‘We cannot see them … they have gone out of our reach’: Narratives of change in the fisheries of Scotland’s great firths, c. 1770-1890

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between communities of coastal fishermen in Scotland and the fisheries they exploited. It demonstrates that, even in the era before systematic landings data, it is possible to map significant fluctuations in available stocks of commercial fish by using narrative sources. This approach is further vindicated when we compare similar anecdotal accounts of decline from the middle of the nineteenth century with emerging Fishery Board statistics. The final section uses the case study of the Clyde herring fisheries in the mid-nineteenth century to show that competition for declining stocks, alongside the adoption of a novel and more productive gear type by a minority of fishermen, proved to be an incendiary mix, setting neighbour against neighbour in the competition for resources.