WHALES

Ambergris

Ambergris is a waxy product of sperm whales digestive systems. It is used by perfumers as a fixative.

Website: www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-ambergrisl

Anti-Whaling

In 1922 Sir Sidney Harmer (1862-1950), Director of the British Museum (Natural History), spoke out against the scale of Norwegian whaling activity in the waters of British sub-Antarctica.

See Also: ANIMAL WELFARE

Moby Dick the Novel

In 1857 Herman Melville lived in London for a few months in order to try to secure the copyright of a number of his works. Upon his return to the United States, he took a position as a custom inspector and concentrated his literary efforts upon poetry.

Location: 25 Craven Street, WC2N 5NT (orange, purple)

The Moby Dick Pub

The Moby Dick pub is on Whalebone Lane, East London. It may commemorate a whale that was washed ashore locally.

Location: Whalebone Lane North, Chadwell Heath, Romford, RM6 6QU

Website: www.tobycarvery.co.uk/restaurants/london/mobydickromford

Strays

Circa 1880 a whale was beached at Woolwich. For many years its jaw bones stood at the Stewart Road/Holmsfield Road entrance to Peckham Rye Park.

In 2006 a 19ft.-long, four-ton, female northern bottlenose whale entered the Thames. She swam as far as upstream Battersea Bridge. An attempt to rescue her failed and she died. The river is several hundred miles from the species's feeding grounds off the Norwegian coast. Subsequently, a variety of theories were postulated as to why she had done what she had. These included: the possibility that the gonatus armhook squid, upon which she would have naturally fed, might have changed their feeding grounds because the North Sea had become warmer; and that the mammal may have become disorientated as a result of being exposed to marine acoustics explosions that were used to locate oilfields under the expanse s waters.

The Thames whale is displayed in Tring Museum.

Location: Battersea Bridge, SW11 3BZ (purple, black)

Cheyne Walk, SW3 5BB (purple, blue)

Website: www.londonsroyaldocks.com/forgotten-stories-whale-meat https://isleofdogslife.wordpress.com/2016/02/11/the-story-of-the-woolwich-whale-1899 (An 1899 beaching)

The Tusked Terrorist

Usman Khan became associated with Al Muhajiroun, a proscribed U.K.-based jihadist movement. In 2012 he pled guilty to having participated in a plot that had sought to carry out a number of terror attacks. While in custody he participated in the Healthy Identity Intervention Programme rehabilitation programme and was assessed as having been reformed by it. In 2018 he was released upon licence.

The following year Khan was invited to participate in a meeting that the University of Cambridge's Institute of Criminology organised. The event was held in Fishmongers Hall. During it, using knives he had secreted on his person, he stabbed to death two of the participants and injured a further three. Darryn Frost, a Ministry of Justice civil servant, grabbed a narwhal's tusk that was hanging on a wall. With it, he, and the former prisoners John Crilly and Steve Gallant, chased Khan out onto London Bridge. There, the terrorist revealed that he was wearing a (fake) suicide vest. He was shot dead by members of the City of London Police.

See Also: ISLAMISM

Website: https://fishmongers.org.uk/rooms

Woodwork's Loss

Sidney Holt (1926-2020) grew up in East London. During his schooling he was obligated to choose between the sciences and practical subjects, such as woodwork. Initially, he opted for the latter but chose the former when his best friend told him that he was going to do them.

In the early 1960s the International Whaling Commission appreciated that there were too many vested interests on its scientific committee. One of the independent experts it called upon was Holt, who with Ray Beverton (1922-1995) had written the book On The Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations (1957). They probably saved the blue whale as a species.

David Backhouse 2024