The North Atlantic Fisheries, 1100-1976 - University of Hull

The Sea Fisheries of the
British Isles, 1376-1976:
A Preliminary Survey
Robb Robinson & David J. Starkey
Historians of the fisheries conducted from the British Isles since the late
fourteenth century are confronted by two main obstacles. In the first
place, this is a vast subject, not just in the long chronological span
involved, but also because of the complex range of activities it embraces.
At any given time during this period many different types of fishery were
being prosecuted from the British Isles. While there were marked
regional variations in technique, catch and market, numerous contrasting
forms of fishing enterprise might be conducted concurrently from a
single port or locality. Secondly, there are practical problems regarding
the collection and interpretation of data, for the primary sources
pertaining to Britain’s fisheries are extensive, assume many different
forms and are scattered in libraries and record offices throughout the
United Kingdom. The evidence, more importantly, is uneven in temporal
terms, with comparatively little relating to the pre-1750 period, and also
with regard to its topical range—some fisheries, and some ports, having
generated more, or more useful, records than others.
Such difficulties are reflected in the literature pertaining to the
development of Britain’s fisheries. While few students have considered
the business of fishing before the eighteenth century, the focus of the
majority of works has been restricted to a particular type of fishery, to the
fishing enterprise of a designated port or stretch of coastline, or to a
certain facet of the process of catching, transporting, preserving and
selling fish. More critically, the literature, with notable exceptions,
suffers from a number of intellectual weaknesses. Fishing historians
have often been lax in setting parameters for their work and in adopting a
systematic approach to their ill-defined topics. Accordingly, descriptive,
parochial and romanticised accounts of how fishing was practised are
rather more numerous than analyses of why the activity developed to the
extent, and in the form, that it did. A general reluctance to contextualise
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