Whitehaven

Although there was a Roman fort at Parton, around 1.2 miles (1.9 km) to the north, there is no evidence of a Roman settlement on the site of the present town of Whitehaven.

The area was settled by Irish-Norse Vikings in the 10th century.[4] The area name of Copeland, which includes Whitehaven, indicates that the land was purchased from the Kingdom of Strathclyde, possibly with loot from Ireland.[5]

Following the arrival of the Normans, in about 1120 St Bees Priory was founded by William de Meschin, which was granted a large tract of land from the coast at Whitehaven to the river Keekle, and then south down the River Ehen to the sea. This included the small fishing village of Whitehaven.[6] Following Henry VIII's dissolution of the priory in 1539, ownership of this estate passed through a number of secular landlords until it passed into the hands of the Lowther family in the 17th century.

Whitehaven was a township within the "Preston Quarter" of the parish of St Bees.[6] and the town's churches were chapels-of-ease of St Bees until 1835 when three ecclesiastical districts were created in Whitehaven.[7]

Matthias Read's view of Whitehaven, circa 1738, showing the planned town of Sir John Lowther.

The modern growth of Whitehaven started with the purchase by Sir Christopher Lowther of the Whitehaven estate in 1630 and the subsequent development of the port and the mines. In 1634 he built a stone pier providing shelter and access for shipping, enabling the export of coal from the Cumberland Coalfield, particularly to Ireland. This was a key event in the rapid growth of the town from a small fishing village to an industrial port.

In 1642 the manor of St. Bees was inherited by Sir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet, of Whitehaven (1642–1706), who developed the town of Whitehaven, its coal industry and the trade with Ireland. He oversaw the rise of Whitehaven from a small fishing village (at his birth consisting of some fifty houses and a population of about 250) to a planned town three times the size of Carlisle.[8][9] At his death the 'port of Whitehaven' had 77 registered vessels, totalling about four thousand tons, and was exporting more than 35,000 tons of coal a year.[10]

Whitehaven's growing prosperity was also based on tobacco. By 1685 there were ships regularly bringing tobacco from the British colonies of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania in America, and by the early 18th century about 10% of England's tobacco imports passed through Whitehaven. By the middle of the 18th century it was the second or third port in England for tobacco imports. The tobacco was then sold on the domestic market or re-exported, e.g. to Ireland, France and the Netherlands.[11]

However, after the Acts of Union 1707 united England with Scotland, thereby abolishing excise duties between them, the port of Glasgow began to take over Whitehaven's tobacco trade, leading to the later creation of Glasgow's Tobacco Lords. By the second half of the 18th century there was a marked decline in shipping of tobacco via Whitehaven, and by 1820 the Customs Collector did not mention tobacco in his report on Whitehaven.[12] Whitehaven Town Hall, which started life as a private house built for a merchant, was completed in 1710.[13]

Daniel Defoe visited Whitehaven in the 1720s and wrote that the town had

grown up from a small place to be very considerable by the coal trade, that it is now the most eminent port in England for shipping off of coals, except Newcastle and Sunderland and even beyond the last. They have of late fallen into some merchandising also, occasioned by the strange great number of their shipping, and there are now some considerable merchants; but the town is yet but young in trade.[14]

To replace the tobacco trade Whitehaven turned to importing sugar from Barbados, cotton from Antigua and coffee and cocoa from St Lucia. Due to the coal trade Whitehaven was, after London, the second port of England in terms of tonnage of shipping from 1750 to 1772. Even by 1835 Whitehaven was still the fifth placed port, with 443 ships registered, but by the end of the 19th century only 68 vessels were registered.[15] Whitehaven was involved with the transatlantic slave trade, and records show slave ships leaving Whitehaven for voyages to Africa between 1711 and 1767.[16] In 2006, the Copeland Council (Whitehaven's local authority) issued a formal apology for Whitehaven's role in the slave trade.[17]

Scottish-American naval officer John Paul Jones raided the town in 1778 during the American Revolutionary War, burning some merchant ships in the harbour.

