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

2. Discussion of Britain’s fisheries is uneven in topical terms. A new
appraisal should embrace all facets of the activity through the ages in
order to ensure balance and enhance understanding. Too frequently the
focus has been narrowly confined to a single, usually dynamic, element
of a broad, complex collection of activities.
3. Many of the accepted explanations of the development of the
fisheries require revision. For instance, fishing historians, perhaps
sub-consciously, have generally adopted the model of the classic
‘industrial revolution’ as the conceptual framework for their studies of
Britain’s nineteenth-century fisheries. Thus, fishing activity is deemed to
have passed through various stages, being classified as industrial or
pre-industrial according to the nature of the gear used or, more
commonly, the means of vessel propulsion deployed. This impedes
analysis of a broad range of fishing operations, for some were changing
at a different rate, and in different ways, than the leading sectors.
Likewise, with regard to labour, the eternal ‘standard of living debate’
has been transshipped from the manufacturing districts to the trawling
ports with the result that the so-called ‘industrialization’ of the
distant-water fisheries has been viewed as leading to the impoverishment
and immiseration of the populations of Hull, Grimsby and elsewhere. 250
Superficially attractive, such hypotheses need testing rather more
rigorously than has hitherto been attempted.
4. The contexts in which Britain’s fisheries have been considered
need to be broadened. This entails comparative and interdisciplinary
work. As the fishing history of the British Isles has been studied largely
without regard to the experience of other nations exploiting the same
waters it is time that the subject is placed in a European or North Atlantic
setting. This is especially so for the modern era when international
disputes and agreements have exerted a major influence on the character
and prosperity of fishing. But it is also true of earlier periods in which the
British fought and negotiated for the right to exploit Newfoundland cod
and North Sea herring. Similarly, understanding Britain’s fishing
industry would greatly benefit from the input of colleagues in other
disciplines. For instance, it is self-evident that the findings of marine
biologists on such matters as fish movements and resilience should
inform interpretations of past as well as current fluctuations in the
prosperity of the fisheries. In a like manner, climatologists and
250 Thompson, Living the Fishing.
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