FISH AND FISHERIES OF EAST SUFFOLK. 379 



fleets — gradually declined, and were never afterwards revived. 

 Lowestoft had annually sent thirty boats ; in 1720 they were 

 reduced to five. Mr. Copping, an eminent Lowestoft merchant, 

 sent the last boat from this port to the North Sea in 1748. Cod 

 and Liug (which proves the fishery to have been a line fishery) 

 were the principal catches ; in a good season the boats would 

 return with four hundred for each craft. 



These fishes were cured by pickling them in casks ; some 

 were dry salted. They were afterwards despatched to foreign 

 ports. "The livers were a considerable article," says Gilling- 

 water, " and there is a trench still visible upon the Denes, a 

 little to the north of Lowestoft, where stood the coppers where 

 they used to boil the livers." 



The trawl fishery has of late years become of considerable 

 importance to Lowestoft, thanks greatly to the fostering in- 

 fluences of railway patronage. In plain words, Lowestoft owes 

 much more to the enterprise of the Great Eastern Railway Com- 

 pany than to the original energy of its own inhabitants. I can- 

 not get much information with regard to the beginnings of the 

 trawling industry in this port. At a meeting of the Royal Com- 

 mission (inquiring into the East Coast Fisheries in 1863), which 

 was convened at Lowestoft in the November of that year, Mr. J. 

 Robertson, then Collector of Customs, in giving evidence, stated 

 that at that moment the Herring and Mackerel boats numbered 

 176, with "eight smacks employed in the trawling only." At 

 that time Yarmouth had a fleet of some 150 smacks, which had 

 increased to 400 sail in 1875. In a few years Lowestoft shot 

 ahead. To-day the number of trawlers fishing from Lowestoft 

 is some 300 vessels, whilst those from the port of Yarmouth are 

 less than the number of fingers on one's hand ! 



I have heard it stated that Lowestoft's " start " dated from 

 the advent there of Sir Morton Peto, after his rebuff at Yar- 

 mouth, whose development he had greatly desired, as well as 

 certain political honours for himself. At any rate, to his enter- 

 prise and liberality in promoting docks and railway connections 

 with the Great Eastern Railway, supplemented by the helping 

 hand of the Company itself, Lowestoft owes much — indeed, most 

 of its present-day prosperity.* 



* For account of harbour developments, see White's 1 Directory.' 



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