INDUSTRIES 



Dorset dorsers (peds or panniers) were either 

 first found out or generally used in this county, 

 the fish-jobbers using such contrivances, he adds, 

 to bring up their fish above lOO miles from 

 Lyme to London.^^ 



The manufacture of lobster-pots, baskets with 

 a small hole on top, was extensively carried on 

 along the coast in 1812.^^ 



Poole has always had a thriving fishery, the 

 plaice of that port being esteemed ' peculiarly 

 excellent.'^' In 1550 the Admiralty Court of 

 Poole was ordered to inquire if any fished on 

 Sundays, or suffered any engines to be in the seas 

 that day to take fish withal.^^ All fishermen 

 within the bounds of the port might sell fish 

 taken there, and not elsewhere, at competent 

 prices.^' ' Beyond the memory of man,' it was 

 a custom in the Poole fish-market that all fish was 

 to be exposed for one hour therein before being 

 carried to be sold at any other place.^^ The 

 burgesses of the town received for one last of 

 herrings ^d., and the same for every hundred of 

 salted fish." The fishermen of Wareham claim 

 the right of fishing in Poole Harbour on payment 

 of a nominal fine to the lord of Corfe Castle.^* 



Although the herring fishery on the Dorset 

 coast has never attained to the dimensions of the 

 similar industry on the east coast, there have 

 been times of abundance in its history, as, for 

 example, in 1793, when Mr. Davies of Swyre 

 bought a shoal of herrings for manuring his land 

 at IS. per load."' Several curing-houses were 

 started about this date by Mr. William Morton 

 Pitt at Swanage for smoking and curing these 

 fish, numbers being dispatched to the London 

 and Portsmouth markets.'" 



The most thriving of eighteenth-century Dor- 

 set fisheries was the mackerel fishery of Abbots- 

 bury, which gave employment to the greater part 

 of the inhabitants at that date.'"" By ancient 

 custom id. every day was paid for every kind of 

 fish taken, and 6d. for three turbots, mackerel, 

 however, being exempt from impost. The tax 

 was afterwards compounded for at 40/. per 

 annum.'"'' From 1746 to 1758 very few 

 mackerel were taken, the scarcity being attri- 

 buted to the scouring of Bridport Harbour.'"'' 

 The season lasted from about the middle of 

 March to Midsummer, and the catch was with 

 nets and seines. Stevenson writes in 18 12 of 



" Coll. Proverbs, 202. 



" Stevenson, Agric. of Dors. 449. 



'' Pigot, Dir. 1823, p. 270. In the eighteenth 

 century Poole sent fish to Devizes, whence it was 

 carried to Oxford. Aflalo, Sea-Fishing Ind. 286. 



'" Roberts, Soc. Hist. Southern Counties, 239. 



" Hutchins, Hist. Poole, 31. '* Ibid. 19. 



>■ Ibid. 30. »« Ibid. 44. 



" Claridge, Agric. of Dors. 18. 



'° Hutchins, Hist. Dors, i, 259. 



^' Engl Displayed (1769), 63. 



'»'' Hutchins, Hilt. Dors, i, 538. 



""= Ibid. 



30,000 to 40,000 being caught at a draught 

 near Abbotsbury, and sold at id. per loo.'"*^ 



In the summer of 1724, Defoe, travelling 

 along the coast road from Abbotsbury to Brid- 

 port, 'all the way on the sea shore,' saw 'ships 

 fishing for mackerel, which,' he explains — 



they talte in the easiest way imaginable ! for they fix 

 one end of the net to a pole set deep into the sand, 

 then the net being in a boat, they row right out into 

 the water some length, then turn and row parallel 

 with the shore veering out the net all the while until 

 they have let go all the net, except the line at the 

 end and then the boat rows on shore, when the men 

 haling the net to the shore at both ends bring to 

 shore such fish, as they surrounded in the little way 

 they rowed, this at that time proved to be an incredible 

 number in so much that the men could hardly draw 

 them on shore. ... In short such was the plenty of 

 fish that year, that the mackerel the finest and largest 

 I ever saw, were sold at the sea side a hundred for a 

 penny. ^' 



A traveller of to-day would see practically the 

 same sight if he chose a prosperous summer for 

 his journey. The pole spoken of by Defoe is 

 nowadays dispensed with, as there are generally 

 enough loafers on the shore to hold one end of 

 the rope attached to the seine while the net itself 

 is being towed out to surround the fish ; an 

 anchor is sometimes used, and when this is the 

 case it is deeply rooted in the sand. The seine 

 is paid out as the boat is rowed through the 

 school of mackerel. Then both ends are hauled 

 in ; the net is preceded by a glimmer of white- 

 bait as these leap madly on land to avoid the 

 voracious mackerel, who take no heed of the 

 encircling net in their eager pursuit of food. 

 The whitebait are left on the sand, and the 

 mackerel are sold at a very low rate, though not 

 at a 'hundred for a penny.' 



The mackerel approach the coasts in the 

 spring ; some fishermen say that they are bent 

 on finding suitable ground for spawning ; others 

 that they are hunting for food, which is more 

 abundant near the land. This second theory is 

 more usually accepted as correct. 



In and just before the season men are stationed 

 with telescopes on vantage ground all along the 

 coast — for instance by the remnants of the old 

 village cross at Swyre, on the cliff-head at Burton 

 Bradstock. Their duty is to report the first ap- 

 proach of the mackerel. This is shown by a 

 darker patch on the sea, by curious ripples, and by 

 the company of greedy birds. Usually the crew 

 are waiting in a neighbouring public-house, or in 

 a convenient cottage with a hogshead of cider. 

 Report states that three hogsheads of cider have 

 been consumed by men waiting for long-delay- 

 ing fish. The payment for this makes a great 

 hole in the money earned when the fish do 

 come ; while as Dorset cider is a quarrelsome 



'"'' Stevenson, /igric. of Dors. 72. 



" Defoe, Tour through Great Brit. (1724), iii, 327 



355 



