Donald Manson Explained

Donald Manson
Birth Date:	1792
Birth Place:	Ross and Cromarty, Scotland
Death Date:	1880
Death Place:	Peterhead, Scotland
Occupation:	Ice master, whaler, harbormaster

Donald Manson (c. 1792–1880) was an ice master and whaling captain in the northern reaches of the Arctic Ocean in the 19th century. He served on 42 whaling voyages as of 1854, and was first mate of the Sophia during the First Grinnell Expedition in 1850. He was hired as ice master for numerous expeditions for his skill of navigating the icy waters of Greenland and further north, including Edward Augustus Inglefield's 1853 expedition aboard . Manson also captained at least one voyage of Scottish emigrants to Pictou in Nova Scotia in 1842, and the pioneers praised him as "humane and gentlemanly."^[1] He served as Harbormaster of Peterhead from the 1840s until his death.^{[2] [3]}

A painting of Captain Manson is on display in the Arbuthnot Museum in Peterhead.^[4]

Notes and References

1. Campey, Lucille H. “Ships and Atlantic Crossings.” After the Hector: the Scottish Pioneers of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, 1773–1852, Dundurn Press, 2008, pp. 170–172.
2. “Donald Manson, Ice Master of the Phoenix.” National Maritime Museum Archive, Royal Museums Greenwich, collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/386081.html.
3. Campey, Lucille H. “What about the ‘Coffin’ Ships.” An Unstoppable Force: the Scottish Exodus to Canada, National Heritage Books/Dundurn, 2008, pp. 173–174.
4. Wright, Christopher, and Catherine Gordon. British and Irish Paintings in Public Collections: an Index of British and Irish Oil Paintings by Artists Born before 1870 in Public and Institutional Collections in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Yale University Press, 2006.