Thomas Edge

Thomas Edge (1587/88 – 29 December 1624) was an English merchant, whaler, and sealer who worked for the Muscovy Company in the first quarter of the 17th century. Edge was born in the parish of Blackburn, Lancashire in 1587/88. His father was Ellis Edge. Edgeøya (Edge Island, which was rediscovered by English whalers in 1616) is named after him. He also had the eastern point of Recherche Fjord named after him, but it is now known as Lægerneset.

In 1609 Edge served as supercargo of the Paul on a sealing voyage to Bear Island. In 1610 he again sailed to the island for sealing, this time as commander of the Lioness.

In 1611, Edge was given command of two ships, the 150-ton ship Mary Margaret (which he sailed on as factor), and the 60-ton bark Elizabeth, Jonas Poole, master and pilot, on a whaling voyage to Spitsbergen. Edge, in his A Brief Discovery of the Northern Discoveries, which appeared in Purchas His Pilgrimes (1625), says the ships left Blackwall for Spitsbergen on 20 April (Poole says 11 April) and arrived there on 20 May.

On 12 June, he says one of the six Basque whalemen recruited from the French town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz caught the first Bowhead whale, "which yielded twelve Tuns of oil, being the first Oil that ever was made in Greenland." While hunting Walrus in or near English Bay (Engelskbukta) on 28 or 29 June, a "small quantity of Ice" came out of Foul Sound (Forlandsundet) and "put the Ship from her Mooring." Steven Bennet, master of the Mary Margaret, along with ten other men, were aboard the ship at the time. They lowered the sheet anchor to save the ship from being driven ashore, but "the Ice coming upon her again, brought her Anchor home and ran the Ship ashore." With the ship lost, Edge ordered the ship's boat and their four shallops made ready for sea. The boats were loaded with what provisions they could carry, and the men (totalling nearly fifty) left Forlandsundet on 15 July and sailed south.

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