page_title: New Island
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: New Island / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Chr. Salvesen's whaling station in New Island, Falkland Islands. The station was in operation from 1908 to 1916.
context_page_description: New Island is one of the Falkland Islands, lying north of Beaver Island. It is 238 km from Stanley and is 13 km long with an average width of 750 m. The highest point is 226 metres. The northern and eastern coasts have high cliffs but the eastern coasts are lower lying, with rocky shores and sandy bays. There are several smaller offshore islands in the group; North Island and Saddle Island have high cliffs but Ship Island and Cliff Knob Island are lower lying.
  Long used as a base for whaling, as a sheep farm and for occasional attempts to collect guano, New Island is considered by some to be one of the most beautiful islands in the Falklands archipelago, as well as having possibly the most diverse range of wildlife in the region. It is a nature reserve, established by Ian Strange in 1972.
  A settlement lies in the middle of the east coast of the island, some distance north of an airstrip.
context_section_description: New Island was one of the earliest of the Falkland Islands to be colonised, and American whalers may have arrived as early as the 1770s. Two place names on or near the island, Coffin's Harbour and Coffin's Island, commemorate the Coffin family of Nantucket.  Nearby Quaker, Barclay, Fox and Penn islands reflect the New England and Quaker provenance of some of the earliest settlers.
  In 1813, Captain Charles H. Barnard, from Nantucket, was marooned with his crew  on the island. They survived on the island for two years, and constructed a crude stone building, which is probably incorporated into the Barnard Building, the oldest standing building in the Falklands and now a museum restored in 2006. In December 1814 Indispensable, William Buckle, master, and Asp, John Kenny, master, rescued them.
  In 1823, Antarctic explorer Captain James Weddell anchored at the island, and commented on its excellent harbours and its natural food and water supplies.  In the 1850s and 60s, the island's guano deposits were mined.
  The Norwegian whaling company Ørnen, controlled by Christen Christensen of Sandefjord, sent the first modern floating whaling factory, Admiralen, to New Island in 1905. The vessel arrived on 24 December, but during one month of operation only 40 whales (24 fin, 12 sei, 3 sperm, and 1 humpback) were caught. Admiralen proceeded to Admiralty Bay in the South Shetland Islands to look for blue and right whales, thus becoming the first floating factory to operate in the Antarctic.
  From 1908, the Scottish company Chr. Salvesen operated a land based whaling station under the name New Whaling Company. A transport vessel and a whale catcher arrived on 22 December and brought a decommissioned land station from Fáskrúðsfjörður in Iceland. The first whale was caught on 16 January 1909, with 226 whales (215 sei) being caught the first season. Results were unsatisfactory though, with the station last operating in 1915. Of the reported catch, over 900 were sei whales (about two-thirds of the total). Remains of the station is still visible.
  The island holds the shipwreck of a sealing vessel, the Protector III, which beached in 1969.
caption: New Whaling Company's whaling station on New Island, operated from 1908 to 1916.
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