 3BA Phone:01947 602239
Francis Meadow (Frank) Sutcliffe (6 October 1853 – 31 May 1941) Frank Sutcliffe was an English pioneering photographic artist whose work presented an enduring record of life in the seaside town of Whitby, England, and surrounding areas, in the late Victorian era and early 20th century. He made a living as a portrait photographer, working […]
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 […]
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 […]
