THE SHRIMPING INDUSTRY IN ESSEX
231
With the passage of time, more men and boats became engaged
from Leigh, and according to the evidence given by Mr. Turn-
nidge, Assistant River-keeper of the Thames Conservancy, to the
Royal Sea Fisheries Commission in 1865, the number of sail-boats
in the same year was 114. In addition, there were 11 row-boats
which went out to get a few cockles and mussels. The number
of boats which were engaged in shrimping was 106, and of these
40 to 50 kept fishing all the year round. In 60 boats the crew
consisted of two men, and the remainder had one man and a boy.
In the later part of the 19th century, there was a further
increase in the number of boats, although some of them were
engaged in fishing for sprats, line-fishing, white-bait, cockles,
mussels and oysters in their season. By 1910 the shrimping fleet
consisted of 75 boats. After World War I, probably owing to the
prevailing low prices for shrimps, the shrimping fleet shrank
further, the number dropping to 40 by 1932, out of which only 16
were shrimpers. By 1950 the fleet at Leigh consisted of only 30
boats, with only 24 working whole time. In the same year the
total number of craft engaged in the shrimp fishery in the Thames
area was 110, of which 90 boats were working whole time.
Although Leigh-on-Sea was the centre of the shrimping fishery,
and has continued to be so up to the present day, there is also an-
other port in Essex which has been associated with shrimping for
the past 100 years. It was of interest to read in the Report of
the Royal Sea Fisheries Commission, that in 1864 the number of
boats engaged in shrimping from Harwich was about 20, although
twenty years earlier there were only two boats. Prior to 1854
shrimp fishing was negligible, but after that year, with the open-
ing of the railway communication to London, the fishery increased
considerably, and one fish merchant stated that he was sending
to London daily 400 gallons of shrimps. During the shrimping
season, May to September to October, the number of boats would
increase to 70. This increase, however, was due to the arrival
of boats from Leigh, Faversham, Strood and other ports. Their
arrival coincided with the appearance over the Harwich fishing
grounds of the red shrimp (P. montagui). Generally, the Harwich
boats had a crew of two and a boy. Their weekly wages were
between 25 and 30 shillings, and at other times only 10 to 12
shillings. The boys were getting 5 shillings a week.
The demand for shrimps in London at that period must have
been considerable. Although quantities were sent from Leigh,
Harwich and other parts of the country, shrimps were imported
from Holland. Mr. Baxter, fish merchant at Billingsgate, stated
that the quantities from Holland varied from day to day, and
he was getting during the summer between 300-400 baskets a
week, each basket holding from 10 to 12 gallons.
At the beginning of the 19th century the Leigh fishermen
went to fish in open boats. These had the stem and stern narrow
and sharp, the hull being shallow and drawing little water. These
were known as the "pink-sterns", In form and build they can