The sponging industry was once a leading industry in the Bahamas. At its peak, more than 600 vessels harvested sponges from the sea floor around the islands. The Bahamas ranked as the third-largest producer of sponges around the globe in 1935.
The industry began when a shipwrecked French sailor, Gustave Renourd, began exporting sponges to Paris in 1841, and was later followed by his son-in-law, Edward Brown. When slavery was abolished in 1838, the sponge industry provided employment and income for former slaves and liberated Africans in the Bahamas.
After the taking of the sponge from its native bed, the sponges are sorted and the different kinds and grades separated. They are then trimmed or clipped (as it is termed), baled, pressed, and encased in canvas to ship.
Women usually sat on boxes clipping the sponge using sheep-shearing shears. The roots were cut-off, and the sponges trimmed, retaining the symmetry of the sponge as much as possible. Once trimmed, and the pieces of rock removed, the sponges were thrown into large native straw baskets. A full basket was removed and handed over to “sorters” who trimmed the sponge further if necessary, and examined them for elasticity and texture. During the clipping the women often smoked their clay pipes and sang spirituals and other religious hymns.
Details
- Designer: John Waddington of Kirkstall Ltd, Leeds, England
- Printer: Format International Security Printers Ltd
- Process: Lithography
- Paper:
- Watermark: Crown CA (Diagonal)
- Perf: 14.5 (comb)
- Cylinders: Printed in four panes separated by gutter between the four panes, and guillotined into two horizontal panes.
- 1A (Cyan), 1A (Yellow), 1A (Magenta), 1A (Black), 1A (Purple) : 1B (Cyan), 1B (Yellow), 1B (Magenta), 1B (Black), 1B (Purple)[upper left : upper right]
- 1C (Cyan), 1C (Yellow), 1C (Magenta), 1C (Black), 1C (Purple) : 1D (Cyan), 1D (Yellow), 1D (Magenta), 1D (Black), 1D (Purple)[lower left : lower right]
- Sheet: R10 x 5 in two panes separated by a gutter (100 stamps)
- Quantity:
Cylinder Numbers
References
- Grand Bahama Museum
- National Archives of the Bahamas (Archives Ref: PRO 5-2 Sponging)
