FISHERIES 



the Nortli Soa were first worked. A good deal of fiali was 

 then wasted, and thousuiul.s of haddocks were thrown over- 

 board again as soon aa caught, for the fishermen were under 

 orders nut to bring ashore more than were likely to be sold 

 whilot fresh. Even in comparatively recent years trawled 

 ha Idiicks wore of little valuf, until the practice of smoking 

 theiii, as had long been done in Scotland, was adopted at 

 Hull, Grinnby, and other places; and now not a haddock 

 is thrown away if it is in good condition when landed. It 

 may lie mentioned that round-fish, such as haddock and 

 wliiting, always suflfer more or less in appearance when 

 cangiit by the trawl, as they are liable to be knocked about 

 by the crowd of fish in the small end of the net, especially 

 when the ttawl is being hauled up. They do not therefore 

 fetch a good price in the wholesale market, whilst haddock 

 and whiting caught by the hook are always in demand, and 

 it need hardly be mentioned that the Scotch haddock, so 

 long famous for their excellence, both fresh and cured, are 

 all caugiit with hook and line. 



The trawling stations in the west of England are Ply.nonth, and 

 liiixhiiiri ill Torbuy, and tliis method of fishing has been carried on 

 fioin lioth [ilaoe.s for |)robal)ly u|iwards of 100 years, altliough the 

 date of its conimencement has been by no means accurately ascer- 

 tained. ' It is certain, however, that at the beginning of the present 

 century the trawlers were cpmparatively few, and not half the size 

 of those now at work. PI /mouth does not apjiear to have progrt^ssed 

 so steadily in later years is liri.xham, and this may be partly caused 

 by the more freiiuent in'errn|ptions from bad weatlier at the western 

 port. The soulli-west' .ly gales so common in winter are felt in all 

 their violence on f'.ie lishing ground of I'lynmuth, and the heavy 

 8eii accomi'anyinjj them sometimes puts a Rto|i to li.shing for two or 

 three days at a time. The custom also at I'lymouth of only lishing 

 during the day and returning to harliour every evening must 

 niatcriitlly dinnniah the chances of the fishing being very profitable, 

 1 11(1 lor some few years past the numlier of trawl vessels has not 

 luer.iged more than almiit 60. At Hrixham, where trawling is be- 

 lieved to have originated, and fishing has always been the chief 

 industry, much more enterprise is shown. The trawh;rs there go 

 to sea on Monday morning and remain -t work till the next moni- 

 ing, when they return and land their fi.sh. After an liour or so 

 they again go olf, and fish day and night till the next morning, and 

 80 on everyday till Saturday conies, when, having landed their fish, 

 they come to anchor, get their sails down, and spend the rest of 

 the day in mending tlieir nets and putting everything in order for 

 the next week's work. Sunday is a day of rest for all hands. 



The history of the Brixham fishery has a very important hearing 

 on the ciiaiges that liave been brought against the trawlers of 

 destroying spawn and very young fish, and of gmdiially exhausting 

 the lishing grounds m wh'ch they worked. The Hrixham men, 

 as a rule, Keep to a particular stretch of fishing ground, extending 

 from the Start I'uiiit, piust Torbay, towards the neighbourhood 

 of I'ortliiiid, — practii'ally about twenty miles long and of variable 

 breadth, but mo.slly from three to eight miles ottthc laud. There 

 is no recoid of how many trawlers there were at liiixham at 

 the begin liing of this century, but it is known that they were 

 few and less than half their present size. In 1832, however, there 

 were 70 of tliem, 85 iu 1863, and in 1872 their number was 

 about 100, bcsiiles 20 others wliieh worked on this home gronnd 

 during the winter ; and new vessels are being built every year, 

 not only to make up for losses, but to add to the fleet. This 

 small strip of fishing grouinl has cert.iinly been worked for more 

 than a hundred yeara, the fishing smacks have been steadily increas- 

 ing in number and have more tlian doubled in size, and yet there 

 is MO sign of the ground lieeoming exhausted. The greater demand 

 for lish has no doubt encouraged the fishermen in their work, for 

 they have obtained better prices for their fish ; but if the elfects of 

 trawling were the exhaustion of the fishing ground, the Brixh.-.m 



' Fro'ide, in his History of KngJand, vol. xii. p. 397 (cabinet 

 edition, 1870), speaks incidentally of trawlers at Brixham so long as[o 

 as tlie tinio of the Spanish Armada. In his deserii)tion of the English 

 attiik on the Spanish Heet, he says: — "Drake, returning from the 

 chase, came up with her [the 'Capitana,' tlie admiral's disalileil ship] 

 in lliu inorniii"?. She .struck her flag, and he took her with him to 

 Torliiiy, where he hit her to 'he care of i!ie Brixham fishermen. . . . 

