FISH AND FISHERIES OF EAST SUFFOLK. 369 



Yarmouth, is very much mixed up with the beginnings and de- 

 velopment of the larger and busier Norfolk borough, more 

 especially as their maritime pursuits are kindred, although 

 Lowestoft must have been in existence while the very site of 

 the former was still under the sea. Lowestoft fishermen un- 

 doubtedly plied their trade upon the adjacent waters long ere 

 the Yarmouth fishermen spread their nets to dry upon the rising 

 sand-dunes on which stands the Herring metropolis, and it is 

 equally probable that the East Coast Herring- fishery, origi- 

 nating at Lowestoft, in some measure transferred itself to 

 Yarmouth. 



From the earliest times considerable rivalry, which often 

 developed into active hostilities, characterized the progress of 

 these two ambitious towns. Dutchmen added to the discord in 

 trying to usurp the fishery to themselves, or at least to mono- 

 polise a goodly share of it.* Frequent appeals to the successive 

 reigning monarchs were made to adjust matters : King John, 

 Edward L, Edward III., Henry III , Eichard II. — all had a 

 finger in the debatable pie. Charles I. did not mend matters 

 much, although in the Civil Wars, and while Yarmouth sided 

 with Cromwell, Lowestoft was loyal to the unhappy, wrong-headed 

 King. The history of Yarmouth is punctuated by accounts of 

 these long wearisome quarrels with Lowestoft, while over sixty 

 pages of small type does Gillingwater devote to them in his 

 ! History.' On the concluding page of these sordid chronicles 

 he brings the contentions down to Charles II. 's reign, and to a 

 point where Lowestoft evidently scores : " Thus," he emphatically 

 writes, " was the last effort of the Yarmouth men to monopolise 

 the Herring-fishery totally frustrated, and the Lowestoft people 

 have enjoyed the free exercise thereof without any interruption 

 ever since." During the early part of Charles I.'s reign, Nashe 

 wrote his celebrated 1 Lenten Stuffe, or the Praise of the Red 

 Herring.' Being a Lowestoft man, he naturally took sides in 

 the controversy against Yarmouth, and it goes without saying 

 that it was the Lowestoft Red Herring which inspired his muse. 

 Swinden (' History of Yarmouth ') characterizes it as nothing 

 more than " a joke upon our staple — Red Herrings." It would 



* I must refer the reader to Gillingwater's 1 History of Lowestoft,' 

 chap, iii., popular edition, published by Arthur Stebbings, 1897, Lowestoft. 



