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By Douglas William MBE
Who says the old days were quiet times?
Setting the Scene of the Centenary of the Newlyn Harbour
Commission.
This is the Centenary year of the Newlyn Pier and Harbour Commission.
In the summer of 1906 the Royal Assent was given, confirming
the Newlyn Harbour Order and over the following months came the preliminary
meetings of the new Board, comprising the members of the former management
committee.
Yes, it had been a long haul from those heady years when the
North and the South piers were built and extended and there was a long road
ahead to today when a £2 million pontoon mooring was established this summer
and a £9 million fish market building proposed.
On Guy Fawkes Day in 1906 the two boat-owning Commissioners,
Thomas Keigwin Harvey and John Harvey were re-elected to complete the team. Two
votes went to every boat of Newlyn of 30-ft keel or more.
So the work began under the continuing chairmanship of
Thomas Robins Bolitho of Trewidden, with H.H. Pezzack, based at the Public Buildings,
Penzance as Clerk and W.O. Strick the Harbour
Master, both re-appointed.
The fishing industry from Newlyn to Gwavas Lake,
Mount's Bay and beyond goes back in history 1,000 years or more. Its old quay was in need of repair in the 15th
century and Newlyn - "New Pool" - may have been created as a sheltered refuge
following the legendary flooding through the Isles of Scilly and the bay; more
truth than myth.
The Spaniards burned the village down in 1595; the old
Cornish language, a Celtic tongue, died out with the passing centuries; John
Wesley had his remarkable religious impact on the fishing folk with his visits
an there was the divided port
of Newlyn Town and
Street-an-Nowan.
A new lease of life came in 1882 with the committee
appointed to consider the building of the North and South piers. The following
year a new road and bridge were constructed to bring a better link with Penzance and the railway terminus.
The new piers, lighthouse and roads, brought a revolution in
the port's expansion.
Mackerel, pilchards and herring were caught in their
millions. Shortly before the new Board was set up Mr Pezzack announced the
landings by "boat from seines have been
large, Porthgwarra having sent eight loads, Gunwalloe ten and Mullion 18, a
total of about 1,152 Hogsheads".
He added "the first
consignment of pilchards was dispatched from Newlyn last night, about 1,500
casks".
There was a tremendous trade to the Continent with the
Methodist fishermen having the benefit from the long-established links with the
Catholic dining tables of Italy.
The railway line to Penzance was opened in 1852 but it was
another seven years, with Brunel's great bridge at Saltash, that the link to London was complete. In 1866 St Peter's church at Newlyn was
completed. There was a decline in the tin mining industry and a notable local
bank, Batten Carne and Carne folded in 1896.
This was a year for local drama and excitement. In May came
the ‘Newlyn Riots' when the Army, Navy and police were needed to quieten the
local fishermen, furious at their markets and livelihoods being destroyed by Lowestoft boats landing
their "Sunday Catches".
The previous year Newlyn
Art Gallery
had been opened; what an astonishing decade it was.
The seal of the new Harbour Authority, still in use, was
designed a century ago to include a fishing boat in a Mount's bay rig "with full sail set". With possession of the harbour authority
‘given up' to the Commissioners in 1st December 1906 it was stated
that the Public Works Loan Board "will
now have no further control of any kind so that in every lease the Harbour
Board can act independently". There
was a considerable outstanding loan, however, to the Bolitho family.
All was not bliss in those early times of the 1900's and the
Commissioners called the attention of one fisherman "to the obscene language you used on the fish quay". There was a stiff warning - and rapid
apology.
Mr Strick received a letter concerning girls who worked in
the fish trade who declared that "they
did not use any bad language as alleged". The girls also promised to behave
and it was "their last warning".
Well, well.
Then, as now, there were fears of loss of fish dues. In 1906
a petition was signed by 26 jousters complaining of evasion of the money. "The jousters said it had been carried on to
a very large extent and they were deprived of their ordinary means of
livelihood".
There were complaints of theft of mackerel on the pier. It
caused "loss to the lessees and hardship
to many smaller buyers".
Again that year the Harbour Master was informed by Mr
Pezzack, the Clerk, "I have again had
complaints about loiterers on the pier. It appears the number is increasing and
that several men are in the habit of getting fish from boats, taking them to
fishing jousters and selling them privately without paying dues".
