Place Name
Originally Newcastle Street. Samuel Enderby II (January 17, 1719 – September 19, 1797) was a whale oil merchant, who founded Samuel Enderby & Sons, a prominent shipping, whaling, and sealing company in 1775. The Enderby family had originally been tanners (leather workers) from Bermondsey. Their fortunes rose after Daniel Enderby raised money for Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army during the Long Parliament. As a result the family was granted forfeited estates at Lismore, County Waterford, Ireland, which were sold in 1660. After that time, thy became active in the oil and Russia trade as well as trading with the New England colonies. On June 2, 1752, Samuel Enderby II married Mary Buxton, a daughter of his business partner, at St Paul’s Wharf in London. Three years later he assembled a fleet of whaling vessels on the Greenwich Peninsula. Under the management of the third Samuel Enderby (1755 – 1829) owned Britannia, the ship that in November 10, 1791 made the first successful whale catch off Australia. He was the grandfather of Major-General Charles George Gordon, also known as Gordon of Khartoum. Samuel Enderby & Sons stopped trading in 1854, a few years after the firm was immortalised in Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick.
