New Project Capturing Memories Of Scottish Whaling Communities Launched By Historian Dan Snow

June 20, 2025

The Whalers’ Memory Bank, a new digital archive capturing the stories of Scottish whaling communities, is launching on June 27, 2025, in Dundee by historian Dan Snow. Developed over two years by the South Georgia Heritage Trust and South Georgia Museum with funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, this living digital time capsule preserves the experiences of veterans from the modern whaling industry (1904-1965) who traveled 8,000 miles from Scotland to work on South Georgia island. The project addresses the fading memory of what was once an essential industry, combining new oral histories with existing materials through workshops with former whalers and their families to tell this previously untold story of Scottish social history.

The Memory Bank provides comprehensive insights into whaling life through films, photographs, oral histories, and a 3D tour of a whaling station where 176,000 whales were processed. It explores the various roles whalers played—from processing whales to working as radio operators, blacksmiths, and helicopter pilots—while explaining how whale products were vital to 20th-century Britain, used in everything from margarine to soap and cosmetics. The project is launched as part of Dundee’s “Whale of a Weekend” festival and represents a collaborative effort between multiple Scottish museums, ex-whaler associations, and communities to preserve these stories for future generations through a free, accessible online platform.

You can book sessions here.