During the 19th century the port of Whitehaven was overtaken by Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, as they had deep-water dock facilities and were closer to large centres of population and industry. The huge development of a national railway network had also reduced Whitehaven's 18th century competitive advantage of having coal extracted very close to a harbour for shipment by sea.

Saltom Pit 1729–1848, pioneer of undersea mining.

James Pit is a pit in Whitehaven. The school "St James' Juniors" is on the site of the old pit.

Technical innovation

Carlisle Spedding's "steel mill"

To counter the considerable danger of methane gas explosion, Carlisle Spedding invented a forerunner to the Davy Lamp, known as the Spedding Wheel or Steel Mill. This used the sparks generated by a flint against a rotating steel wheel to provide light, on the basis the sparks were not quite hot enough to ignite the gas. On occasions it caused explosions or fires but it was a major improvement over the naked flame.[6] Lowther also supported experimental work on firedamp by William Brownrigg, a local doctor and scientist, and he presented papers by Brownrigg at the Royal Society. Brownrigg had gas piped from a nearby pit to his workshop, which provided light and heat, and bladders of the gas were taken to London to be demonstrated at the Royal Society.[6] Brownrigg was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) for this work.

The decline of Lowther influence

After Sir James, there was a succession of Lowthers who inherited the coal interests but did not emulate his close interest. The Lowthers' direct involvement in coal diminished, and in 1888 the mines were leased to the Whitehaven Colliery Company. By 1893 nearly all the coal was being extracted from under the sea, and William pit extended 4 miles out under the Solway.[6] In 1900 the output of the collieries was 536,000 tons. However they became less economic; the company failed in 1933, and the pits were sold to Priestman collieries. They in turn failed in 1935, and the pits were closed for 18 months. Work resumed with help from a Nuffield foundation, and the Cumberland Coal Company was formed, re-opening the pits in 1937. In 1947 the pits came under the nationalised body, the National Coal Board.[6]

Haig Pit (closed 1986), the last pit in Whitehaven

Temporary end of coal mining

Saltom Pit after conservation work

In 1983, a major geological fault was encountered at Haig pit which increased the difficulty of operation. This, combined with the political situation, and the miners' strike in 1984–85, contributed to problems at the colliery. The workforce attempted to open a new face, but a decision had been taken to close, and after two years of recovery work, Haig finally ceased mining on 31 March 1986. Today there is no mining carried out in Whitehaven though there is a proposal to sink a new mine out under the sea for coking coal.[27] In November 2019 the UK government gave the green light for this mine to go ahead.[28]

Whitehaven is within the Copeland UK Parliamentary constituency. As of 2021, its Member of Parliament (MP) is the Conservative Party's Trudy Harrison, who has held the seat since a by-election in 2017.

Before Brexit, it was in the North West England European Parliamentary Constituency.

Prior to the introduction of Cumberland (district), for Local Government purposes it had the following wards in the Borough of Copeland:

• Whitehaven South
• Whitehaven Central
• Kells
• Hillcrest
• Corkicle
• Sneckyeat

The following divisions were included in Cumbria County Council:

• Bransty
• Kells and Sandwith
• Hillcrest and Hensingham
• Mirehouse

Whitehaven has its own Parish Council; Whitehaven Town Council.[30]

Whitehaven Harbour from Prospect showing Beacon museum at the left

The existence of a harbour or landing place at Whitehaven can be traced back to 1517, when quay-dues, otherwise known as wharfage,were recorded.

The purchase of the manor of St Bees in 1630 by the Lowther family started the development of Whitehaven harbour primarily to export coal. Sir Christopher Lowther built a stone pier in 1631–34, and it survives, albeit very modified, as the Old Quay.[31]

By the 1660s the pier was suffering from storm damage and by the 1670s it was considered too small for the growing number of vessels wanting to use it. In 1677 a description refers to "a little pier, in shallow water, built with some wooden piles and stones".[32]

The prospect of a rival pier being built at Parton to the north of Whitehaven galvanised Sir John Lowther into developing the harbour, and by 1679 further work was under way. In the late 17th and 18th century the harbour was extended by ballast walls, moles and piers to become one of the most complex pier harbours in Britain.[33] April 1778 saw the harbour as the first site of an American attack on the British Isles during the American War of Independence.

