It was 110 years ago when a mixed fleet of more than a thousand steam and sailing drifters landed over 840,000 crans of herring at Great Yarmouth.

 

While at Lowestoft there were 350 English boats and 420 Scottish, which brought home around 535,000 crans in 1913. A cran being 28 stones.

Eastern Daily Press: An extraordinary picture illustrating the huge fishing businessAn extraordinary picture illustrating the huge fishing business (Image: Mike Adcock Collection/Norwich Heritage Projects)

The great East Anglian autumn fishery was supplemented by a Scottish fleet, and kept up a tremendous trade with East Europe in barrels of salted herring.

Eastern Daily Press: Smile please. The days of the flourishing fishing industry on the East CoastSmile please. The days of the flourishing fishing industry on the East Coast (Image: Mike Adcock Collection/Norwich Heritage Projects)

Our Jonathan Mardle (Eric Fowler) wrote many years ago: “The same fish, smoked, earned Yarmouth people the nickname of bloaters.

 

“Hence Peggotty’s saying to the young David Copperfield ‘that, for her part, she was proud to call herself a Yarmouth Bloater.’”

Eastern Daily Press: Looks like the photographer was told to hurry up!Looks like the photographer was told to hurry up! (Image: Mike Adcock Collection/Norwich Heritage Projects)

The historic fishery dates back to the Middle Ages but the shift of overseas trade from the East Coast to the West and South Coast ports, along with the arrival of the railways and other changes diminished its importance.

Eastern Daily Press: > Do you think these fishermen really wanted to have their picture taken?> Do you think these fishermen really wanted to have their picture taken? (Image: Mike Adcock Collection/Norwich Heritage Projects)

After the peak season of 1913 times changed. Following the Second World War industrial fishing came along with large foreign trawlers.

 

At the height of the season, fisher girls at Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth, would gut 60 herring a minute, working in teams of three.

Eastern Daily Press: They were a tough lot those herring girlsThey were a tough lot those herring girls (Image: Mike Adcock Collection/Norwich Heritage Projects)

Looking inland, there was a time when a big fleet of black-sailed wherries, plying between Yarmouth, Norwich and the country towns and villages of the Norfolk Broads, carried the heaviest part of the local trade by river.

Eastern Daily Press: The fishing fleet many years agoThe fishing fleet many years ago (Image: Mike Adcock Collection/Norwich Heritage Projects)

Fishing made Yarmouth and Lowestoft busy, successful places but the decline came quickly as one decade followed another. The railways arrived, gradually diminishing the coastal and river trade, but bringing with them….holidaymakers.  .

 

The reign of King Herring was over.