In 1908, two Norwegians, Jacob Egeland and Johan Bride formed the South African Whaling Company and commenced whaling on 3 July 1908. The original whaling station was close to the harbour entrance, but moved due to complaints about the smell around the Bluff and later still even further south to its ultimate position. The whaling of the Blue, Southern Right and Humpback wales continued until 1975 when whaling was banned due to the depletion of the resource. The original Company became the Union Whaling Company which was ultimately sold to the Japanese in 1956/7. Whaling peaked in 1954 with the Company catch of 2438 whales and the company employed 830 personnel but the record overall catch by Whalers peaked in 1965 with a total catch of 3860 whales within 150 miles of Durban. (Ref: Captain Tony Pearse - "African Keyport" - 1995). Today, all that remains are the decaying structures about 2 kilometres south of the harbour entrance, but these remaining buildings in this album still give some idea of the magnitude of the former operations. The images are captioned in almost equal blocks named Southern Block, Central Block and Northern Block. There are also images of military "Pill Boxes" that remain on the beach and served to protect the Military Base positioned on the top of the Bluff. The Navy for a short time used some of the structures after its closure, however the site is now abandoned and returning to nature.
