The Lincolnshire town’s fortunes have gone up and down – like its fishing. John Worrall reports The Lincolnshire port of Boston goes back a long way. Boston first got rich in medieval times through the Hanseatic League, whose success was substantially based…
In the days before lifeboat services, saving lives at sea went hand in hand with the chance to make serious money from salvage, reports John Worrall It was a question of time and place. In the 18th and 19th centuries,…
Notwithstanding the current crisis, fishing today is a lot easier than it used to be. John Worrall delves deep into Norfolk fishing history Consider this. On an early spring day, in a small creek on the east coast of medieval…
The seventh article in the series by Hull skipper William Oliver, first published in 1953/4. All photographs courtesy of Alec Gill One beautiful summer morning in late July 1914, I was fishing on Dyra Fjord Bank, a ground 25 miles…
A 69ft fishing boat built by J&G Forbes & Co of Sandhaven in 1947 as Jessie West FR 559 for Fraserburgh skipper Alex West is still active in British Columbia, Canada, reports David Linkie. The traditional-style dual-purpose herring drifter/seine-net boat,…
Thirty years ago, on 1 October, 1989, fishery protection officer Jim Portus jumped ship from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF – now the MMO) to manage the South Western Fish Producers’ Organisation (SWFPO) He did so after…
The Shipwrecked Mariners’ Society is calling on the public and seafaring community to submit the personal memories, stories and historical recollections, in the form of images, poems or prose, that best represent what the maritime and seafaring community means to…
There have been a few people who have helped me along the way during my career within the fishing industry, but none more so than Reg Matthews, who sadly passed away on 22 January, 2019, aged 87. Reg Matthews was…
Sailing smacks and box fleets in the late 1800s. Hull trawlerman William Oliver reminisces. Above: Socrates is a typical steam trawler that fished from Hull in the early 1900s. (Photo: Dr Alec Gill) My first recollections of Hull Fish Dock were…
Our ‘Where are they now?’ feature provides brief histories, including build details, of a varied selection of fishing vessels from years gone by. Some of these vessels continue to perform successfully today, under different names to the ones they were…