INDUSTRIES 



Porthleven, 80 from Newlyn, 50 from Mouse- 

 hole, 80 from St. Ives, and 270, of which the 

 majority (more than 200) were steamers, from 

 Lowestoft, Yarmouth, and the other east coast 

 ports. 



In quantities of fish the season of 1905 was 

 unprecedented. The total value of fish of all 

 kinds landed at Newlyn for the three months 

 March, April, and May was 168,000. This 

 includes trawl fish, but the mackerel represent 

 probably at least three-quarters of the total, and 

 this would mean about 30,000 tons of fish, 

 giving an average of 400 tons or 600,000 fish 

 per day. 1 In consequence of the enormous 

 catches, the fish were selling on several occasions 

 in May at is. per I2O, 3 and large quantities were 

 carted off for use as manure. In addition to the 

 fish landed it was estimated that not less than 

 500,000, for which no sale could be obtained, in 

 consequence of the glutted condition of the 

 market, were thrown overboard from the fishing- 

 boats into the sea. 



This spring mackerel fishery, which has now 

 become one of the great industries of England, is 

 carried on by drift nets exclusively, and the 

 habits of the fish which lead them to congregate 

 in enormous numbers off the extreme south- 

 western coast make Newlyn in Mount's Bay the 

 natural headquarters and the fish market. The 

 fish appear first at the end of February or the 

 beginning of March to the south of the Lizard, 

 and gradually move westward, until at the end of 

 May they are found to the south and west of the 

 isles of Scilly. 



Mr. Pezzack reported that in the middle of 

 May, 1905, the fish extended over an area of 

 more than 100 miles west-south-west of the 

 Wolf, and in such quantities that although the 

 catches were enormous and continuous the shoal 

 did not appear to diminish. In addition to the 

 fish caught on the south and west which are 

 landed at Newlyn, a considerable quantity are 

 taken in the mouth of the Bristol Channel to 

 the north-west of St. Ives by drift boats from 

 that port. The season comes to an end with 

 the month of May, when the great mass of fish 

 disappears. In some years they come off the 

 coast again in the autumn in sufficient quantities 

 to enable the large boats to use their drift nets. 



There are altogether in the ports of Cornwall 

 about 300 boats engaged in the mackerel drift- 

 net fishery, of which about sixty are east of the 

 Lizard, 150 in Mount's Bay, and eighty at St. 

 Ives. 3 



Mackerel appear in considerable quantities 



1 These figures are from the report of Mr. J. 

 Pezzack, the fishery officer of Cornwall County 

 Council. 



' Mackerel are always counted by the ' hundred,' 

 which contains 120 fish, or in large quantities by the 

 ' last,' which contains 1 0,000. They are sold by the 

 ' hundred.' 



8 Mr. Pezzack' 's Report. 



near the shore in the bays on the south coast 

 during the summer in small schools, each of 

 which is a number of fish from 5,000 down, 

 travelling in a crowd huddled together. They 

 are then caught in seines made and kept for the 

 purpose. Unlike the drift fishery, most of the 

 mackerel seine fishery is to the east of the 

 Lizard, and out of some forty-seven seines thirty- 

 one are at these ports and sixteen in Mount's 

 Bay, 4 and none at St. Ives. In addition to these 

 large industries mackerel, which are to be caught 

 all the year round, are taken on hand lines, but 

 the quantity landed from this source is insignifi- 

 cant, and is readily absorbed in the locality where 

 they are caught. 



The pilchard fishery, which is now second in 

 importance to the spring mackerel fishery, was 

 until about thirty years ago the most important, 

 as it is by far the oldest. There is no record of 

 its origin, but in 1594 it was of sufficient im- 

 portance to be recognized in an Act of Parlia- 

 ment (35 Eliz. c. xi), which provided that no 

 stranger should transport any ' pilchers ' or other 

 fish in cask unless such person should previously 

 have brought in a proportionate amount of 

 ' Clapboard fit for cask or else of Cask.' 



Richard Carew 8 mentions that in his time 

 pilchards were exported to France, Spain, and 

 Italy. He gives no figures of the quantity of 

 fish caught or exported, but he states clearly 

 that ' the deare Sale beyond the seas ' affected 

 both the supply and the prices in the local 

 markets. In more recent times the bulk of the 

 export trade has been to Italy. The fishery 

 flourished steadily through the seventeenth and 

 the eighteenth centuries, and Dr. Borlase, in 

 1758, after a short account of the method in 

 which the fish were caught, wrote concerning the 

 pilchard that 'ships are often freighted hither 

 with salt, and into foreign Countries with the 

 fish carrying off at the same time part of our tin. 

 The usual produce of this beneficial article in 

 money is as follows : By an exact computation 

 of the number of hogsheads exported each year 

 for ten years, from 1747 to 1756 inclusive, from 

 the four ports of Fawy, Falmouth, Penzance, and 

 St. Ives, it appears that Fawy has exported yearly 

 1,732 hogsheads, Falmouth 14,631$, Penzance 

 and Mount's Bay 12,149^, St. Ives 1,282 ; in 

 all amounting to 29,795 hogsheads. Every hogs- 

 head for ten years last past, together with the 

 bounty allowed for each hogshead exported, and 

 the oyl made out of each hogshead, has amounted, 

 one year with another at an average, to the price 

 of one Pound sixteen shillings and threepence, so 

 that the cash paid for pilchards exported has at a 

 medium annually amounted to the Sum of 

 49,532 IOJ.' 6 



Pilchards have always been counted by the 

 hogshead, and the uncertainty as to the exact 



4 Ibid. 5 R. Carew, Surv. ofCormo. 33. 



8 Borlase, Nat. Hist. 273. 



