The East Coast Fishery - Great Yarmouth

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=185 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="040b9c00dduajq.jpg"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="70" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 76 WIDTH="66"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="76" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="66" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Aberdeen</B></div> <div> <B>Fraserburgh</B></div> <div> <B>North Shields</B></div> <div> <B>Whitby</B></div> <div> <B>Hull</B></div> <div> <B>Grimsby</B></div> <div> <B>Lowestoft</B></div> <div> <B>Yarmouth</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="2c7a4670.jpg" border=0 width="164" height="103" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <B>Great Yarmouth Harbour</B></div> <div> <B>"for 1000 boats"</B></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFBF0" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Falmouth Packet Archives 1688-1850</B></FONT>    |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Falmouth Packet Archives 16881850"><U>home</U></A></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> The East Coast Fishery - Great Yarmouth </div> <bR> <div> <B>Great Yarmouth, Norfolk</B></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="2c5b8510.jpg" border=0 width="440" height="593" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> The 150 or so "Rows," or alleys, were so narrow they were serviced by a specially designed Yarmouth cart...</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="2c480900.jpg" border=0 width="640" height="400" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> October 3, <B>1905</B> article:                           <B>HARVEST OF THE SEA      Yarmouth and its Herrings, </B>by James Blyth</div> <bR> <div> Those of the summer visitors to Yarmouth who protracted their stay for the race meeting noticed, about the middle of September, that the subtle, luscious scent which pervades <I><B>the Rows</B></I> at eve began to grow even more pronounced.  A few curing houses were getting to work on the delicious little “long shore” herring.  Below one's bedroom window, often ere dawn had turned to sunrise, passed hale seafaring men or their lads, and on their heads they bore the spoil of their night's toil, crying as they passed, the cry is as old as Yarmouth herself, the cry of “<I><B>Fine long shore harrin'</B></I>.”</div> <bR> <div> <B>The Autumn Fishing</B></div> <div> The dry, flavourless spring herrings serve to send away to town and places where they know not a firm fish from a “mazy” one, or to pickle in the oven with vinegar and allspice.  The slightly better Midsummer fish have been hawked around the country for the past two months, and described at “<I><B>gitting better ivery day.  Try 'em.  They are as firm and fresh as the October fish.”  </B></I>But these are merely incidents of the year.  It is the great autumn fishing that has given Yarmouth its pre-eminence among East coast ports, for the herring are always at their prime, and then the vast shoals are always off directly off Yarmouth.</div> <div> The autumn fishing is a distinct voyage for the crews of the herring-boats.  It lasts sixteen weeks, and begins far up in the North - as far as Aberdeen.  The fleet of boats follow the fleet down the coast, taking North Shields, Whitby, Scarborough and Grimsby as headquarters on their way, shifting their ports as the fish shift their shoals.  Bloaters are cured, kippers are dry-salted and smoked all the time. The finest, the pride of the curing-houses are not to be seen before October.</div> <div> Roughly speaking, the fleet fishing from Yarmouth, consists of 250 local boats and 600 Scotch boats.  Ten or twelve years ago [1893-95] scarce a steamer was to be seen on the fish wharf.  Now [1905] by far the greater number of the local boats are steamers.</div> <div> The crew of each boat is made up from the surrounding villages early in August, and many a poor labourer's son, who starves on light dumplings and flour foods the rest of the year, lives on the fat of the sea during his autumn cruise after the herring.  One man told me that he sometimes ate two or three-and-twenty herring (not the largest, he said) and a ship's biscuit or two for his “<I>brekkust</I>.” But then it must be remembered that the fishermen only eat the backs of the fish, and that they, and all the country folk, rarely touch either “<I>milt</I>” or <B>roes</B>, either soft or hard.  Some village folk will eat hard roes, but very few will touch the greater delicacy of the “<I><B>milt</B></I>,” or soft roes.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Division of Profits</B></div> <div> The profits of the boat are divided into <B>sixteen</B> shares, of which <B>the owner takes seven</B> and the men remaining nine, in proportion to their standings on the boat.  The master, for instance, will take a share and a half or a share and three-quarters, the mate a half a share less and so on, till the boy only gets about a quarter share.  A share on a lucky boat will amount to £200 or £250, and I have seen the returning fishermen measuring their sovereigns in pint pots in their native village inns.  But often they have so drawn on their prospective share during their trips ashore down the coast that they have little enough to come at the end of the venture.</div> <div> The modern steam drifters are fine boats, from sixty to seventy tons measurement, 80 ft. long, and 17 or 18 ft. in beam.  