In another article we have given some descriptive particulars of the town of Whitehaven and its vicinity, and have therefore in the present instance to confine our attention to the harbour, an excellent view of which forms the subject of our engraving.

We have previously stated that Whitehaven is mainly indebted to the Lowther family for its rise and progress as a trading port. By Sir John Lowther, an ancestor of this house, the lands of the dissolved monastery of St. Bees were purchased for his second son, Sir Christopher, early in the reign of Charles the First; and, as the use of coals first became general at this period, the new proprietor determined on improving his estate by opening a colliery. In this, however, little progress was made till after the Restoration, when Sir John Lowther, his successor, formed a plan for working the mines on a very extensive scale, and with this view obtained considerable grants of unappropriated land in the district, which was secured to him in 1666. Two years later he obtained a further accession of property, including a parliamentary gift of the whole sea-coast for two miles northward, between high and low water-mark. He next turned his attention to the port, which was neither large nor convenient, and by his judicious schemes laid the foundation of the present haven. Since that important epoch it has been greatly and gradually improved, particularly since an act of parliament was obtained to finish the original plan, and to keep it in repair, by a moderate tonnage on shipping. In its present form it is protected and strengthened by several piers, or moles, of compact stonework, three of which project in parallel lines from the land; a fourth, bending in the form of a crescent, has a watchhouse and battery, with a handsome lighthouse at its extremity. At low water, the port is nearly dry, so that the shipping within the moles lie as if in dry docks.

Adjoining the harbour, on the west side of the town, is the coal-staith, or magazine, where coal for exportation is deposited to the amount of several thousand waggon-loads. Eight or ten, and occasionally twelve, vessels, each carrying a hundred tons and upwards, are commonly loaded at one tide, at an expense of only ten shillings each, so great are the facilities contrived for this purpose. The method is this: the greatest part of the road from the pit runs along an inclined plain, on which are railways communicating with covered galleries, which terminate in large flues, or hurries, placed sloping over the quay. When loaded, the waggons run by their own weight from the pit to the magazine, where, their bottoms being struck out, the coals are dropped into the hurries, and thence with a noise like thunder descend into the holds of the vessels.

Whitehaven forms one of a chain of ports on the north-western coast of England, which owe their commercial importance to the demand for coals. This branch of trade has long been famous as a nursery of hardy and intelligent seamen, and the naval service of the country has, in times of war, been chiefly indebted to the numerous body of men who have, either voluntarily or by compulsion, exchanged their services from the humble collier to a more distinguished, though less lucrative, position on the deck of a line-of-battle ship. Years have now passed since there has been any occasion to disturb the arrangements of our commercial marine for this purpose; and it is to be fervently hoped that the advancing civilisation of the age will preclude the re-enactment of such scenes of misery and crime as must ever accompany the system of impressment and forced service.

Most of the coal exported from this haven is conveyed to Ireland; and the annual quantity raised, on an average of twenty years, was formerly under 100,000 chaldrons; but of late years the export trade in this department is understood to have greatly increased. In the Whitehaven coal-mines there have happened from time to time lamentable catastrophes by the explosion of foul air, attended by great sacrifice of life. It is painful to reflect, that, with all the means which, in this scientific and inventive age, have been recommended and adopted, no effectual plan has hitherto been devised for the prevention of these sad and appalling accidents.