British Fisheries Society, 1786-1893

Abstract

We have now followed the Society throughout its career from 1786 to 1893 and have seen the various changes in the fortune which overtook it. For the first twelve years the western settlements were under construction, the Directors' influence was at its peak and hopes ran high for the newly revived fishing industry. The new century saw a sudden change in the course of the herring shoals from west to east, the rise of Pulteneytown and the decline of Ullapool and Lochbay. Meanwhile the appointment of the Commissioners for the Herring Fishery in 1808 curtailed the Society's scope and the later Directors allowed the initiative in matters of emigration and even fishery laws to pass from their hands to the Highland Society of Edinburgh. By I83O Pulteneytown had reached the highest point of its career when an out break of cholera diverted the fishermen to other east coast ports, from which many did not return. Famine and apathy on the west persuaded the Directors to sell their property during the 1840's in order to raise funds for the new harbour works in Caithness. A change in the Directorate and the sheading of responsibilities in the west revived the Society for its long battle with the authorities over Pulteneytown harbour, a battle which ended in tragedy for the Society with the failure of their breakwater in 1873* In face of this, the local and political opposition pressed for and obtained control of the harbour and the Society gradually faded from the scene.

It has already been shown that the disappearance of the herring after 1798 ruined Ullapool while at Lochbay, although the village was not so far advanced and therefore less directly concerned, it destroyed all hope of establishing a prosperous fishing station. The failure also had several less obvious effects on the Society which will appear later. Since this played such an important part in the history of the Society, it should be considered whether the Directors ought to have foreseen and provided against such an event. Fishermen had warned them that there were frequent local failures when the shoals deserted a certain district for as many as ten years but Lochbroom was regarded as a more constant resort than any in the north west. §y establishing three stations along the coast the Directors hoped to escape the effects of these local failures but they gave the settlers land and the chance of alternative employment in industry to help them over occasional baa years. Thus the Directors provided for temporary failures but they did not provide for the almost complete desertion of the whole west coast. The history of the herring fishery contains examples of sudden migrations of which the departure of shoals from the Baltic in the fifteenth century is perhaps the most famous while a similar movement deserted the Forth and Tay during nearly the whole of the eighteenth century. In I786 these migrations were known but since the causes had not been discovered and the periods between them were extremely irregular, it was impossible for the Directors to forecast a migration. The only insurance against such an event lay in keeping out of the fishing industry altogether.

All the Directors' plans for the west were based on the growing success of the fishery. Owing to the unexpected disappearance of the herring so soon after the settlements were founded these plans were never adequately tested and the intervening century has not produced a more successful scheme of development by which to judge the Society. It therefore becomes a matter of guesswork whether their plans would have turned out to be practicable.

The failure of the western settlements emphasised the clash of interests which was inherent in the foundation of the Society. In order to raise money for the encouragement of the fisheries in the Highlands subscribers were formed into a Joint Stock Company on commercial lines. The Directors were elected to administer the Society's funds to the greatest advantage of the fisheries. There was conflict in this, for the Directors aimed to establish settlements hut to reserve some capital for general encouragement of the industry in experiments on improved equipment and chartmaking. Again, once the three settlements had been founded their interests clashed with each other and with future stations which the Directors were always prepared, if occasion offered, to establish on any undeveloped part of the coast.

Thus the Directors were faced with the task of balancing the interests of the settlers of each station and of the fisheries in general. The original subscribers were satisfied at seeing their money laid out at the settlements and the success of Ullapool, Tobermory and Lochbay would have provided small dividends from the rents, as was forecast in 1798.

When the west failed some shareholders resented seeing their money spent on poor relief when it could have been profitably invested at Pulteneytown, thus introducing a new clash between the interests of the subscribers and the aims of the Society. The Directors appreciated this but hesitated to abandon the settlers for whom they felt responsible or to sell their stations in case the herring returned to the west.

Thus in following the original aims of the Society the Directors were forced to waver between charity and profit. In a successful venture charity would have been slightly profitable which was all that was demanded in 1786 and the Society could have pursued a more direct, though maybe no more successful, course.

In administration the organisation of the Society was unsatisfactory from the beginning since the Directors in London could only exercise a very remote control over their settlements. In 1786 it took more than a week to send a letter from London to Ullapool and nearly three weeks to obtain an answer. It was riot until 1850 that the postal service became fast enough to provide efficient administration on the Society's pattern. The Directors were dependent on letters for knowledge of conditions in the north during the months when Parliament was in session, for while the Board was meeting regularly none of them could leave London. In the event of the settlers sending in a petition, or indeed of any decision being required, nearly a month elapsed while the Directors consulted their local Agent and at least another week passed before their instructions reached the settlement, When these referred to action, such as repairs or building, this delay sometimes wasted the whole of what was in any case a short season. One remedy would have been to remove the Society's headquarters to Edinburgh or Inverness from where a more direct contact with the settlements could have been maintained, but this would have severed the close connection between the Society and Parliament. The Directors regarded the latter as one of the most important aspects of the Society and therefore they remained, in London and the system of remote control was preserved.

