6 - Fishing during the Great War

Summary

Pre-War Position

Taken as a whole the British fishing industry boomed in the years preceding the outbreak of the Great War, and 1913, the last full year of peace, proved no exception. Most previous performance indicators in both the steam trawling and herring fisheries – the leading sectors in this dynamic trade – were surpassed. Total fish landings at British ports that year were well over the 16 million cwt (800,000 ton) mark, attracting revenue of more than £10 million.

Whether judged by the size and sophistication of its fish processing, catching, or distributive sectors, the British fishing industry led the world. Flotillas of middle and distant water steam trawling fleets, working principally from the ports of Hull, Grimsby, Aberdeen, Fleetwood, Shields, and Milford Haven, took white fish from as far afield as fishing grounds off the Faroe Islands, Iceland, or the Barents and the Irish and North Seas as well as the English Channel and beyond. Most of their catch was destined for home markets and intended to satisfy a seemingly insatiable domestic demand, particularly from the burgeoning fried fish and chip trade. Meanwhile, large fleets of drifters voyaged up and down the coast intent on exploiting the immensity of herrings which shoaled in great quantities at different times in various seas off the British Isles. Much of the herring catch was processed by the highly mobile (and mainly Scottish) curing gangs which followed the drifters, and although some fish was smoked for domestic consumption as kippers, vast quantities were salt cured, packed in barrels, and exported to markets across immense areas of central and eastern Europe. The number of fishermen and boys regularly and occasionally employed in England and Wales in sea fisheries in 1913 were 37,870 and 7,512 respectively, while the total figures for Scotland were 38,262. Those regularly or occasionally employed in the catching sector of the United Kingdom's fishing industry, including the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, was just under 100,000 in 1913. Many, many thousands more worked in the processing and distributive branches.

During the first half of 1914 there was every prospect that the prosperity of recent years would be maintained throughout the twelve months and, indeed, when Britain declared war on 4 August, many sectors of the trade were still working at full stretch.