 Tile prize proved of iinex))ecteil value. Many casks of reals were 

 found ill her, and, inliiiitely more important, iionie tons of gunpowder, 

 with wliich the ' Itoebnck,' the swiftest triiw er in the harbour, flew 

 111 pursuit of the fleet." The "lloebiuk'' is spoken of, in another 

 acciiunt of the attack, a Sir Walter Raleigh's ship, and therefore, no 

 duuljt, an armed vessc' , and we lirve been unable to find any evidence 

 of there having been t awlers at lirixWun at that date (1688), 



fi.shery .should have cnme to an end many years ago. It has, how. 

 ever, never been so prosperous as during the last few years. Kvery 

 0]ie at nrixham is more or less interested in the success of the fish« 

 ing ; the actual condition of the fishery is generally understood, 

 and the savings of the fishermen and many of the trades-people of 

 the place are invested in it year after year. The trawlers dc not 

 work for weekly wages, but on the share principle, and the master 

 is generally owner or part-owner of the vessel. It is eonseqiiently 

 the interest of every one on board to do his best to make a suc> 

 cissful fishing, and the fact of the owner Ijcing in command insures 

 due attention to economy in working, so that, whilst no necessary 

 expense is spared in keeping the sails and gear in proper order, 

 everything is made to last as long ns possible. 



lirixham has been long considered the "mother-port" of the 

 triiwlers, the idace where the system of beam-trawling originated ; 

 but although Barking, once famous as a fishing station, disputes 

 the honour with her, there is no doubt that Hrixham men have led 

 the way in developing this particular method of fishing to its 

 jiresent large j-ropoitions. More than forty years ago some of 

 the Brixham vessels went to Rara.sgate and fished the grounds at 

 that end of the Channel. Others joined them and permanently 

 settled there, and now there are upwards of IbO sea going trawlers 

 belonging to the port. Ten years later Hull was colonized from 

 Brixham and Ramsgate, and Grimsby from Hull at a subsequent 

 period ; whilst as early as 1818, Brixham smacks and fishermen 

 passed over to Dublin to commence deep-sea trawling in Irish 

 waters. The important rise of Hull as a trawling station dates from 

 1845, soon after the discovery of the famous Silver Pit, at the south 

 end of the Dogger Bank. Before that time the number of North 

 Sea trawlers was very small ; they were only of about half the size 

 of most of the smacks at present ; and not enough was known of 

 the fishing grounds to tempt the fishermen so far from land in 

 vessels of such little power. For a long time, however, the line 

 fishery for rod and haddock had been carried on in the neighbour- 

 hood of the Dogger, but in vessels specially constructed for tha 

 jiurpose. The Great Silver Pit, so called to distinguish it from a 

 smaller Silver Pit much nearer the land, w as first worked over during 

 a very severe winter,— we believe, in 1843. Two fishing grounds 

 calleil the Well bank and Botany Gut had been ex|dored and dis 

 covered to be very productive ; and between ihem and the Dogger, 

 and bearing true east from Flaniborough Head, the Admiralty chart 

 showed a bed of deeper soiimlings, ranging in some parts from 

 30 to 40 fathoms, ond the whole extending for about sixty miles 

 east and west, and from six to ten miles in breadth. The patch 

 was marked " Outer Silver Pit," and on trying it with the trawl, in 

 the deeper jiarts at the western end and near the middle, soles wcr» 

 found during that very cold season in almost incredible numbers ; 

 the nets were hauled up bristling with fish trying to escape through 

 the meshes, and such enormous catches were made as the most 

 experienced fishermen kad never before thought possible. Of course 

 it was not long before this remarkable discovery became known, 

 and a migration of trawlers from lirixham aiv) Rnmsgate soon took 

 place to Hull as a convenient station from which to work on this 

 promising ground. With the breaking up of the cold weather, how- 

 ever, this extraordinary congregation of soles became dispersed; 

 but more attention was from that time directed to the North Ses 

 fishing generally, and in after years the Silver Pit has again been 

 found very productive whenever the winter has been verj Bever< , 

 or, as the trawlers call it, in " pit .seasons." The fact -f. temperature 

 affecting the distribution of inniiy kinds of fish, shown in such 

 a marked manner in this particular lase, is now receiving systematic 

 attention from the Meteoriplogical Society of Scotland in connexion 

 with the herring fi.sheries, and very important results have appar- 

 ently been obtained from an inquiry into the same subiect on the 

 coasts of Nova Scotia. 



The value of the North Sea fishery soon became established, and 

 nothing in the history of our sea fislieries is more remarkable than 

 the rapid but steady development of the system of trawling which 

 has taken place from the. Iluniber porta. The Hull trawlers were 

 40 in 1845, and most of these were arrivals from the Channel ports, 

 as previously mentioned ; but in 1863 they had iiKrea.sed to 270, 

 and in 1877 there were 440 first-class fishing craft, with an aggregate 

 of 26,310 tons, on the Hull register, — these, excepting a few 

 shrimping boats j'lst over 15 tons each, being all trawl-smacks. 

 Another port on the Humber, Great Grimsby, situated nearer 

 the entrance of the river, has made still gieater prop-ess. It had 

 for some years been known in connexion wHh the North ■''ea cod 

 fishery ; and the practice of bringing home the cod Bli\c in welled 

 vessels, and keojiing them so till they were wanted for the market, 

 led to the selection of Grimsby, rather than the more important town 

 of Hull, as better suited, on accountof the grciiter purity of the salt 

 water, for preserving the cod in good condition in the floatinjf 

 store chests ; and the extension of the Manchester, Slieflield, and 

 Lincolnshire railway to the iiort provided the facilities for sending 

 away the fish to the various iiiiand markets. In 18fi8, when 

 the railway was nearly completed, five of the Hull trawlers mode 

 Grimsby their headquarters, and in the following year the line WM 