The only hope for such an organisation lay in employing good Agents. The Society paid its Agents £40 per year expecting in return only part time service with a very high standard of honesty and intelligence. In theory the Agent was either a country gentleman of independent means and a strong sense of duty who lived near the settlement or else a member of the professional class resident in the village who supplemented an already moderate income by working for the Society. In practice the former proved very rare, only Williamson at Pulteneytown being satisfactory, and from the latter class came the successful Agents Macleay and Rhind in Caithness and the Maxwells and Hisbets at Tobermory. Lochbay and Ullapool had no resident professional class and for the former the Society chose a series of country gentlemen who lived too far away and consequently neglected the settlement. At Ullapool the Agents, several of whom had been trained as writers but had no scope to practise in Wester Ross, had no other occupation, failed to preserve sufficient authority and became too far identified with the settlers to give the Directors the unbiased advice they needed. All the Agents were considered to have had excellent personal qualifications and it appears that the difference between good and bad Agents rested mainly on their having an independent position in the settlement. Had Ullapool and Lochbay developed according to plan bankers and writers would have settled there from whom suitable Agents could have been chosen. So failure, which made greater demands on the Agents' powers than well planned success, removed the most likely source of good candidates and impaired the working of an already weak administrative system.

The difficulty of administering the settlements was increased by the Directors' refusal to allow their Agents authority to make decisions. The local men were expected to provide information and give advice to the Board. in London but they could not act without instructions. We have seen that bad communications imposed delays on the Society's organisation and a possible remedy for this lay in giving the Agents power to act without waiting for the Directors' commands. This was refused in principle, because the Directors felt themselves to be trustees on behalf of the subscribers and directly responsible for all matters of administration. The distance between London and the settlements and the infrequency of visits of inspection would afford the Society little check on the Agents' actions, a lesson which had been demonstrated by the failure of the Board of Manufactures' linen stations where local undertakers had embezzled the funds. Where the settlements developed according to plan, the disadvantages of the Society's system of administration were less obvious for the Directors could make their decisions in advance, but where sudden action or changes of policy were required remote control broke down.

At the settlements the Society's policy of expenditure of money and land was severely criticised during the nineteenth century but here again the migration of the herring confuses the issue. As regards money, the Directors were charged with wasting large sums on unnecessary building while reserving nothing for the provision of equipment and boats. The Inns at Ullapool and Lochbay certainly did not justify their cost. The storehouses and curing sheds of Ullapool were planned on a generous scale to meet the needs of a successful fishing station, to avoid rebuilding after a few years of prosperity, and in the circumstances it was not until 1949 that the sheds came into their own. In addition to the money spent on public buildings, the Society lent small sums to help their tenants to build the good houses that the Directors demanded. Thus a large proportion of the Society's capital was spent on buildings of one sort or another. Prom this deliberate policy there grew the villages whose well planned streets of solid houses continue to be admired today but were certainly beyond the needs of Ullapool and Lochbay in 1790. On the other hand the Society's standard was so high that, since the loans covered only half the value of the house, the settlers exhausted their capital in building leaving nothing to pay for boats or nets. It has been shown that before 1776 a scheme of giving free equipment or advancing money for its purchase had been tried with¬ out success for no satisfactory protection had been devised against the neglect and abuse of the articles given. The Directors decided against grants or loans for this purpose for they expected that companies from the south would be attracted by the prospects of successful fishery, the spacious buildings and good houses and would establish branches at the settlements to provide equipment and employ tenants, a system which was adopted by Melville before 1798 and which flourished at Pulteneytown and which might well have proved right in the west if the herring had remained.

The Directors were attacked from opposite viewpoints for their land policy. First they were blamed for giving too much land to the settlers and later for giving them too little. The case for too much land was that the settlements would not prosper until there emerged a class of professional fishermen as distinct from crofter-fishermen since the essential work of hay and harvest always came at the height of the fishing season. This proved true on the north east where great progress was made as soon as the two occupations of farmer and fisherman were separated, which began to happen after 1800. On the west, not only was the supply of food for landless fishermen more difficult, hut the inclination of the people was very strongly against the division. The Directors found that they had to give some land or they would have attracted no settlers. They therefore allowed each man a garden for vegetables, arable to grow potatoes and fodder, and grazing for one cow. This did not produce enough food to live on and the tenant was expected to spend the money he earned at the fishery on oatmeal and other necessities brought from the south by trading companies.

The movement of the herring overthrew this economic balance leaving the settlers dependent only on their land. The Directors were condemned for collecting people into villages without adequate means of support from the land, and blamed for the consequent destitution which was more serious in Lochbroom than in any other highland parish except Gairloch.

So much has been written on the subject that everyone is now familiar with the qualities and defects of the highland temperament, particularly its brilliance in attack and fatalistic acceptance of adverse circumstances, including poverty.

