CHAPTER VI 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF STEAM TRAWLING 



IN the early part of the nineteenth century the principal method 

 of catching demersal fish in the North Sea was by means of 

 hooks and lines, at first " hand " and subsequently " long " 

 lines. The vessels employed were welled-smacks, their longest 

 voyages being to the Dogger Bank. The well was situated amid- 

 ships, about half the vessel's depth being pierced for free circulation 

 of sea water. A description of these vessels is given by Holdsworth,^ 

 according to whom the use of wells for keeping cod alive was first 

 tried in 1712 at Harwich. The welled-smacks of Harwich were 

 probably the best known, but London also possessed a fleet of these 

 vessels. In those days the use of ice for the carriage of sea fish was 

 unknown, and fresh fish could only be brought in by well boats. 

 Ice was first introduced for this purpose at Yarmouth in 1854 ; 

 this led to the substitution of railway carriage of fish to London, 

 for sea carriage. The well smacks were gradually ousted by the 

 sailing trawler. 



Trawling, though a very old method of fishing, was confined to 

 small vessels in the neighbourhood of Brixham and in the estuary 

 of the Thames, until the end of the first decade of the nineteenth 

 century. After the Napoleonic wars the Brixham trawlers began 

 to migrate eastward ; there are records of them at Dover, Ramsgate 

 (1818) and Harwich (1828). The Dutch coast was visited about 

 1830, and the Dogger a few years later. In 1837 there was a great 

 boom in trawling owing to the discovery of the Great Silver Pit, 

 south of the Dogger. This ground was frequented by enormous 

 quantities of soles. Hull was found a convenient base from which 

 to work this ground. Trawling can now fairly be considered to be 

 established in the North Sea. 



Somewhere about 1858, trawling became established at Grimsby, 

 now the leading fishing port in the world. The operations of the 

 trawlers were gradually extended, in i860 the grounds off the 

 coasts of Holland and Schleswig were fished, as well as the whole 

 of the Dogger Bank and large areas north and west of it, off the 



1 Deep-Sea Fishing and Fishing Boats, by E. W. H. Holdsworth. London, 1874. 

 L 145 



