23. Oct, 2021
The Scottish Herring Trade.
The Herring Trade was a crucial industry in the Highlands of Scotland, bringing much needed employment during the fishing season. Hundreds of boats would descend on ports like Wick in Caithness, and ladies would be found on the quayside gutting the fish after they were landed. So plentiful could the herrings be that, as the botanist James Robertson reported in 1768, the locals "can, standing upon the rocks, take them out of the water with their hands." John Knox, who toured the Highlands in 1786 on behalf of what became the British Fisheries Society, thought that the expansion of the Herring Trade would bring huge benefits to the region. The result of his advice was the development of villages like Ullapool, and for a while it seemed as though he was correct. Unfortunately, the herrings could not be relied upon to return every year, and by 1824, John MacCulloch observed at Loch Broom "the seat of one of the great and useless fishing establishments" on St Martin's Island.
When the catch was plentiful, it created a remarkable transformation in these Highland regions. The Penny Magazine in 1835 reported that from July, for a period of six weeks, 10,000 people descended on Wick with 12,000 boats. The visitors came, not just from all over Britain, but also from the Continent. The Dutch were particularly successful, and were said to process the fish to the highest standard, carrying out the work on board the boats rather than returning to the ports with the catch to be cured on the quayside. Their produce therefore was sold at the highest prices. That sold by Scottish merchants was of a lower quality, with much of it being sent to "slaves in the West Indies, whither they are conveyed from Bristol."
The visitors from the Continent were not entirely welcomed by the locals. The Penny Magazine noted that "The French and Dutch observe no distinction of days in fishing: and the Minister has applied for a revenue-cutter to enforce the observance of the Sabbath-Day, by breaking the nets of the delinquents."
A detailed description of the Herring processing procedure can be found in Chapter 6 of Charles Weld's Two Months in the Highlands, Orcadia, and Skye (Longman, 1860). I shall be posting photographic images from my collection as a page on this website.
Details of my book, The Immeasurable Wilds can be found at:
https://www.whittlespublishing.com/The_Immeasurable_Wilds