They generally get the best prices for their fresh fish, for they get the “first of the market,” as they are independent of the caprices of wind.  But steam has its drawbacks.  It is far more expensive than sails, and the heat generated by the furnace is none too good for the catch.  The engines take up much of the space which sailing craft cal devote to the fish well.  Thus only fresh fish, caught day by day, are brought in by the steamers.  The great salt North Sea herring, which makes up the finest ham cured or “red” herring, are the spoil of the sailing craft, which stay out two or three days at a time.</div> <div> In sailing craft the nets are about two miles long.  But steamers exceed this.  They fish with from 170 to 200 nets, each thirty yards wide by eighteen or twenty “score” (of meshes) deep, and the size of the mesh brings the depth to about 30 ft.  The nets are fastened together to form one continuous surface, and are floated by buoys.  An easy calculation will show that this gives a length of about three miles!  As no boat may “shoot” her nets so as to interfere with another boat the extent of the fisher may be imagined.</div> <div> Ever since the Cromer “mazy” fish have been left behind the herring have been getting better and better.  “Mazy” fish are soft and worthless, good for little but manure, though many are palmed off on an innocent public.  A warm autumn makes for mazy fish, and what the crews of the drifters love is a bright frosty November moon.  Then they are sure that all the fish they catch will be good salable stuff, fit either for the pickling barrel or the curing house.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Mighty Shoals of Fish</B></div> <div> The passage of the mighty shoals of fish is marked by day by the roll of the greedy porpoise or the flocks of gulls.  By night a lovely phosphorescence betrays the disturbance of the water by the swimming millions.  As soon as a boat has got to the signs of a shoal she “shoots” here miles of nets, passing them out over a roller, and keeping enough way [motion, or speed] to lay them straight.  When the last net is over she brings to [stops], and drifts.   The lights of the thousand drifting boats dotted over miles of sea in inexpressibly beautiful, the rainbow tints changing and moving with the motion of the waves, the dark hulls throwing the gleaming colours into strong relief.    And when there is a “strike,” and the movement of the buoys that support the nets show that a shoal has become enmeshed. In come the nets, and up come the wriggling bars of silver till the men are splashing in glittering scales to the top of their thigh boots as they shake the nets so that the herring drop from the hold the meshes had of their gills.</div> <div> No one need starve in Yarmouth after a good night.  Little lads carry about great strings of fish, which they are glad to sell for two pence or three pence.  I have given a Scotch skipper sixpence and a basket, and come away with nearly a hundred fat herring!  And, if one can but get the topmost layer of fish on an incoming boat, then is the time to taste a real fresh herring.  Cleaned, headed, and popped in the pan within an hour or so after it has left the sea the herring need fear the rivalry of no fish that swims.  The flavourless, sodden, soft monstrosities that are sold as fresh herring can give no idea of the true excellence of this admiral fish, and more than the town-cured bloaters can vie with the real Yarmouth article, brought in one morning, salted in fresh brine for two or three hours, and then hung up in the smoke of oak billets for one night only.  That is the real Yarmouth bloater</div> <div> But the enormous numbers that are brought in make is necessary to dispose of them as best may be.  In 1903, over 39,000 lasts were brought into Yarmouth alone; in 1904, over 40,000; and in the record year of 1902 over 44,000 <I><B>lasts</B></I> of <I><B>13,200 fish</B></I> each.  </div> <div> Of these, in 1903, 247,354 <I><B>barrels</B></I> of salt fish were exported from Yarmouth to the Continent, in 1904, the quantity increased to 317,581 barrels, and it is expected that this year [1905] will be a record in exported fish.</div> <div> The <B>kippering is almost entirely in the hands of the Scotch girls</B>, who follow the fish down the coast, and who invade Yarmouth in October to the number of some 5,000.  These do much of their shopping for the ensuing year at the old seaport shops, so that a good year or bad affects more than the merely local …. [article cut off!] </div> <div> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</div> <div> The above article is of interest in several respects to the turn-of the-century Cornish <B>pilchard</B> and <B>mackerel</B> fishery.</div> <div> The description of (sail or power) <I>drift netting</I> and manual hauling of the catch (as opposed to <I>seine netting</I>) is comparable to the pilchard fishery of Looe, Mevagissey, Penzance, Newlyn and St. Ives.  Processing of the Cornish catches was, of course, for both species, quite different. There is still a working example of the pilchard packing and pressing process at Nick Howell's `museum' in Newlyn.  See his <U>web site</U>.</div> <div> The parallels with the mackerel fishery, with the seasonal arrival on the Western approaches of the migrant East Coast smack fleet, includes the `invasion' of Scottish women who followed the fleet and boosted the local shops' and innkeeper's coffers!</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>