The port's trade waned rapidly when ports with much larger shipping capacity, such as Bristol and Liverpool, began to take over its main trade. Its peak of prosperity was in the 19th century when West Cumberland experienced a brief boom because haematite found locally was one of the few iron ores that could be used to produce steel by the original Bessemer process. Improvements to the Bessemer process and the development of the open hearth process removed this advantage. In the 20th century, as in most mining communities, the inter-war depression was severe; this was exacerbated for West Cumbria by Irish independence which suddenly placed tariff barriers on its principal export market.

The harbour lost its last commercial cargo handling operation in 1992 when Marchon ceased their phosphate rock import operations. Drivers Jonas and marine consulting engineers Beckett Rankine drew up a new master plan to impound the inner basins of the harbour to create a large marina and fishing harbour, and refocus the town on a renovated harbour.

The marina, and in the background, the Beacon museum and the candlestick chimney

The harbour has seen much other renovation due to millennium developments, and the rejuvenation project cost an estimated £11.3 million.[34] This has provided 100 more moorings within the marina. Another £5.5 million has been spent on developing a 40 m (130 ft) high crow's nest and a wave light feature that changes colour depending on the tide, together with The Rum Story on Lowther Street, voted Cumbria Tourism's small visitor attraction of the year 2007.[35] A picture of the harbour was used on the front page of the Tate Modern's promotional material for an exhibition of Millennium Projects in 2003.[36] In June 2008, Queen Elizabeth II visited Whitehaven as part of the 300th Anniversary Celebrations.[37] The Queen and Prince Philip then officially re-opened the refurbished Beacon museum at the harbour; 10,000 people attended the event.

One of the fine terraces in the town – on Scotch Street

The former Whitehaven Town Hall on Duke Street, built 1710.

Whitehaven was, with Falmouth, the first post-medieval new planned town in England.[38] It is the most complete example of planned Georgian architecture in Europe and there are over 170 listed buildings. Whitehaven's planned layout was with streets in a right-angled grid which it is thought was imitated by the new towns of the American Colonies, with which there were strong trade links.

Although Sir Christopher Lowther initially purchased Whitehaven it was his son, Sir John Lowther, 2nd Baronet, who was responsible for its growth and development. Sir John acquired a market charter in 1660 for the town, but the urban expansion did not start until the 1680s when he laid out a spacious rectangular grid of streets to the north east of the existing tiny hamlet.[39]

Sir John specified that the houses were "to be three storeys high, not less than 28 feet from the street level to the square of the side walls, the windows of the first and second storeys to be transomed and the same, together with the doors to be of hewn stone." Ample provision was made for gardens.[40]

One block was left vacant for a new church and in 1694 another site was given for a Presbyterian chapel. Most of the streets were relatively narrow, about ten yards, but the principal thoroughfare, Lowther Street, which ran through the town centre from the Lowther family residence to the waterfront, was 16 yards wide. The old St Nicholas chapel was demolished in 1693 to make way for Lowther Street, and its materials used to build a new school.[39]

Whitehaven Castle was built in 1769 for Sir John Lowther as his private residence at the end of Lowther Street, replacing an earlier building destroyed by fire. In 1924, the Earl of Lonsdale sold Whitehaven Castle to Herbert Wilson Walker, a local industrialist. Walker donated the building to the people of West Cumberland, along with £20,000 to convert it into a hospital to replace the old Whitehaven Infirmary at Howgill Street, which was established in 1830.[6]

Whitehaven is on the Cumbrian Coast Line which runs from Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness. The town has two railway stations: Whitehaven (Bransty) and Corkickle, joined by a tunnel underneath the town.

Coming of the public railway

The first railway to reach Whitehaven was the Whitehaven Junction Railway (WJR) in 1847 from Maryport, which terminated at the Bransty Row station and allowed rail access to Carlisle and Newcastle upon Tyne.[41] On the southern side of the town, the first section of the Whitehaven and Furness Junction Railway (W&FJR) opened on 1 June 1849 from a terminus at Whitehaven (Preston Street) to Ravenglass, and thereafter gradually in stages until Barrow in Furness and ultimately Carnforth were reached. This gave access to the south onto the main West Coast line, and later became the main line of the Furness Railway. The two lines were separated by the town centre, and a tramway was constructed through the market place allowing goods wagons to be horse-drawn from Preston Street to the harbour, but there was still no through route for passenger trains.[42] In 1852, a tunnel 1,333 yards (1,219 m) long was built under the town, and in 1854 the W&FJR passenger trains ran through to the Bransty station from a new station at Corkickle. Preston Street became a goods-only station and served as the main goods depot for the town.

