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

fishing is clearly apparent in references to ‘home’ voyages undertaken by
Brixham fishermen in local and coastal waters as opposed to ventures in
the ‘deep’ sea. In these ‘home’ waters a wide variety of fish was caught,
with haddock, colefish, cod, ling, hake, mackerel, gurnard, bass, plaice
of many sorts, sole and ‘holy book flounders’ among the species taken.
While many were trapped in the seine, tuck and hake nets set in the
coastal waters, especially off the south Devon coast, others were
captured by hook and line. 203 Scottish fishermen likewise engaged in
inshore fishing. The picture painted of the innumerable fishing
communities located on both the east and west coasts of ‘North Britain’
in the late eighteenth century surely portrays an activity familiar for
many centuries. With women and children baiting and repairing lines
while the men sought cod, ling and haddock by short lines worked from
small vessels a few miles offshore, this was a small-scale business of
great significance in the income it generated, and sustenance it provided,
for many coastal settlements. 204
Quantitative data relating to the scale of these inshore fisheries is
almost entirely lacking. While it is feasible to estimate the scale of the
business in isolated instances—for example, at least 40 cobles operated
out of Scarborough in the early fifteenth century, 205 while some 102 nets
were in use off South Devon in 1619 206 —there are no indications of
gross investment, employment or output generated by this branch of
Britain’s fisheries. Rather more detail is available on the scale and
character of the herring fishery conducted from the British Isles. Again it
is widely assumed that this facet of the fishing industry has a long
pedigree. References to the taking of herring in drift nets off Yarmouth
suggest that the activity dates back to the sixth century at least. 207 In
fifteenth-century Scarborough, tithes were paid in herring caught in
vessels owned by the more substantial members of the town’s business
community. 208 Herring were likewise sought off the coasts of south-west
England from at least the twelfth century when Sutton Prior (Plymouth)
203 T Gray, ‘Devon’s Fisheries’, 139-40.
204 M Gray, Fishing Industries, 9-26.
205 Heath, ‘North Sea Fishing’, 58.
206 T Gray, ‘Devon’s Fisheries’, 139.
207 Holdsworth, Sea Fisheries, 49.
208 Heath, ‘North Sea Fishing’, 57.
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