page_title: History of Dundee
section_title: Maritime industry
hierarchical_section_title: History of Dundee / Maritime industry
caption_attribution_description: English: RRS Discovery When the RRS Discovery first came to Dundee, it was berthed in the Victoria Docks.
context_page_description: Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland with a population of around 150,000 people. It is situated on the north bank of the Firth of Tay on the east coast of the Central Lowlands of Scotland. The Dundee area has been settled since the Mesolithic with evidence of Pictish habitation beginning in the Iron Age. During the Medieval Era the city became a prominent trading port and was the site of many battles. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, the local jute industry caused the city to grow rapidly. In this period, Dundee also gained prominence due to its marmalade industry and its journalism, giving Dundee its epithet as the city of "jute, jam and journalism".
context_section_description: As Dundee is located on a major estuary, it developed a maritime industry both as a whaling port (since  1753) and in shipbuilding. In 1857, the whaling ship Tay was the first in the world to be fitted with steam engines. By 1872 Dundee had become the premier whaling port of the British Isles, partly due to the local jute industry's demand for whale oil for use in the processing of its cloth. Over 2,000 ships were built in the city between 1871 and 1881. The last whaling ship to be built at Dundee was Terra Nova in 1884. The whaling industry ended around 1912. The last connection between Dundee and the whaling industry ended in 1922 with the loss of the trading ketch, 'Easonian', which was owned by the Dundee-based shipping agents and charter company Robert Kinnes & Sons. Kinnes & Sons had been formed in 1883 by the managing director of the Tay Whale Fishing Company.
  In December 1883, a whale was caught in the Tay and was later publicly dissected by Professor John Struthers of the University of Aberdeen. The incident was popular with the public and extra rail journeys were organised to assist those from surrounding areas who wished to see the whale. The creature became known as the Tay Whale, and the event was also celebrated in a poem by William McGonagall.
  The Dundee Perth and London Shipping Company (DPLC) ran steamships down the Tay from Perth and on to Hull and London. The firm still exists, but is now a travel agency. However, shipbuilding shrank with the closure of the five berths at the former Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in 1981, and came to an end altogether in 1987 when the Kestrel Marine yard was closed with the loss of 750 jobs.
  RRS Discovery, the ship taken to the Antarctic by Robert Falcon Scott and the last wooden three-masted ship to be built in the British Isles, was built in Dundee in 1901. It returned to Dundee in April 1986 initially being moored in Victoria Dock. Since 1992 Discovery has been moored next to a purpose-built visitors' centre, Discovery Point. The oldest wooden British warship still afloat, HMS Unicorn, is moored in Victoria Dock, although it was not built in Dundee. Dundee was also the home port of the Antarctic Dundee whaling expedition of 1892 which discovered Dundee Island, named after the expedition's home port. The steamship SS Californian, best known for its reported inaction during the sinking of RMS Titanic was built in Dundee.
caption: RRS Discovery
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