There seemed little stop to it.
"The buyers known as
the ‘Forty Thieves" are again at their old tricks and buying the ‘scran'
without having the transactions put through the salesmen's books, or in fact
disclosing it in any way. We must stop this".
Newlyn even wrote to Lowestoft
about "certain fish buyers following
salesmen from port to port to buy the ‘scran' - the odd fish which are believed
deemed to be the privilege of the fishermen.
The practice has become very objectionable".
A letter went from the harbour authority to Paul Urban
District Council, of which Newlyn was the principal part. "Sweepers
of your council are in the habit of throwing the mud from the roads in Newlyn Town
in the harbour. In spite of caution the men still do so. Will you kindly have
this stopped".
There was lively debate about a new road connecting
Street-an-Nowan with Newlyn
Town from the bottom of
The Slip. "Memorials" - petitions - came for and against, one in favour of
Mousehole with 119 signatures. There was fear of heavy cost to the ratepayers
and the building had to wait.
When harbour witnesses went to London to give evidence in a controversial
Court case in June 1904 they were put up at Wyld's Temperance Hotel in Ludgate Street. No
"intoxicants" were on sale. They were all teetotal, a great quality among the
Methodists of that era.
There were legal disputes about foreshore rights, unpaid
instalments or contracts, the development of the pier for the loading of stone
from Penlee Quarry, and a dozen other controversies.
It was a busy time for the Commissioners at their committee
meetings. Among the leading members were J. W. Field of Chyandour, W. E. T.
Bolitho of York house (now the Penwith District Council headquarters), G. P
Bazeley of Penare, David Howell of Rosehill, Major Harvey of Tredarwah and
Charles Tregenza (later to be Major or Penzance) of Mousehole.
W. H. Symons was lightkeeper at £22 a year, John Kelynack
was the waterman and Mr Strick the Harbour Master was paid £100 a year. There
was no enclosed market building at that time - and local controversy over an
estimated cost of £4.300 for a "trawl fish market".
The road was likely to cost over £6,000. These were to come...
in good time.
Among the fish buyers at this time were Charles Foster, Job
Chiffers, A. Wilson, William Stephenson, Joseph Jeffery, Samuel Cotton, Martin
Hunkin, William Hosking and the well-known duo of Wren & Co. and Cushways.
With "the increased trade" came a demand for reservoirs for
a regular water supply and an agreement was reached with Mr Bolitho of
Trewidden.
Came the news in April 1907; "the congestion at Newlyn, with the continuous landings of trawl and
line fish, is great and had there been a good season of mackerel the difficulties
would have been serious.
"The widening of the
pier (to assist in the quarry loading) and the provision of the trawl fish
market are essential. If we do nothing our trade will to a very large extent be
lost".
That same month it was recorded "Splendid fishing today - from one million to 1 ½ million landed, a
record; prices as low as three shillings per 120. Peacock& Co. alone sold
£750 worth of fish yesterday." In one week in May dues on 2 ½ million mackerel were received.
It must have been a hectic harbour scene. A request from the
Western Marine Salvage Co. for a permanent deep water berth for the ‘Queen of
the Isles' had to be turned down because of the demands by steam drifters,
trawlers, steamers for bunker coal and water, as well as the export of mackerel
and pilchards.
It would "break the
tiers of boats" frequently moored at the southern end of the North pier,
but there would be room in the middle of the harbour near the coal hulks.
The century has passed swiftly by and the shining new Harbour
Commission was just a little over 24 years old when this Commissioners was
born..... following in the footsteps of his fishing boat-owner grandfather.
The Commissioners, under such chairmen as Sir Edward
Bolitho, his son Major Simon Bolitho, Jack Stephens, Charles Le Grice, John
Laity and today Bill Stevenson, have seen and planned continuous changes and
developments thorough the guidance of
such Harbour Masters and Clerks as Tom Cotton and Andrew Munson.
There has been the rise and decline of Penlee Quarry - with
the current proposed use as a Marina
- the opening of Mary Williams Pier by the Queen in 1980 and the opening of the
market eight years later by Princess Diana.
What will the 21st Century bring to Newlyn and
its fishing industry - its purpose and lifeblood for a thousand years?
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