The Directors, well aware of the former through the Highland Regiments, were unprepared for the latter. In 1786 it was reasonable to suppose that the low standard of living in the west highlands was due to lack of opportunity in the way of markets and communications. The British Fisheries Society made one of the earliest attempts to employ the people and it was expected that they would react to encouragement as their eastern and. southern neighbours had done. Indeed it appears that, up to 1798, at least some of the people of Wester Hoss did work for Woodhouse, Morrison and Melville, though how long they would have continued to do so must he a matter for speculation. After the disappearance of the herring the people of Ullapool and Lochhay accepted poverty and even starvation with their usual fatalism and relapsed into helpless dependence on their crofts and on the Directors* charity. Whether initial success would have carried the highland fishermen through the few inevitable years of failure, as it did for their east coast counterparts, will always remain doubtful and on this the Society's success would have depended.

While there may he confusion between cause and effect in the failure of the western settlements, the practical results are only too dear. All the good that the Society bequeathed to Ullapool and Lochhay was the well planned streets and buildings while the example, which was to have been of even greater importance than the settlements themselves, was swept away in the destitution of 1847-50* Tobermory fared better, for, as has been pointed out, the harbour and Customs House had introduced general trade and brought a certain prosperity. Once the Directors realised that Tobermory was unlikely to become a fishing station, they ceased to spend their capital in Mull and the Society made no profit from their only independent western settlement. It was a failure measured against the Society's objective, but by fortune and for extraneous reasons, was not the disaster of Ullapool and Lochbay.

The Directors succeeded in establishing one important fishing station, at Pulteneytown. Continued trouble over the breakwater clouded the later years of the Society's ownership so that the Directors never received their share of the credit for the progress of the settlement "but the fact remains that the building of the first harbour, for which the Society alone was responsible, laid the foundations of what soon became the leading Scottish fishing port.

The success of Pulteneytown justified the Society in many respects. We have seen that the Directors found suitable Agents there and the administration worked smoothly. Independent traders, instead of the Society, built sheds and curing houses and provided equipment for the local fishermen and the fishermen thus lived by their industry rather than on their land, remaining undaunted by occasional years of failure. Finally the Society received high rents not only for building lots but also for open spaces to be used as curing grounds while fishing and trading vessels produced a large annual sum in harbour dues.

Thus the settlement developed along the lines sketched out for Ullapool and found prosperity. The essential difference between the two stations was that at Pulteneytown merchants and curers from the south flocked to establish themselves within a few years while at Ullapool they had not done so by 1798.

The same terms were offered by the Society at both places, fishing prospects seemed equally good and trading conditions were apparently more favourable in 1788 than in 1808 when the war had already lasted 15 years. The richer land of Caithness and the proximity of the town of Wick may have reassured those who were unwilling to brave the "heathy deserts" of Wester Ross. The return of the herring to the Forth and Tay after 1792 had certainly provided the east coast merchants and curers with money to expand their businesses which had been lacking in 1788. But why did the big firms from the Clyde not establish branches at Ullapool? Seasons are not apparent but the facts are clear that Pulteneytown attracted Capital at an early stage where Ullapool failed to do so.

After Pulteneytown the second item to the credit of the Directors was their successful "patronage of the fisheries". It has been shown how their intervention in matters of the salt laws, the justiciary bailies and the export trade improved conditions in the industry and how they sponsored new maps and charts. Perhaps more important than any of these activities was the general encouragement afforded by the example of so many eminent men giving their time and money to the fisheries. The Acts of 1785 and 1786 would themselves have increased the fisheries but without the political activities and influence of the Society it seems improbable that within 20 years the industry would have acquired such a national rather than a local importance, as was recognised in the Act of 1808.

The tale of successes may be short but the fundamental theory upon which the Society worked has been accepted and followed in all subsequent and comparable schemes. Combined with the encouragement of the fisheries the Society aimed at helping to solve the highland problem which existed in 1786 in the same form as it does today, namely "to encourage people to live in the Highlands by making it possible to secure there, in return for reasonable efforts, proper standards of life and the means of paying for them." The Directors believed that the solution lay in collecting people into villages and providing employment in manufactures and fisheries. Immediately after the destitution of 1847-50 there was an outcry against this plan but by 1884 the Crofter Commission was advocating a programme very similar to that of the British Fisheries Society. After mentioning ways of increasing the fishing among crofters, particularly by building piers, the report continued: "We would recommend that in selecting a particular site, preference should be given to the spot on which not only a safe and commodious harbour might be made at the least expense but also where suitable ground for fishermen's houses and gardens would be available, and where the harbour could be best utilised for the convenience of the surrounding country. At every station where a harbour might be constructed, and in the case of piers where there is suitable ground in the neighbourhood, we recommend that a certain amount of ground would be acquired. The arable portion of the ground would be feued out to persons intending to employ themselves entirely as fishermen in plots from half an acre to an acre in extent. The pasture would be held as a common with the right of a cow's grass to each family."

Since 1884 several experiments have been made along the general lines followed by the Society including the famous Leverhulme scheme. Today a similar effort is being made to establish a crofter community at Scorraig in Wester Ross within ten miles of Ullapool.