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

nineteenth century had led to the discovery of new trawling grounds and
this expansion across more distant areas of the sea bed increased after
1840. Symptomatic of this attempt to improve the supply of fish was the
‘discovery’ of the Silver Pits, which were first subject to large-scale
exploitation by trawlers during the winter of 1844-5. 240 Though the
particular impact of these predominantly cold-weather grounds has
perhaps been overstated, they were part of a trend which saw trawlermen
working over many new grounds across the North Sea through to the
1870s. At the same time, the proximity of the ‘new’ grounds to the east
coast profoundly affected the location of the fishing industry. With
labour, capital and, not least, trawling techniques attracted from other
regions, most notably south-west England, the fish trade swiftly
gravitated to those North Sea ports which could provide rail links with
inland centres of mass consumption. Initially, in the early 1840s, this
meant Hull, with Grimsby, on the other bank of the Humber,
participating vigorously from the mid 1850s.
When the Royal Commission on the Sea Fisheries convened in 1863,
it was to consider an industry that had undergone a major transformation
during the previous twenty-five years. Stimulated by demand-side
pressure, the supply of fresh white fish had increased massively as more
efficient catching methods were used over a wider area. In general terms,
this meant that distant-water trawling based in a few east coast ports had
emerged as the leading sector of the fisheries undertaken from the British
Isles. Essentially, this structure endured until the mid-1970s. Of course,
there were many developments in the fish trade during this period, but
change tended to be a matter of degree rather than of kind. Within this
framework, the domestic market for fresh fish continued to play a critical
role. While this source of demand expanded due to the sustained growth
of Britain’s urban population—down to the 1920s at least—it also grew
as a result of product refinement and innovations in retailing. Perhaps the
best example of this market development occurred during the late
nineteenth century in the growth of the fried fish market associated with
the emergence and swift institutionalization of the fish and chip shop. 241
Almost as dynamic, if less culturally influential, was the extension of the
mass market effected by the introduction of frozen, filleted fish during
the 1960s.
240 Bellamy, ‘Pioneers’; Robinson, ‘Rise of Trawling’.
241 Walton, Fish and Chips.
136