Whitby, a seaport and watering-place in the North Riding of Yorkshire, 54½ miles by rail (by road 45) NNE. of York and 22 NNW. of Scarborough. It stands, looking northward over the German Ocean, at the mouth of the Esk, which here emerges from its wooded dells and forms a wide tidal pool, walled in by jet-veined cliffs of alun shale. A stone bridge (rebuilt 1835), 172 feet long, with a swivel by which vessels are admitted to the inner harbour, connects the two halves of the town. Its older portions on the east side, with steep narrow streets and passages or yards, and red-tiled houses, climb tier upon tier up the cliff, where in decaying beauty stand the ruinous abbey of St Hilda and the ancient parish church of St Mary. St Hilda (614-680) founded in 657 the monastery of Streanshall for religious of both sexes, which has memories of Cædmon and St John of Beverley, and where in 664 was held the great 'Council of Whitby' (see Vol. IV. p. 173). It was burned by the Danes in 867 (they or their successors changed the name of the place to Prestebý or Whyteby, 'priests' or white town'), but in 1078 was refounded by William de Percy as a Benedictine abbey for monks—the nuns of Scott's Marmion are a poetical invention. The stately ruins of the church, which was 300 feet long, are Early English and Decorated in style, and comprise choir, north transept, and part of the nave, the great central tower having fallen in 1830. Between the abbey and the cliff is the parish church, originally Norman, gained from the town by a flight of nearly 200 steps; and on the south side is Whitby Hall, built about 1580 by Sir Francis Cholmley, and restored in 1867. Of modern buildings may be mentioned the town-hall (1788), the museum (1823) on the west pier, and the Saloon (1878), in Queen Anne style, with concert-room, promenade, &c., on the side of the West Cliff, which is surmounted by the fashionable terraces of Hudson, the 'Railway King' (1845). The west and east piers, 300 and 800 yards long, protect the outer harbour; and at the extremity of the former is a lighthouse (1831), 83 feet high, like a Doric column. The lighthouse on the east pier is of a lower altitude. The whale-fishery (1733-1837) belongs to the past, but the shipping is still considerable, consisting now almost entirely of iron steamers trading mainly from the Welsh coal ports to the Black Sea, America, and India. Iron shipbuilding is carried on by one firm, though Captain Cook, who was a 'prentice here, might no longer choose Whitby-built ships as 'the stoutest bottoms' in England for his circumnavigation of the world. The herring and other fisheries are actively prosecuted; but Whitby's specialty is the manufacture of Jet (q.v.)—a manufacture now, however, greatly decayed. Whitby and its neighbourhood offer a rich field for geological research, and its museum contains a fine collection of fossils obtained in the locality, including large specimens of crocodile and alligator species from the lias formation. Whitby is surrounded by scenery of remarkable variety and beauty. It returned one member of parliament from 1832 till 1885. Pop. (1851) 10,989; (1891) 13,274.
See works by Charlton (1779), Young (1817), F. K. Robinson, Whitby Glossary (1876), Whitby and its Abbey (1860); Canon Atkinson, Whitby Chartulary (1879), and Memories of Old Whitby (1894); also Mrs Gaskell's Sylvia's Lovers (1863), and Miss Linskill's stories.