From Wexford Harbour to London splendour
HOW A GIANT BLUE WHALE BEACHED OFF WEXFORD OVER 100 YEARS AGO ENDED UP A SPECTACULAR CENTRE PIECE AT LONDON’S NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
THE skeleton of a giant blue whale beached off Wexford harbour in 1891 was the toast of London at an unveiling in the Natural History Museum which was attended by the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton and the famous naturalist and broadcaster Sr. David Attenborough who first saw the exhibit when he was 10 years old, a childhood experience he described as transformative.
In a new Horizon documentary for the BBC which was broadcast last Thursday night to coincide with the official unveiling, Attenborough traced the history of the spectacular specimen and spoke to local descendants of Edward (Ned) Wickham, the Wexford lifeboat coxwain and fisherman who killed it with a makeshift harpoon.
The skeleton of the blue whale which met a lonely death on the Swanton sandbank at mouth of Wexford harbour 126 years ago, now enjoys pride of place suspended from the ceiling in the grand entrance hall of the museum in a lunge-feeding pose with its jaws open wide and has been given the name ‘Hope’ as a symbol of humanity’s power to shape a sustainable future.
Staff at the museum spent months preparing the bones for their new home after the skeleton was removed from its old hanging place in the mammals gallery where it first went on display in 1938 although the specimen first arrived at the museum in March 1892 and was put into storage for many years.
Due to its enormous size, curators, conservation teams and engineers worked on the 83ft long, 4.5 tonne skeleton in an off-site warehouse. It was cleaned and
strengthened and finally re-hung from iron girders that support the ceiling in the building’s impressive Hintze hall.
The museum’s Head of Conservation Lorraine Cornish said suspending such a large, complex and historical specimen from a Victorian ceiling was always challenging but everyone was thrilled with the result.
David Attenborough who is now 91 years old, recalled seeing the Wexford skeleton during a visit to the Natural History Museum when he was a boy. ‘I was absolutely blown away. I remember running up the stairs to the balcony and asking an attendant if the whale skeleton in the gallery was real. And she said ‘yes’ and not only that but you can still see these animals in the ocean today.’
‘I got home and the very next day I headed down to the public library to try and find as many books as I could on whales. It was, to coin a phrase, a defining moment’.
Sir David joined the Duchess of Cambridge, patron of the Natural History Museum, in inaugurating the new exhibit at a gala reception last Thursday.
He said he was delighted to see the whale take centre stage at the museum and added: ‘It’s been an honour and a privilege to work with the specimen that inspired me all those years ago - to breathe new life into it; to inject science from the field into it; to display it in such a more meaningful way. I honestly believe it will take people’s breath away when they see it.
The presenter met a large group of Wickham’s descendants in the RNLI station on Wexford bridge as part of the documentary including Ned’s grandaughters Mary and Elizabeth who outlined the history of the Wexford whale. Members of the family are planning a special visit to the museum in August.
The Duchess of Cambridge said her children George and Charlotte loved the Natural History Museum, and not just for the dinosaurs. She hoped the new exhibit would ‘encourage us all to think about and to care for our marine life’.
THE 15-year old female blue whale was found thrashing for its life on a sandbank off Wexford on March 25, 1891. It struggled to stay alive for a day before Edward Wickham bravely approached the stranded mammal and killed it with a knife. In an account of the story on a plaque on Wexford quayfront, it’s stated that it was not known whether this was an act of ‘ mercy or enterprise’.
The carcass of the Wexford whale was bought by the museum for £250, the equivalent of about £20,000 today but the animal had changed hands a few times before the museum took possession of it. Wexford town merchant William Armstrong had purchased the whale, advertised in the Freeman’s Journal as a ‘Recovery of Wreck’ for 100 Guineas (£111).
More than 600 gallons of oil for fuel were extracted from the body and sold by Armstrongs at 1s 6d per gallon while the meat was sold off for dog food. Some of the whale’s baleen plates or teeth were sold for use in women’s corsets.
The dead animal became local celebrity with boat trips organised to bring sighseers out to its resting place.
Museum director Sir Michael Dixon said the Wexford whale told a ‘powerful story’ which is why they had chosen to put her at the heart of the museum.
‘Hanging a whale from the roof of a Grade 1 listed building was no easy feat,’ he said, and he thanked all those who had worked to get the 221 bones of the largest animal ever to live, above the heads of the audience.
The museum’s curator of marine mammals Richard Sabin also travelled to Wexford where he met members of the Wickham family and took a boat trip out into the harbour where the blue whale died.
Newspaper articles from the time describe how fisherman Edward came across the whale floundering on a sandbank. He bravely approached the animal and used a harpoon to ‘dispatch the big fish’ which was initially mistaken for a sperm whale. Blue whales, the largest creatures that have ever lived on planet earth are now making a recovery following decades of exploitation that nearly drove them out of existence. The museum hopes the whale will capture the imagination of visitors and challenge the way people think about the natural world.
The skeleton model of Dippy the diplodocus dinosaur which previously hung in the entrance hall is being prepared for a tour around the UK.