Stephen’s talk started by outlining Grimsby’s varying fortunes over its history; both prosperity and decline resulted from Grimsby’s position on the Humber and the tidal movement of silt and sand Periodically this caused the harbour to be inaccessible, necessitating intervention and investment. Early on, Hull, Newcastle and Boston were far more important docks than Grimsby until industrial revolution and technology enabled the building of a new dock in 1796 by The Haven Docks Company whose shareholders had to wait nearly 50 years before seeing a return on their investment. To put Grimsby into perspective, in 1801 its population numbered only 1,528 whereas Louth’s was nearer 8,000! The arrival of the railway changed fortunes significantly. Financial incentives offered by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (MSLR) to fishing smacks and owners to relocate from towns in Essex, Suffolk, Kent and Devon,* created a profitable line in fresh fish straight to London’s Billingsgate Fish Market. In the 50 years between 1848 and 1901, this huge increase in fishing and subsidiary businesses (nets, chandlery, boat building etc), resulted in a population increase from 3,700 to 65,000.
Of course such growth did not come about without a hidden side – that of the use of young boy ‘apprentices’ and a general appalling lack of concern for safety. We learned that early fishing was ‘line-fishing’ – a method we hear of today as a method to conserve stocks – which necessitated apprentices (lowly enough and therefore considered expendable?) to row at least 2 miles out from the fishing smack with the fishing line. Disorientation and rough seas is believed to be the cause of 100s being lost at sea in this way. Even if the line was brought back to ship, the hazardous conditions of a boat loaded with fish combined with huge waves and open decks meant crew members were in danger of being washed overboard. Whilst the second half of the 19th century saw 800 Grimsby fishermen ‘lost at sea’, in the Great Storm of 1883 alone, 900 were lost over all east coast ports. Man-power replaced with steam, improved safety to a degree, but fishing grounds further afield were also made accessible – and without wireless contact with land or electricity. Financial profits were very much the driving force: from 22 smacks carrying out line-fishing and landing 460 tons of fish in 1856, only 50 years later 177,808 tons were landed by 700 steam trawlers. Of course today, talk of depleted fish stocks is commonplace and we were amazed at Stephen’s tell of the tonnage of fish landed in history.
Even on land, a fisherman’s life was not as easy one; the early and huge population growth meant overcrowded conditions for families in the East Marsh particularly, with anti-social behaviour, violence and prostitution commonplace.
We hear of ‘Cod Wars’ being the cause of fishing’s demise but Steven gave us the idea that ‘cod wars’ actually started in 1890s with disputes between us and Denmark – far earlier than we had considered. He posed the idea that the catastrophic Cod Wars of the 1970s actually started post WWII being rooted in political confrontations between the West and Soviet Union. By 1976, the then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs – our own MP Antony Crosland – was persuaded to sacrifice UK fishing industry in exchange for continued Anglo-US relations – the US using as leverage, the role that Iceland had had as a ‘listening’ station immediately after WWII. To put this sacrifice in context, whereas 1925 saw a high of 500 trawlers in the Grimsby fishing fleet, by 1976 there were only 24.
Stephen brought his talk to a close by reminding us that today, our fish market and auction deals worldwide and whilst our town employs some 6000 people in processing 70% of all UK seafood, we continue to be a leading technical and academic centre in food processing and have the largest catchment of cold storage in Europe.
Dr Bloy is thanked for giving an extremely informative talk putting much information in context which helped us all understand the issues which many in the audience, if not having been affected by, were familiar with.
*many of our town’s families thought to be Grimsby people through and through, have in fact through family research, been found to be definitely not from Lincolnshire and this is highly likely the reason why!
SM