Bayley’s voyages and the scale of the hunt
Rhys Richards reconstructs Charles Bayley’s whaling career from voyages, logbooks and other records. He estimates that ships under Bayley’s command killed 291 sperm whales and 79 right whales. These are reconstructed historical estimates rather than independently counted individual animals. Surviving logbooks of the Fortitude and Runnymede are identified in the Sir William Crowther Collection in Tasmania.
Why the numbers need a voyage
An estimate of a whaling captain’s career catch is only meaningful when the voyages, dates and species behind it are identifiable. Nineteenth-century records use different units and may mix shipboard and shore-station production. Bayley’s story therefore gains depth through the Wallaby’s specific movements and reported catches rather than through a single grand total detached from its source. The same caution applies to the oil figures for Long Point, where 1840, 1841 and 1842 tell sharply different stories.
Explore connected books
Explore connected history
- Bayley career catch estimates
- Bayley primary-source trail
- Captain Charles Bayley: Whaling Master 1813–1875
- Charles Bayley and Wallaby at Kāpiti in 1842
- Captain Charles Bayley Whaling Master 1813 1875
- Eleven ships off Kāpiti in 1837
- Alexander Fraser 1840 station accounts
- Wallaby crew absconded at Kāpiti
- Wallaby travelled between Kāpiti and southern ports
- Wallaby 1842 right-whale catch
- Fortitude 1843 return
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Continue with these connected accounts. Each opens a separate book with its own evidence and perspective.