Economic Activity GAZ Whitehaven

The port and trade: The prosperity of Whitehaven was built on coal and its place as a port in the coastal and Atlantic trade.  Writing in 1687-8, during the town’s initial phase of expansion, Thomas Denton described it thus:

the buildings there are much enlarged & augmented by the great encrease of trade within this twenty years; the houses being build of pure white stones, hewen out of the said rock, & the town running along the shore in a figure like an halfe moon, between the cliffe & Branstee-brow.  The vessells there are fraught with cole from Hensingham & Morisby pitts, and with salt from Branstee pans & Workington Park, and with grindstones from Whitehaven & St Bees cliffs; and (of late) the merchants have had a corn trade for oats & bigge principally, in lieu of which commodities, they import French wines and brandee from Burdeux & Naunts; firr, dales, pitch, tarr & cordage from Denmark & Norwey; tobacco & sugar canes from the West Indies.  Which various commodities comeing in frequently in so great plenty, & being sold at very moderate rates, will in a short time very much lessen the Newcastle trade, if these Whitehaven merchants chance to succeed, as they have begun.

His optimism was well-founded; by the mid-18th century, Whitehaven was one of the leading ports in England and was second only to London in the tobacco trade.  Its trade created a number of wealthy merchants.  Though it lost out to Liverpool in the later 18th century, it remained an important port across the 19th century.  There was also a thriving shipbuilding industry until the end of the 19th century as wooden ships gave way to iron, and sail gave way to steam (sailmaking continued until 1931). At the end of the 20th century a shipyard was reopened on the historic site of the principal shipbuilders of old.

Fishing:  Whitehaven was a fishing industry from at least the 13th century; fishing continues now and significant new fish handling facilities were opened in the 1990s, with a retail fish merchants added in 2010.

Coal mining, first recorded (in Bell Pits/Adits) in 1324 and finally finishing with the closure of Haig Pit in 1996. There were very many other mines over the years. Saltom Pit (opened 1714) was the first pit in the UK to mine under the sea. By 1814 of 258,750 tons mined 225,000 tons were exported. The peak year for exports (always mainly to Ireland) was 1928 at 400,000 tons, as late as 1976 72,000 tons were exported.

Other industries: There was also a large iron works at Bransty, also pottery making (until 1915). From 1938 there was also Sekers Silk Mills (see HENSINGHAM), and from 1941 Marchon Chemicals. They started out manufacturing firelighters, but soon specialised in soap powders. They had an anhydrite mine from 1955, but also shipped in phosphate rock from Morocco from the 1960s to the 1990s (nearly 500,000 tons in 1976) by ship, transferred in to the harbour on barges, then by railway to the works. Marchon has closed in the last decade and is now demolished. A military uniform manufacturer, H. Edgard, moved to the town in 1940 (blitzed out of London) and was a major employer for many years. Also the Beacon Mills from 1885 (Quaker Oats from 1949 to 1972).