Town in Cumbria, England
Whitehaven
In 1778 John Paul Jones led a raid on this Cumbrian port, and George Washington's grandmother is buried in its churchyard. It was also one of England's first planned towns.
Key information
- County
- Cumbria
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 24,000 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Georgian grid-plan harbour town, coal mining, the 1778 John Paul Jones raid, the rum trade
- Famous people
- Mildred Gale, John Paul Jones (apprenticed here), Jonathan Swift (childhood), Sir John Lowther
- Football clubs
- Whitehaven AFC
About Whitehaven
The pirate who came to breakfast, or tried to
On the night of 22 April 1778, a small party of men rowed into Whitehaven harbour with a plan to burn the town's shipping. Their leader was John Paul Jones, the Scottish-born naval officer then fighting for the American Revolution. He knew the place well. As a teenager he had served his apprenticeship on a Whitehaven ship, and he understood how crowded the harbour was with vessels loaded with coal. His men spiked the guns of the harbour forts and tried to set fire to the ships. Most of the plan fizzled out, and the townspeople soon had the fires under control. The raid is still often described as the last time England was attacked by a foreign force, and Whitehaven has never let the claim go.
A town drawn with a ruler
Most English towns grew by accident. Whitehaven was designed. In the 17th century the Lowther family, who owned the land and the coal beneath it, laid out a grid of straight streets running down to the harbour. Sir John Lowther was the driving force behind it. The result is a Georgian town of tidy right angles, with Lowther Street and Queen Street among its main routes. Few English ports of the period were planned so deliberately. The harbour was the point of it all. Coal went out to Ireland and beyond, and tobacco, sugar and rum came in. For a time Whitehaven was one of the busiest ports in the country.
Washington's grandmother is buried here
Mildred Gale, grandmother of George Washington, died in Whitehaven in 1701 and was buried at St Nicholas Church. She had married a Whitehaven merchant, George Gale, after the death of her first husband, Lawrence Washington. The church burned down in 1971, and the site is now a garden beside the surviving tower. Her connection to the first American president is a favourite local boast. The young Jonathan Swift, later author of Gulliver's Travels, is also said to have spent part of his early childhood in the town, after his nurse took him there.
Coal under the sea
Whitehaven's wealth came from beneath its feet. Its pits followed the coal seams out beneath the Irish Sea, and miners worked in tunnels that ran for a great distance under the waves. The work was brutal. The worst disaster came at the Wellington Pit in 1910, when 136 men and boys lost their lives. The pit's ventilation chimney, known as the Candlestick, still stands on the cliff above the town. The Haig Pit was the last of the big mines. It closed in 1986, and a mining museum later operated on the site, though it closed in January 2016.
Rum, rugby and the Haven
The Georgian harbour trade left Whitehaven with a taste for rum. The Rum Story, based in the old premises of the Jefferson wine and rum merchants, tells the tale, and rum butter is a classic Cumbrian treat with the same roots. On Saturdays, rugby league has long mattered more than football here. Whitehaven RLFC, nicknamed the Haven, was founded in 1948 and carries the town's name around the northern game's heartlands. Whitehaven AFC flies the flag for football. The harbour now has a more peaceful role. Yachts and fishing boats share it with the lighthouses, and the town's festivals draw crowds to the quays.
Where to look today
Start at the harbour, where the Old Quay and the lighthouses show off the Georgian design. The Beacon Museum on the waterfront covers the town's mining, shipping and trading past in one place. The Lake District lies to the east, while St Bees Head and its sandstone cliffs lie just to the south. Sellafield, a short drive down the coast, is a major employer for the area. For a small town, Whitehaven has a lot to answer for: a failed raid, a planned street grid and a pit disaster that still shapes how people remember it.