Whitehaven station, with the tunnel to Corkickle seen behind

In 1941, Fred Marzillier and Frank Schon relocated Marchon Products Ltd from London to Whitehaven, which was a special development area, after their offices were destroyed by German bombing. At Whitehaven they started manufacturing firelighters, then in 1943 they moved production to the site of the Ladysmith pit coke ovens at Kells, where they formed a sister company, "Solway Chemicals", to produce liquid fertilisers and foaming agents. At the end of the war, a number of chemists and engineers were released after the closure of the Royal Ordnance Factories at Drigg and Sellafield. This helped drive the pioneering expansion into detergent bases to include some of the first soap-substitutes to reach the UK market.[47]

The new detergents were a big success, as soap was in short supply after the war; however the original reason for moving to Whitehaven, remoteness from Europe, was now a serious handicap as the site was remote from raw materials. The answer was to manufacture as much processed raw material as possible on the site. New plants were built for the production of fatty alcohols in a pioneering process; tripolyphosphate was produced on site using phosphate rock from Casablanca imported via the harbour; and sulphuric acid was produced using anhydrite from the specially-created Sandwith mine adjacent to the factory. Production diversified further into specialist additives and chemicals, and continued to expand to become the town's largest employer, with 2,300 employees.[47]

In 1955 the companies were taken over by Albright and Wilson, and they in turn were taken over by the French company, Rhodia, in 1999. The decline of this site had started in the late 1980s, and finally in 2005 the site was closed down after a number of production processes had been terminated over the years.[47]

To help counter the 50% unemployment in the area, John Adams, of the West Cumberland Industrial Development Company, invited Miki Sekers and his cousin, Tomi de Gara to establish the West Cumberland Silk Mills at Hensingham, Whitehaven in 1938.[48] The intention was to manufacture high quality silk and rayon fabrics for the fashion trade, but during World War II they mainly produced parachute nylon. After the war, it became Sekers Fabrics and reverted to its original purpose. It supplied material to the great fashion houses such as Edward Molyneux and Bianca Mosca in London and Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin and Givenchy in Paris. At the same time it supplied luxury-style dress materials within the purchasing power of most home dressmakers working in nylon.

The company was awarded the Duke of Edinburgh prize for elegant design in 1962, 1965 and 1973, and a Royal warrant was awarded as suppliers of furnishing fabric to Her Majesty the Queen. In 1964, they established a large showroom at 190-192 Sloane Street, London.[49]

Miki Sekers was appointed an MBE in 1955 for services to the fashion industry, and was knighted in 1965 for services to the arts.[48]

The Whitehaven silk mill closed in 2006.

In 1945, Kurt Oppenheim, a 26-year-old refugee from Nazi Germany, bought the abandoned Whitehaven Brewery site on Inkerman Terrace and began using it to prove both a home for the family and a factory to house the production of curled hair. Curled hair was used as the a part of the filling for bed mattresses, railway and carriage seating, car and domestic upholstery and when rubberised it was used in flooring. Oppenheim's family had been in the curled hair manufacturing business for many generations in Kassel, Germany and had factories in Kassel and Basel, Switzerland but after the war there was little left of the business, and it offered no assistance to Kurt who started in Whitehaven on a small amount of borrowed funds. The product was manufactured from horse and cow hair sourced from China and Argentina. Hair was cleansed, spun into rope (on machinery mainly produced in continental Europe) and then the rope was broken up to produce the hair with a spring like curl in it. This bulky product was bagged and sent off to customers all over the UK. With the introduction of synthetic upholstery fillings in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the UK curled hair business began to contract and Cumberland Curled Hair consolidated the industry by buying up competitors that were closing down and moved their production to Whitehaven. The business expanded into a factory in Hensingham industrial area and brought employment to about eighty people of the town.

