By the end of the 18th century, British whalers began to venture into the South Atlantic and eventually places in the Pacific such as Australia to hunt baleen whales. Kurzon, CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsĪs commercial competition between European nations expanded and the want for oil increased, so too did the whaling industry. Oil was used for a variety of purposes: textile manufacturing, soap-making, lubrication and, most importantly, lighting. Once removed from the whale, strips of blubber were placed in large iron vats called tryworks, and slowly boiled until rendered into oil. Both species were the “right” whales to hunt as they were slow swimmers that yielded large amounts of blubber. During the 18th century, the main species of whales targeted were the Bowhead Whale and the North Atlantic Right Whale. The primary motivator for commercial whaling for much of its history was oil. While Charlotte in the Netflix series may claim that whales died so women “could look like this” – pointing to her fashionable outfit shaped by corsets and hooped skirts – fashion was not the driving motivator for whaling during the 18th century. 1770-1780) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne By the 18th century it was used in foundation garments, bonnets, walking sticks, parasols and even dentistry. The first references to whalebone in Britain come from the wardrobe accounts of Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. Whalebone had been used in European fashion since the mid-to-late 16th century when it began to be used to structure women’s farthingales and bodies (hoop skirts and corsetry) and to stiffen men’s doublets and collars. Credit: Marc Webber/USFWS, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Whaling and fashion Gray whale calf with mouth open, showing baleen. However, modern commercial whaling first began in the 16th century, when Spanish and French Basques began hunting these animals around Labrador in Newfoundland, Canada.īy the start of the 17th century, Europeans (Basques, French, English, Dutch, Germans and Portuguese, to name a few) also began to hunt baleen whales along the shorelines of Brazil and in the Arctic in Spitsbergen in Norway, and then around Greenland. Rather, it is the name given to long hairy plates made of keratin – the same substance that makes hair, fingernails and horn – in the mouth of various species of baleen whales.īaleen allows the whale to feed, as it traps small sea creatures such as krill in the mouth as the animal gulps and then expels water.īaleen whales had been hunted around the world since prehistoric times. Whalebone is the colloquial English term for a material known as baleen. Credit: Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons What is Whalebone? Portrait of the British queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. While it is true that whales died to provide one key material used in the manufacture of women’s underpinnings from the 16th through to 20th centuries, the real Princess and then Queen Charlotte, who had a keen interest in the natural world, would have understood whalebone is not actually delicate bone. These “whalebones”, she claims, are “delicate” and “sharp” and may stab her if she makes a wrong move. Sitting uncomfortably in a carriage on her way to London to meet King George III, Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz laments that her underpinnings (stays – the 18th-century term for corset – and hoop petticoat) are not only uncomfortable but made of “the bones of whales”. The Bridgerton writers have once again taken aim at the corset in the opening sequence of the first episode. The hotly anticipated prequel to the popular Bridgerton series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, has just been released on Netflix.
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