INTRODUCTION D 



fishing grounds of the world. The British fishing 

 industry is the most efficient and the most highly 

 developed of any. Consequently, since fishing methods 

 are essentially the same everywhere, it will be sufficient 

 for us to consider, with few exceptions, the methods 

 and equipment that are used by our own fishermen 

 around our own shores. 



"There is direct evidence that, as early as the third 

 century, A.D., fish were caught in considerable quantities 

 round the coast of Britain by the natives and used as 

 food. Little is known about the early development of 

 a fishing industry in this country. We know that in the 

 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, fish was in demand 

 throughout the country, partly because of the religious 

 observance of fast days, and partly, no doubt, because 

 it afforded a welcome change in the regular winter diet 

 of salted meat. In those days there was no winter 

 root crop, so that cattle were killed in autumn and salted 

 down for consumption during the winter. 



In disposing of their catch, the fishermen were handi- 

 capped by the almost complete lack of transport 

 facilities from the coast inland. Their produce would be 

 distributed by pack-horse, so that fresh fish would be 

 practically unknown beyond a distance of a few miles 

 from the coast. Consequently, all fish for inland 

 markets were salted. The fish were pickled in brine, as 

 the art of dry-salting was then unknown in this country. 

 / To develop a successful fishing industry, it was 

 necessary, then, as it is to-day, either to dispose of the 

 catch quickly on the spot, or to preserve the fish so that 

 it could be transported to distant markets. In 1347, 

 a Dutchman, William Beukels, of Biervelt, invented an 

 improved means of curing and pickling herring, which 

 was essentially the modern process of gutting the 

 fish and packing them in dry salt. At this time the 



