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

the percentage was possibly higher. From the west coast, fish was
despatched to France in some quantity before the 1680s, though the flow
of east coast herring to the Low Countries and, more especially, the
Baltic, was the mainstay of Scotland’s fish export trade. Domestic
consumption of fish was likewise higher in the northern kingdom than in
England according to the limited evidence available, the chief market
being centred on the Firth of Forth, notably Edinburgh and Leith. Even
so, as elsewhere, fluctuation and uncertainty marked the Scottish herring
fishery, with barren periods frequently following years of glut depending
on the unpredictable movement of the fish. With the fishing effort largely
concentrated in small boats of limited range, Scottish fishermen were
unable to shift the location of their operations in line with the changing
patterns of herring abundance. The fishery therefore obtained an
intermittent character until well into the nineteenth century. 213
Two herring seasons were exploited domestically off the English
North Sea coast. From Scarborough, Staithes, Robin Hood’s Bay and
other settlements on the North Yorkshire coast, ‘farcostae’ and five-man
cobles were sent out to engage in what fifteenth-century parish records
describe as the ‘Winter herring fare’ or the ‘North Sea fare’. 214 Many of
these vessels sailed south for the second and more important herring
fishery conducted off Yarmouth and Lowestoft in the autumn months. In
these waters, they fished alongside boats belonging to the East Anglian
ports, vessels from the English Channel coast and a variety of foreign
craft, chiefly from the Netherlands and France. Surviving municipal
records from Great Yarmouth indicate the fluctuating scale of this
activity in terms of the number of local boats wintering in the port
between 1581 and 1714. It would seem that this fishery reached peaks of
120, 124 and 162 vessels in 1604, 1629 and 1654 respectively, with
notable troughs evident in the 1620s, the 1650s and 1660s, and from the
late 1670s onwards. But in neglecting the contribution of foreign
fishermen, the figures offer inadequate measures of the output of the
fishery because much of the herring cured and packed in Yarmouth,
particularly before the mid-seventeenth century, had been landed by
Dutch and French vessels. 215 Indeed, foreign competition, especially
213 Michell, ‘European Fisheries’, 147-8; M Gray, Fishing Industries.
214 Heath, ‘North Sea Fishing’, 56-9.
215 Michell, ‘European Fisheries’, 143-7.
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