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

Fig. 1
The reports to chancellor Oeder were collected within a few months
during the summer of 1771 and are of very varying quality. The main
problem with Oeder’s questionnaire was that the questions were
unspecific and the answers therefore too loose and often unquantified.
However, question no. 9 ‘How many fishermen are there?’ got
reasonably good answers. In the bigger fishing ports the numbers seem to
be based on well-informed observations, whereas the numbers of
agricultural workers who perhaps fished for two or three months are
necessarily given in vague terms such as ‘a few’, ‘a handful’. If we
content ourselves with the numbers of what seem to be full-time or more
than half-time fishermen we get a fairly accurate impression of the
industry (table 4).
Table 4. The Male Fisher Population of Denmark
1771, and the Number of Fisher Families 1873
Dioceses Fishermen,
1773
per cent of
total
Fisher
families
1873
per cent of
total
Aalborg 2108 46.8 3632 31.9
Viborg 225 5 609 5.4
Århus 61 1.4 652 5.7
Ribe 839 18.6 1272 11.2
Sjælland 784 17.4 2838 25
Bornholm 300 6.7 607 5.3
Lolland-Fal
ster
37 0.8 523 4.6
Fyn 154 3.4 1235 10.9
Total 4508 11368
Source: ‘Indberetninger til Finansråd Oeder, 1771’. Danish
National Archives, R.K. C.A.a. For 1873 V. Falbe-Hansen
& Scharling, Danmarks Statistik, I, 361.
The table shows that North Jutland (the dioceses of Aalborg and Viborg)
had half the total fisher population of Denmark by 1771. Unfortunately,
the sources do not distinguish between the Limfiord fishermen and those
fishing from the open coast (the figures for the Thy and Kær-Hvetbo
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