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It is highly creditable to
the enterprise of the fishermen that the line- and the herring-fishing
resources of the county are the largest in Scotland. The greatest herring
fishery in the world is that prosecuted in Scotland, and in its contribution
to that fishery, Banffshire takes the leading place.
Up to 1907 all fishing
vessels belonging to Banffshire had a distinctive number which was prefaced
by the letters BF. In that year the seaboard was divided into two districts
of registration, Banff and Buckie, the fishing craft in the Banff Fishery
district retaining the BF designation, while newly acquired boats in the
Buckie Fishery district began a fresh register under the letters BCK.
The hey-day of the sail
fishing fleet occurred perhaps in the eighties and in the earlier years of
the nineties of last century. The Banffshire fleet of that day had a
supremacy in numbers and in efficiency that was unchallenged in Scotland.
The large white letters "BF" on the broad expanse of the brown sails of the
yacht-like zulus were to be seen on every sea around Britain, and their
presence was a vital influence in the fortunes of a fishing that was of
national importance. Seventy years ago the scaffie, undecked for the most
part, was the boat in common use in Banffshire. That type gave way to the
Fifie boats, first
built in Fifeshire, while
both were displaced by the zulu boat, which for long dominated the position.
This type, matchless for sea-worthiness and sailing power, became very
popular, and for years a first-class zulu boat was the best equipped and
most highly valued vessel in the northern fishing fleet.
The increasing size of these
craft and the growing productive power of the trawling industry led to a
development in Banffshire that'still holds good. Lines were practically
abandoned, and the whole year was devoted to the capture of herrings in all
the seas round the British Isles.
The influential part taken in
activities of the kind by craft from the county finds fitting illustration
in official figures. At the English fishing of 1913, for instance, there
took part i 163 Scottish boats, and of these 454 belonged to the county of
Banff, while of the total value (£763,256) of fish landed by the Scottish
fleet working that season in England, the share of Banffshire boats was
£311,384. In the same year, of 159 Scottish boats that worked on the Irish
coast, 88 belonged to Banffshire and of the total yield (£40,572) of
Scottish boats, the contribution of Banffshire crews was £21,690.
In the early years of the
present century another great development was the introduction of
steam-power to the fishing craft, and now the county has a larger and more
valuable fleet of steam drifters than any other county in Scotland.
The story of progress in the
present century reads indeed like a fairy tale. Thus in 1900 the Banff
Fishery district had no steam vessel; the Buckie district had three, the
value of which, with their gear, was put at £8094. Fourteen years later the
number of steam drifters in the county had increased to 398 and their value
was put at over one million sterling. At the same time sailing boats
decreased in value and in number: in 1900 there were in the Banff district
463 and in the Buckie district 731, figures that nine years later fell to
372 and 443. Since that time the same tendency has increased; and if the
prophecy of a Portknockie fisherman may not prove true that the sail boat
here may become as much a thing of the past as Caesar's galleys, the trend
of the industry is certainly all in that direction. In the meantime the
process has been held somewhat in check by the installation in a number of
the zulu boats of motor engines and by the provision of other new craft
similarly fitted. These vessels, as occasion demands, may use either the
wind or the motor. In the year 1913, the year preceding the outbreak of war,
when matters were normal, fishing resources in the county were:
That gave a total of 369
steam drifters owned in the county. Irn the same year there were in all
Scotland 876 vessels of the type, the county of Aberdeen, with its three
Fishery districts of Aberdeen, Peterhead and Fraserburgh, coming next to
Banffshire with 272, or fewer than the number owned in the single district
of Buckie. Thus in 19! 3 the fishing plant of Banffshire consisted of:
The va\ue that year of
fishing plant and gear on the East Coast of Scotland—on the West Coast the
figures are negligible—was £4,736,508. Deduct from that the valuation of the
fishing plant of Aberdeen, consisting for the most part of trawlers, and we
reach a value for the East Coast of 3,506,294. Of that total Banffshire
claimed more than one-third: so that its supremacy in potential
herring-fishing capacity is unchallenged in Scotland, and we must remember
that by far the greater part of these wealthy resources accrued to the
county within the previous 14 years, and had been derived entirely from the
democratic herring. There is the curious accompanying fact that the herring
fishing in the county has declined of late years. No large fleet of boats
makes any of the towns its seasonal headquarters, and the landing of
herrings at county ports is confined to some extent to week-ends when boats
return to replenish their fishing gear or for a general outfit.
The development of the
fisheries led to large extension of the boat-building yards in the county
and that industry has in consequence reached an important position. In the
increase of population it has been reflected most definitely in the parish
of Rathven, the headquarters of the fishermen of Banffshire. In 1861 its
population was 8240; and in 1911 it was 15,995, so that in the course of
fifty years the population was doubled.
In several ways the fisher
folk are a race apart. Their difference of dialect has already (p. 48) been
noticed. Remarkable, too, is the way their communities have maintained a
continuity of family names. In a recent roll of voters, confined to male
householders, all fishermen, there were in the quoad sacra parish of
Gardenstown 17 Nicols, i g Wisemans, 26 Wests, and 68 Watts. Macduff with a
few Patersons and Watts, had 17 MacKays and zo Wests, while in Banff the
Woods numbered 27. Two names predominated in Whitehills—Lovie and Watson,
numbering respectively 18 and 19.
Portsoy had 8 Mairs, 1.1
Piries, and 14 Woods, while in the hamlet of Sandend no fewer than 26 of the
heads of fishermen's families belonged to the great family of Smith. Cullen
had 33 of the name of Gardiner and 55 of the name of Findlay, while in
Portknockie there were 20 Piries, 24 SIaters, 47 Woods, and 84 Mairs, or 175
heads of families of four names. Findochty went even one better, for it had
182 fishermen householders with four names between them—Campbell 24, Smith
35, Sutherland 39, and Flett 84. In Buckie, east of the Burn, there were 15
Coulls, 29 Jappys, 69 Murrays, ii 6 Smiths, and 128 Cowies, while in the
western division there were 23 Coulls, 28 Geddeses, and 47 Reids. In
Portgordon there were 21 Coulls, and 32 Reids. The circumstance explains, of
course, the habit that is almost universal of having a tee name as well, a
name by which the fisherman is more familiarly known than that in which he
has been registered. The multiplicity in a small community of instances of
the same name makes it not only a convenience but a necessity. How else,
among scores of Cowies, of Coulls, of Jappys, Woods and Slaters, many of
them of the same Christian name, is one to differentiate? So accustomed are
many of them to be recognised only by what may be called their acquired
names, that they are addressed, not by their Christian names, but as Johndie,
Saners, Pum, Gyke, Dottie, Smacker, Dumpy, Bosan, Cockle, Bo, and so on.
The classic instance that
illustrates the point has been told by Mr Joseph Robertson. A stranger had
occasion to call on a fisherman in one of the Banffshire coast villages of
the name of Alexander White. Meeting a girl, he asked, "Could you tell me
far Sanny Fite lives?" "Filk Sanny Fite?" "Muckle Sanny Fite." "Filk muckle
Sanny Fite?" "Muckle lang Sanny Fite." "Filk muckle lang Sanny Fite?" "Muckle
lang gleyed Sanny Fite," shouted the stranger. "Oh! it's 'Goup-the-Lift' [=
Sky-starer] ye're seekin'," cried the girl, "an' fat for dinna ye speer for
the man by his richt name at ance?" |
