Whitby, a seaport and watering-place in the North Riding of Yorkshire, 54 1/2 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 alum 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 red-tiled houses, climb tier upon tier up the cliff, where stand the ruined abbey of St Hilda and the ancient parish church of St Mary. St Hilda (614-680) founded in 657 the monastery of Streanshalh, which has memories of CAedinon and St John of Beverley, and where in 664 was held the great 'Council of Whitby.' It was burned in 867 by the Danes (who changed the name of the place to Presteby or Whyteby, ' priests' or white town'), but in 1078 was refounded as a Benedictine abbey for monks. The stately ruins of the church, which was 300 feet long, 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 nearly 200 steps; and on the south side is Whitby Hall (c. 1580). 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, etc, 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 whale-fishery (1733-1837) belongs to the past, but the shipping is still considerable. 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. The herring and other fisheries are actively prosecuted; but Whitby's specialty is the (decayed) manufacture of jet. It returned one member from 1832 till 1885. Pop. (1851) 10,989; (1901) 11,748. See works by Charlton (1779), Young (1817), F. K. Robinson (1876), and Canon Atkinson (1894).