Herring Fishing

Shetland's herring fleet going out the South Mouth, Lerwick Harbour, around 1890. Photo from Shetland Museum and Archives.

Herring drifters at Levenwick

The Herring Fishing industry has been an important part of the Shetland economy for many years. Present day pelagic trawlers can land massive catches, either locally to the Shetland Catch factory, or to factories as far afield as Denmark. But in the past the herring industry relied on a large number of smaller boats from all over Shetland, which fished with drift nets and landed their catches to the many Herring Stations, mainly in Lerwick and Baltasound.

Statistics for Shetland

• Cumberland Pacquet, 28th April 1835: “Herring Fishery.
  Being the total amount of Shetland:
  1830, 10,350 barrels;
  1831, 21,000 ditto;
  1832, 26,000 ditto;
  1833, 36,000 ditto,
  and in 1834, 64,446 ditto.”

• 1855
  There were 686 boats (tonnage 1698) engaged in fishing: 324 2nd class boats (18-30 ft keels) and 362 3rd class boats (under 18 ft keel). The value of boats, nets and line was an estimated £18,379. There were 62 curers. Fishing employed 3143 fishermen and boys, 52 coopers, 1075 gutters and packers, 21 netmakers & others, for a total of 4291 persons. 14,760 barrels of herring were cured and 1,393,118 cod and ling taken and sold. Fifty-four sailing vessels (tonnage 1581) engaged in shipping out of Lerwick.<ref>Oliver & Boyd's New Edinburgh Almanac and National Repository for the Year 1857, Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1857.</ref>

• 1867
  10,008 barrels cured, 8,312 1/2 barrels exported, 308 boats, 1,242 fishermen & boys, 44 coopers, 513 gutters and packers, 13 laborers, 1,812 total employed.<ref>Bremner, David, The Industries of Scotland: Their Rise, Progress and Present Condition, Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1869.</ref>

• From London International Fisheries Exhibit:
  • 1878 - 120 boats
  • 1879 - 206 boats
  • 1880 - 206 boats
  • 1881 - 284 boats delivered 46,500 crans of herring
  • 1882 - 372 boats delivered 102,250 crans of herring<ref>London International Fisheries Exhibition, The Fisheries Exhibition Literature, William Clowes & Sons, London, 1884.</ref>

• From 1901:

Between 1844 and 1875 the average number of barrels cured was only 6500 per annum.
1880 - the exports suddenly rose to 48,552 barrels.
1883 - there were 807 boats fishing in Shetland waters, and the quantity of herring cured was 256,664 barrels.
1894 - 230,451 barrels valued at £158,992 of which 9,795 1/2 barrels were exported to Russia and 162,647 to Germany.
1895 - 179,137 barrels valued at £158,118 of which 10,707 barrels were exported to Russia and 122,874 1/2 to Germany.
1896 - 149,355 barrels valued at £108,142 of which 19,369 barrels were exported to Russia and 90,301 to Germany.
1901 - 636,729 barrels valued at £608,788 of which 67,041 1/2 barrels were exported to Russia and 407,724 1/2 to Germany.<ref>Mitton, Geraldine Edith and Adam & Charles Black, Black's Guide to Scotland, Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1903.</ref>

References

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