A whale of a time married to a polar bear washer

It was a classic boy-meets-girl moment. Two young people’s eyes meet over the decaying corpse of a whale and lifelong love is born. There was no looking back for William James and his paramour Miss Woods, who had the unusual occupation of polar bear washer. She was the daughter of Dundee theatre owner and entrepreneur John Woods who made a pile of cash out of displaying the Tay whale in the 1880s.

William was working as an assistant to the showman who had put the dead animal on show in a gigantic tent next to Dundee flour mill in East Dock Street.

It was there he met Miss Woods. Half a century later, they recalled their remarkable life together in an interview with The Courier to mark their golden wedding.

Miss Woods’ father was described as an “enterprising Dundee merchant…and a dealer in polar bears, Russian bears, seals, Arctic foxes and monkeys.”

Mr James told our reporter that they charged the public a shilling to see the whale in daytime and sixpence at night when the tent was lit by paraffin lamps. Thousands were ferried from High Street to East Dock Street in buses to see the corpse.

Next the whale was displayed in Glasgow and Liverpool but by that time there was little left of the creature bar the crippling smell, so the bones were presented to Dundee museum.

Mr James recalled that his father-in-law bought the wildest of animals from skippers of ships and kept them near his house in Roodyards Road, close to the gasholders on Dock Street.

They came mainly from the Terra Nova and the Arctic. The polar bears were rolled ashore in barrels and it was his wife’s job to wash and feed them. In time, many of the animals were sold on to circus owners who visited Dundee.

Mr James described his wife as a great animal lover and quipped that she once took a seal on the top of a tram to visit Dundee flower show.

After his years of grappling exotic beasts, Mr James eventually took a more mundane job as a machineman in the Caledon.

His wife once took a seal on the top of a tram to visit Dundee flower show