The new foam business was called Cheri Foam. By the mid-1960s, the space requirements outgrew the factory in Hensingham and only the offices were kept in the original Tower Brewery in Whitehaven, whilst production of curled hair and flexile urethane foam was moved to an 11-acre site with two large aircraft hangars at Silloth Airfield.

The term "jam eater" is often used by the people of neighbouring Workington to refer to the people of Whitehaven, or more generally to people from West Cumbria. When the Financial Times ran a lighthearted article on famous feuds in September 2008, featuring this, the local Whitehaven News published its own complementary feature,[50] reporting that: "The common view is that the term is insulting because it implies people could not afford to buy meat for their sandwiches, so they had to eat jam instead."

The original article had summed up the situation in terms of the long-term rivalry between Whitehaven and nearby Workington: "Legend has it that one town's miners had jam on their sandwiches and the other did not, but no one agrees on which town it was or whether they did it because they were snobs or peasants." A reader from Maryport, a few miles further up the Cumbria coast (which, as occasionally mentioned in discussions on the topic, used to have a jam factory) reported that he had understood the term originally referred to people from Whitehaven, and this was echoed in the comments on the Whitehaven News article, suggesting that a former distinction between the Whitehaven "jam eaters" and Workington "high siders" had gradually been lost in the trading of insults across the rugby pitch.

Whitehaven has also played host to a Maritime Festival, which started in 1999 and was held every two years, and then annually (the last being in 2013) attracting an estimated 350,000 people to the small town.[51]

Attractions included tall ships, air displays which included the Red Arrows and various modern and old planes, street entertainment and firework displays. At the 2003, 2005 and 2007 festivals the local Sea Cadets were very much in evidence, conducting the traditional Evening Colours ceremony each evening aboard one of the visiting tall ships, and also taking part in the festival's official closing ceremony during the late Sunday afternoon each year.

Whitehaven Maritime Festival 2005

The 2005 festival also marked the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, in which Whitehaven had been designated Cumbria's official commemoration celebration. Up to 1,000 veterans and ex-service personnel took part in the parade from the town's Castle Park to the harbour side, led by members of three military bands. Services were held on the harbour side, and aircraft from the Royal Air Force provided a tribute display above the harbour.

The Maritime Festivals were founded by Gerard Richardson and organised by the Whitehaven Festival Company, made up of a board of volunteers, who organised 17 major events between 1999 and 2015. The company was closed in 2016. They organised the Queen's visit to Whitehaven in June 2008, followed by the Status Quo gig in August of that year. The company staged two events in August 2009. The first was the redesigned festival (known for this year as the Whitehaven Food Festival, although it did still feature tall ships) which offered the usual wide variety of attractions, both around the southern half of the harbour and at St. Nicholas' Church, on 8–9 August. The second event, the following week, was the Here and Now Gig (a music concert with 1980's pop icons). For the June 2010 festival, which was similar in format to 2009, the music performances (Status Quo, N-Dubz and Katherine Jenkins) were moved to the harbour area.

The 2011 festival (featuring Razorlight plus several 1980s acts including Madness) continued the successful culinary theme, with the return of Jean-Christophe Novelli and other favourites. In 2012 the date of the festival was changed to the first weekend in June, to make it part of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebration (with a red, white and blue themed firework display).

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC North East and Cumbria and ITV Border. Television signals are received from the local relay transmitter. [52]

Whitehaven's local radio stations are BBC Radio Cumbria on 104.1 FM, Greatest Hits Radio Cumbria & South West Scotland on 103.4 FM and Hospital Radio Haven, a community based radio that broadcast from the West Cumberland Hospital in the town.[53]

The Whitehaven News is the town's local newspaper. [54]

On 2 June 2010, Whitehaven became a focus in the international media in relation to gun laws in the United Kingdom, following a killing spree targeting people living in the western area of the county. After killing his twin brother in Lamplugh, and his family solicitor in Frizington, taxi driver Derrick Bird began the spree in Whitehaven, shooting several people on the streets and at the taxi rank where he worked, killing 12.

