INDUSTRIES 



recovered a portion of the old timbers and oak plank, 

 and sold them to pay their expenses and for their 

 labour. 



Whatever misfortunes had overtaken the fishing 

 centres of the county in the century with which 

 we are dealing, the harvest of the sea remained un- 

 failing. Gillingwater, the historian of Lowestoft, 

 gives 1773 as the year of the greatest herring 

 fishery ever known, the total catch being 1,557 

 lasts, each last comprising 10,000 fish, being a 

 total of 1 5, 570,000.' A herring I 5^ in. long 

 and 3 in. broad was caught by John Ferret, of 

 the Daniel and Mary fishing-boat of Lowestoft, 

 in 1797. 2 



In 1776, with an enterprise that went near 

 to landing the town in disaster, Lowestoft pro- 

 ceeded to extend the operations of its fishing 

 fleet by sending boats to Scotland and the Isle of 

 Man with a view to bringing back the larger 

 herrings to be found in those waters, to be sub- 

 mitted to the drying and curing processes in the 

 Suffolk curing-houses. The first boat despatched 

 on this errand was the property of Mr. Peache, 

 and returned with 20 lasts of fish. Successive 

 voyages merely had the effect of attracting the 

 attention of the Scotch fishermen and masters to 

 English methods of curing, in which Lowestoft 

 had at this time attained to a high degree of 

 excellence. Premiums were offered to induce 

 men to go to Scotland to give lessons in the art, 

 whilst agents were sent from Scotland to gather 

 all the available information with regard to the 

 secrets of the curing-houses. The fee paid to a 

 Lowestoft tmuer was twenty guineas, inclusive of 

 the services of his assistant roarers? The port 

 was thrown into a state of panic by the threatened 



1 Gillingwater, Hist. Lowestoft, 464. 



' Suckling, Hist. Suff. ii, 71. 



* Tower or towher, the head man employed at the 

 curing-house. A.S. tamers, Dut. touwer, possibly from 

 the tanning or steeping process employed in hanging 

 herrings ; Nail, Hist. Yarmouth, 675. Roarers, men 

 who shovelled out the herrings from the luggers into 

 the peds, or from the peds on to the floor of the fish- 

 curing houses, with sturdy wooden shovels. Dan. 

 rare, to stir about. The process of curing on the 

 east coast was as follows : As soon as the herrings 

 were brought on shore they were carried to the fish- 

 house, where they were salted and laid on the floors 

 in heaps about 2 ft. deep. After they had continued 

 in this situation about fifty hours, the salt was washed 

 from them by putting them into baskets and plunging 

 them in water. Thence they were carried to an ad- 

 joining fish-house, where, after being pierced through 

 the gills by small wooden spits about 4 ft. long, they 

 were handed to the men in the upper story of the 

 house, who placed them at proper distances as high as 

 the roof, where they were cured or made red by the 

 smoke of billet-wood fires. At the end of seven days 

 these fires were put out, and the fat allowed to drip 

 from the herrings for two days more, when the fires 

 were relit and the herrings again smoked. The pro- 

 cess of taking them down prior to packing them in 

 barrels was called 'striking ' ; Gillingwater, Hist 

 Lowestoft, 95. 



2 297 



passing of its staple industry into the hands of 

 rivals. Liverpool followed the lead of Scotland, 

 and the curing trade was soon in full vigour in 

 these two fresh markets. Our wars with France 

 and Spain further seriously crippled the town in 

 its fishing commerce, as, in spite of every pre- 

 caution, it was found impossible to convey a 

 cargo to the distant Mediterranean ports (the sole 

 market now left to it) in safety from surprise by 

 the enemy. In the period of transition which 

 was to elapse between this era of vicissitudes and 

 that of its present firmly established prosperity, 

 Lowestoft wisely devoted its attention to its sea 

 defences, on which it has expended the sum of 

 j£68,ooo. To this prudent forethought must be 

 attributed a great part of the success which has 

 attended the development of its fishing trade at 

 the present day. 



Of the smaller Suffolk ports at this date there 

 is little to record. Orfordness and Dunwich 

 preserved their old reputation for * excellent 

 sprats.' 4 In 1748 Aldeburgh was said to be 

 ' the only place in England for the drying and 

 redding of the same fish.' 5 In 1752 the Bay 

 Fishery at Walberswick was ' managed by four 

 small boats.' 6 The system of forestallage 7 was 

 doing great damage to the fishing at Ipswich. 

 The peddars were in the habit of 'attending the 

 tides' of the Orwell and 'its neighbouring seas' 

 and buying the fish, chiefly mullets, turbots, 

 smelts, and salmon, carried it off to supply the 

 inland markets, refusing to sell to the towns- 

 people at any price. 8 



In 1833 the evidence of Mr. Benjamin Brown, 

 of Lowestoft, before the Parliamentary Com- 

 mission sent to inquire into the depreciation of 

 the British Channel fisheries, afforded much 

 interesting information as to the state of the 

 Lowestoft fisheries at that date. Seventy boats 

 of 40 tons were fishing at the port, none of 

 which were ever at sea above fourteen days at a 

 time; 150 to 200 men were engaged on the 

 coast stowboator sprat fishing. The quantity of 

 soles in the Suffolk bays, which have long been 

 famous for this fish, had greatly diminished owing 

 to the presence of the stowboats. The Lowestoft 

 fishermen lodged a protest at the same time against 

 the charge of 6d. which was levied upon them by 

 the customs, the authorities alleging that they 

 were not bringing fresh fish into port like any 

 other fishermen, but cured, therefore, in the 

 nature of a cargo. 9 



In 1854 thirty-two boats at Lowestoft, manned 

 by from five to eleven boys, earned in a season 



4 Tobias Gentleman, England's If ay to Win Wealth, 



21. 



4 U'estminster Journ. 25 Jan. 1748. 



6 Gardner, Hist. Dunwich. 



7 Forbidden by the Great Court of Ipswich in 

 1281, and not allowed in 1399 ; Ipswich, Dom. Bk 



8 Suff. Traveller, 1764, p. 53. 



9 Nail, Hist. Gt. Yarmouth, 332. 



38 



