INDUSTRIES 



herring fleet, but there is nothing to give any 

 idea of the size of the contingents from Rye 

 and Hastings. In 1302, however, the Sussex 

 Cinque Ports claimed to have spent ^11,300 

 during the last five years on the preparation of 

 their Yarmouth fleets, 27 and if it was worth their 

 while to spend about 2,200 yearly on fitting 

 these fleets out, it is clear that the value of the 

 fish taken at this period alone must have been 

 very great, even allowing a considerable margin 

 for exaggeration in the figures given. So great 

 was the number of men engaged upon the 

 herring fishery during its season that in 1476 

 the bishop of Chichester changed the dedication 

 feast of Rye church from the Nativity of the 

 Blessed Virgin (8 September) to the Assumption 

 (15 August) in order that the fishermen might 

 be present and make their due oblations. 28 In 

 1528 Hastings sent thirty crayers and Rye and 

 Winchelsea together fifty to the North Sea 

 fishery, 29 but in 1536 it would seem that only 

 sixteen boats went from Rye to Yarmouth. 30 It 

 must be remembered that only the larger boats 

 went to Yarmouth, so that the total number of 

 ships and men cannot be deduced from these 

 figures; in 1580 there were at Brighton eighty 

 fishing boats, with 10,000 nets, 31 but probably 

 most of these belonged to the smaller classes, and 

 in the same year there were at Rye thirty-one 

 fishing boats between 10 and 22 tons, employing 

 200 men besides boys. 32 Of the thirty ships belong- 

 ing to Hastings in I586, 33 of which fifteen were 

 above 2O tons, probably all (with the possible 

 exception of one of 50 tons) were employed 

 in fishing. The fishermen of Rye in I57 2 

 stated that within the last fifteen years Rye had 

 had as many as thirty-four boats at Scarborough 

 fishing for cod and ling, ' and nowe the last yere 

 ther was not above thre' ; the reason being that 

 foreigners from Scotland, Flanders, and France 

 brought so much fish into England that they 

 swamped the home trade, so that 



the fishermen of England are fayne to lay up their 

 boats and seke other trades, whereas if this strange 

 fyshe were abolished they shuld be able in small tyme 

 to trade the seas as in tymes past they have donne, 

 and as well to furnish the quenis subjects as the 

 stranger, and as good peneworthes, besides the 

 brynninge up a greate nomber of mariners which now 

 are utterly decayed. 



They further complained that 



divers of our Englishe men with their crouez and 

 ketches ... do trade the coast of Flanders and 

 Callice, where with their redy mony they not only 

 buy of the ketches of that partes strangers playce, 

 coddes and all such kinde of fresh fysh as thoes strange 



17 Assize R. 945. " 8 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. v, 495. 



" L. and P. Hen. V11I, iv, 5 101. 



30 Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 530. 



" Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 41. 



" Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 71. 



33 Suss. Arch. Coll xiv, 86. 



ketches take, and so bringe it into the Realme to the 

 utter decaye of our fyshermen, which bringe up 

 yougth to plye the takinge of fishe themselves, being 

 fourteene, fifteene, or sixteene men and a boye or 

 two in a boate, being no small nomber in our lyttle 

 towne as Ry is, when they had utterance for their 

 fishe, but also they the said Englishe ketches convey 

 awaye a number of redy monye with the buyinge of 

 fishe of those strangers' ketches.* 4 



To revive the waning prosperity of their trade 

 the fishermen and mariners of Rye petitioned in 

 1582 for a charter of incorporation, but this was 

 strongly, and apparently successfully, opposed ; 36 

 it was evidently feared that incorporation would 

 give the fishermen an exclusive control of the 

 trade, which they would use to force up the 

 prices. Some such exclusive control was claimed 

 by the Fishmongers' Company of London, who 

 complained in 1592 of persons buying fish with- 

 out their leave ; the mayor and jurats, however, 

 declined to acknowledge this claim, and asserted 

 that, after the queen had been fully served, it was 

 lawful for any person to buy fish in the market 

 at Rye. 36 



During the early part of the seventeenth 

 century the fishing industry in Sussex was 

 passing through a period of depression, due 

 mainly to unfair competition, the honest fisher- 

 men suffering alike from the illegal practices of 

 their compatriots and from the intrusion of 

 foreigners into the home waters. In 1602 a 

 number of the Rye and Hastings boats were 

 convicted of using nets of unlawful scale, that is 

 to say with too small meshes, fines of IQJ. being 

 inflicted, 37 and in 1605 the Lord Warden's 

 ' droit-gatherer ' was instructed to seize all such 

 illegal trawl nets and burn them. 38 In 1655 

 also certain ' trowlers and drawers by the water 

 side ' were denounced for using nets with too 

 small ' moakes,' 39 the size of the ' mokes ' or 

 meshes of the nets used for flat fish being put at 

 5 in. in i699, 40 at which time prohibition was 

 issued of drawing for plaice and soles between 

 sunset and sunrise. A rather curious reason is 

 given for this latter regulation in 1602, when 

 complaint was made of certain persons fishing 



in the night season, whereby the fysh disquieted 

 and wanting natural! rest doe become both leane 

 unserviceable and not so well bayted as in former 

 tymes. 41 



The intrusion of French fishing boats was 

 felt at least as early as 1548, when Henry VIII 

 refused leave for a large fishing fleet prepared by 

 the French to fish the English preserves, and 

 even fitted out twelve ships to prevent their doing 



84 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 18. 

 "Ibid. 81. "Ibid. 102. 



"Ibid. 124. 

 Ibid. 133. 39 Ibid. 224. 



40 Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 347. 



41 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, 124. 



267 