On 20 July 2006, Broadcasting Minister Shaun Woodward and Industry Minister Margaret Hodge announced that Whitehaven would be the pilot site for the switchover to digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom.[55] The selection of a pilot site followed on from trial switchovers held in Ferryside and Bolton.[55]

The switchover began when BBC Two was switched off at 0200 on 17 October 2007. This was followed by the remaining analogue channels at 0200, on 14 November 2007. As a result of the switchover, all televisions in the Whitehaven area had to have a digital terrestrial receiver (Freeview) or digital satellite alternative (Freesat, Sky, etc.)[lower-alpha 3] The switchover in the Whitehaven area was not entirely successful: in nearby Eskdale, poor signal quality left viewers with blank television screens and the digital switchover was supposed to give over 40 channels but certain areas received fewer than 20.[56]

Modern sculpture commemorating the John Paul Jones raid in 1778

In alphabetical order:

• Abraham Acton, VC (1893–1915), British Army recipient of the Victoria Cross in World War I
• Kyle Amor (born 1987), an Ireland international rugby league footballer
• John Beck (b. 29 July 1961), keyboard player for It Bites
• John Benson (died 1798), clockmaker
• Dame Edith Mary Brown (1864–1956), doctor who founded the first medical training facility for women in Asia
• William Brownrigg (1711–1800), doctor and scientist
• Scott Carson (born 1985), footballer
• Jordan Clark (born 1990), cricketer
• Craig Cook (born1987), speedway rider
• Stuart Cummings (born 1960), rugby league referee
• Shepherd Dawson FRSE (1880-1935), author and psychologist
• Malcolm Eccles (born 1969), businessman
• Jonny Edgar (born 2004), Formula 3 racing driver
• Mildred Gale (1671–1701), paternal grandmother of George Washington, lived in Whitehaven and is buried in the graveyard of St Nicholas's Church.[57]
• Dean Henderson (born 1997), Premier League footballer with Manchester United
• Brian Higgins (born 1959), record producer
• Dick Huddart (1936–2021), rugby league player
• Milton Huddart (1960–2015), rugby league player
• John Paul Jones (1747–1792), slave trader and father of the American Navy, began his career in Whitehaven and returned in 1778 aboard the Ranger. He led a naval raid on the town in 1778 in the American War of Independence.
• Brad Kavanagh (born 1992), actor
• Jack Lawson (1881–1965), Lord Lawson of Beamish, British trade unionist and Labour politician
• Guy Lovell (born 1969), cricketer
• Jane Pearson (1735-1816), was a Quaker minister based here for 42 years.[58]
• Matthew Postlethwaite (born 1991), actor
• Gerard Richardson MBE (born 1962), founder of the International Maritime Festival, author and businessman
• John "Sol" Roper (1936–2015), professional rugby league footballer and coach
• Robert Salmon, (1775–1844), maritime artist
• Frank Schon, Baron Schon (1912–1995), co-founder of Marchon Chemicals
• Miki Sekers (1910–1972), co-founder of Sekers Fabrics
• Jackie Sewell (1927–2016), footballer
• Adam Summerfield (born 1990), professional ice hockey player for Manchester Phoenix
• Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), claimed an over-fond nurse kidnapped and brought him to Whitehaven for three years in his infancy.
• William Thomson (1819–1890), Archbishop of York in 1862–1890
• Charlie Woods (born 1941), footballer (Cleator Moor Celtic, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and Ipswich Town), coach and football scout. Woods became a football coach and scout working alongside England football manager Bobby Robson throughout most of Robson's career including England.[59][60]
• William Wordsworth (1770–1850), Poet Laureate from 1843 to 1850, frequently visited Whitehaven

• Kozloduy, Bulgaria[61]

• Listed buildings in Whitehaven
• Lowther baronets
• The Whitehaven Academy

• Daniel Hay Whitehaven an illustrated history, Michael Moon, 1979 ISBN 0-904131-21-1

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Whitehaven.

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Whitehaven.

• Whitehaven at Curlie
• Cumbria County History Trust: Whitehaven (nb: provisional research only – see Talk page)
• Sekers Silk Mills in the 1940s – archive film