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Whale uses

Baleen

Fashion

Utilitarian

Utilitarian uses

Whale-bone prices were always a reflection of the demand for whale-bone for fashion uses. If the use declined then so did the profit margin of the whalers.

The revolutionary movement that shook France between 1787 and 1799 and the Napoleonic wars that followed were a major disruption for the fashion business. During the "Terror" to wear anything remotely aristocratic in style was to invite an appointment with Madame Guillotine and as a result the corset trade collapsed, and with it the price of whale-bone, from £398 a ton in 1766-69 to £102 in 1795.

An immediate result of the fall in price of whale-bone was a rapid development of less fashionable uses. The lightness, strength, elasticity and flexibility that had made whale-bone so useful to stay-makers and corsetieres meant that it was valuable in many other areas.

For example, whale-bone spokes dominated the umbrella market until 1852, when one Samuel Fox of Sheffield patented umbrella steel.

The thicker parts of the whale-bone plates were used for knife handles, carriage springs, bed-springs, fishing rods and carriage whips.

The thinner and lighter parts were used as frames for military headgear including guardsmen's busbies and bearskins.

In 1808, Samuel Crackles of Hull patented a method of cutting plates of whale-bone to provide an effective substitute for brush bristles. These hard wearing bristles were in much demand, particularly for chimney-sweeps' brushes.

Another Hull company, John Bateman and Robert Bowman of Silver Street, were also trading in whale-bone at that time, offering a wide range of small goods including sieves, nets, ornamental blinds, bed-bottoms and brushes.

Nothing was wasted: waste shavings from the manufacture of other products and the hairy bristles from the edges of the plates were used to upholster furniture and seating on railway carriages.

Whale-bone could also be moulded, under heat and pressure, into complex shapes and was used for a variety of luxury items. These included the handles of toddy and punch ladles, twisted walking sticks, the handles of Samurai swords, and hair combs.

Whale-bone was even considered for the production of flying-machines! In 1810, Thomas Walker published A Treatise Upon the Art of Flying by Mechanical Means, and wrote:

I think that the shafts of the wings and tail would answer the purpose in the best manner, if they were each of them made of six long strips of whalebone ...