THE SHRIMPING INDUSTRY IN ESSEX
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during the war years and immediately after, and to the severe
winters of 1928-29, 1939-40, and 1946-47. Even if these excep-
tionally poor years are not taken into consideration, on the whole,
landings during the past 25 years were smaller than for the period
1910-30. Whether reductions in landings is the result of a decline
in the stock, or of reduced fishing effort, it is difficult to determine
as there are no available data with regard to the number of boats
and men engaged in the shrimp fishery.
History
In the Thames Estuary, the most important port and centre
of the shrimp fishery is Leigh-on-Sea. Other major ports are
Harwich, Brightlingsea, Southend-on-Sea, Gravesend, Rochester
and Whitstable (Table 1).
On looking back through the annals of history one will find
that Leigh was mentioned in the Domesday Book (1086). It will
be learned that at that period there were five "Bordarii' or cottar
fishermen families. They possessed no land for cultivation, and
were in fact poor free fishermen. The borders represent the
nucleus or were the forerunners of the later fishing community at
Leigh. About a century and a half later Henry III granted the
right of a several fishery in Hadleigh Bay to Hubert du Burgh,
builder of Hadleigh Castle. The fisheries frequently reverted to
the Crown, and in the reign of Edward I (1280), there are records
of his minister furnishing fishery accounts, and payments for
"Kiddel" apparatus. Kiddels were weir-nets for capture of flat-
fish, salmon and other round fish. The fishery was also held as
pin money by the wives of Henry VIII (Murie, 1903).
Although Bye-laws were made in 1697, 1737 and 1785 limiting
the dragging for shrimps in certain areas and certain periods in
the River Thames, it was not for some years after the last date
that the village of Leigh became a shrimping centre. Of the
census taken in 1801 the entire population consisted of 570
individuals, and after 90 years it increased four-fold, about one-
third being fishermen and families. The first records of the num-
ber of boats and men engaged in the shrimp fishery in the Thames
area go as far back as the year 1832, when half a dozen boats
were operating from Leigh-on-Sea. The shrimp fishery, however,
must have originated much earlier, since it was known that
shrimps and other fish were sent to Billingsgate by boat or cart
about 1820. The carts started between six and seven p.m.,
occasionally later, even to nine o'clock. They went by way of
Wickford and Shenfield. At Shenfield they changed horses and
arrived at Billingsgate between four and five next morning. With
the advent of the railway line to Southend-on-Sea, more shrimps
were sent to Billingsgate, and prior to 1865 it was not uncommon
for 2,000 gallons to be sent to London, as the joint produce of a
day's fishing by the Leigh shrimpers.