The Rise and Fall of Hull's Fishing Industry

For over a century, fishing was the beating heart of Hull. At its peak in the 1950s, Hull was the world's third-largest fishing port, and the industry employed over 15,000 people directly and many thousands more in related trades. This is the story of its rise, its golden age, and its devastating decline.

The Early Days

Hull's fishing industry began in earnest in the 1840s with the arrival of the railway, which made it possible to transport fresh fish quickly to markets across the country. The first steam trawlers appeared in the 1880s, and by 1900 Hull had a fleet of over 400 vessels.

The Golden Age

The period from the 1920s to the 1960s was the golden age of Hull's fishing industry. The city's distant-water fleet — the largest in the world — trawled the rich fishing grounds of Iceland, Bear Island, and the White Sea.

Life aboard a distant-water trawler was extraordinarily hard and dangerous:

• Trips lasted 3-4 weeks in some of the most hostile seas on earth
• Conditions were brutal — freezing temperatures, mountainous waves, and exhausting 18-hour shifts
• The death rate was higher than any other peacetime occupation in Britain

The Triple Trawler Disaster

In the space of just three weeks in early 1968, three Hull trawlers were lost with all hands:

• St Romanus (10 January): Lost with 20 crew
• Kingston Peridot (26 January): Lost with 20 crew
• Ross Cleveland (4 February): Lost with 18 crew, with only one survivor

The disasters devastated the Hessle Road community and led to the famous "Headscarf Revolutionaries" campaign by the fishermen's wives, led by Lillian Bilocca, who demanded improved safety measures.

The Cod Wars

The final blow came with the Cod Wars — a series of disputes with Iceland over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. When Britain conceded the 200-mile exclusion zone in 1976, Hull's distant-water fleet was effectively finished.

Within a decade, Hull's trawler fleet was reduced from over 100 vessels to fewer than 10. Thousands of jobs were lost, and the Hessle Road community was devastated.

Legacy

Today, St Andrew's Dock — once the bustling heart of Hull's fishing industry — is a retail park. But the legacy of the fishing industry lives on in the city's culture, its food, and the resilience of its people. The Hull trawlermen and the women who waited for them deserve to be remembered.