Brixham, Devon

Although my family are most recently from Plymouth, Devon I feel more affinity with Brixham because I have a bloodline traceable to the 1500's from there. This is why I felt compelled to do some research into the place and here are some of the more interesting bits.

Brixham is at the southerly end of Torbay and is sheltered from the prevailing southwesterly winds and gales. Originally it was just a small inlet with very little of a natural harbour but by the middle of the 18th century there were enough trawlers working out of the port to merit the improvement of the inner harbour.

From the 14th century Brixham was divided into four parts, Lower Brixham being the fishing industry, Higher Brixham was the agricultural part, leading to the nicknames of 'Fish Town' and 'Cow Town'. Twelve Brixham men and their wives joined together and bought one part that included the harbour in 1759 from the Lord of the Manor, Pomeroy Gilbert. They became 'Quay Lords and Ladies', a title which was still in use in 1924.

Around 1795 the Eastern Quay was built and the new pier followed. About this time Brixham seems to have given up drift net herring fishing in the North Sea and had turned more to trawling. By 1780 trawlers were regularly landing their catch in Yorkshire ports. Brixham, at this time, was the largest wholesale fish market in the west of England.

Around this time most people would stay put in one place, working within walking distance, but fishermen were the exception. Farmers and tradesmen would live and work in the same area and same jobs for generations but the fishermen would sail around England chasing shoals of fish. These men would navigate with no prior knowledge of the waters and often vessels floundered on underwater rocks. They had no formal training in navigation, using only a lead line and a magnetic compass; charts were frowned on and thought of as useless.

By the early 19th century local fishermen had found their way to the Bristol Channel, the Irish Sea and even to the Isle of Man. The official records of 1833 show there were 112 fishing vessels in the port, whereas ten years previous there had been just 89, and by 1850 there were 210. The majority of these boats (130) were between 30 & 50 tonnes and Brixham was operating at its optimum. At this time there were 60 or 70 local smacks used Ramsgate, Kent as a winter base and in the summer boats were going to Liverpool and the Bristol Channel, colonising Tenby, South Wales in the process.

In 1858 the 'Silver Pits' were discovered and this led to the Hull colony growing much stronger. After being caught in a gale several boats were blown off-course and when the storm abated the fishermen dropped their nets. Landing a huge amount of sole the men borrowed some charts and realised that they had found the renowned Silver Pits, near the Dogger Bank and the following year seven more boats fished this area. Due to the amount of time the men were spending in Hull, from October to July, some moved their whole family there, including my Great, Great Uncle. He was a basket maker and moved there to support the fleet, his son became a sailmaker and then the owner of a fleet of steam trawlers before returning to Brixham in the early 1900's. by coincidence my father was also a sailmaker, the only one of his family that went into any nautical profession.

Apart from the fishing fleet Brixham also saw an explosion of growth in the Merchant trade. In 1850 the port had six brigs of 170 tons and 140 schooners of 60-80 tons, many of which traded overseas. The harbour facilities were quite inadequate and made even worse when the town extended over the innermost part of the harbour. Boats would moor up outside the inner harbour where they were exposed to easterly gales and strong currents. So in 1836 a plan was drawn up for a great breakwater, stretching from Mackerel Rock in the east extending north westerly. By 1843 only £300 had been raised and the wealthier ship owners appeared disinterested, but despite this by 1866 one thousand feet of breakwater had been built. This was the year that proved a breakwater was really a necessity when a terrible storm hit Torbay. On the 10th January over 100 ships were moored in the Bay when the hurricane force winds struck. The start of the storm sent them scurrying for the shelter of Brixham, which was already crowded with boats that had made it in earlier and 20 were moored in the outer harbour. By now it was pitch black, pouring with rain and the sea was crashing over the pier and boats were trying to cram through the small entrance. Local people lit bonfires on the pier, using their straw mattresses to fuel them and hung lanterns at the pier head. A few ships managed to gain entrance before two crashed into the pier, soon followed by another six. These were in turn run down by larger boats and totally destroyed. Rigging, beams and barrels covered the sea. Several of the crewmen were rescued but they had lost everything, several more perished in the rough seas. Local people opened their homes and provided food and clothing, whilst 85 seamen were accommodated in the Assembly Room on strawed floors. Altogether 60 vessels and over 100 lives were lost, but still the breakwater wasn't completed until 1921 when its present 3000 feet was reached.

However Newlyn in Cornwall had built a new harbour much more speedily and several of the Brixham smacks used it as a home from home, but they never established a permanent base there as they had in other ports. With the coming of the railway, which reached Penzance, Cornwall, in 1859 new opportunities for the landing of fish in Cornish ports opened up. The trawlers would fish for mackerel between February and April, leading to fights between the Brixham boats and the Cornishmen.

Brixham in 1958

Life for the fisherman's family was hard, as the catch would have to be divided into seven shares. The master earned 1 ¼ shares, the men 1 share each and ¾ for the ship. The boy only got 'stocker' money, which was paid for from selling items like fish livers, roe or even shipboard junk. However this system caused less of a problem in Brixham because most vessels were family owned and run, meaning that they didn't have to stay at sea for long periods waiting for carrier ships to bring the catch to shore, as happened when boats were owned by outside capital. During winter storms if the boat didn't put to sea there was no pay, and if a breadwinner was drowned there were no state benefits to aid the family. The National Shipwrecked Mariners' Society may consider donating a small payment if the family was totally destitute but that was all.

Houses often contained more than one family all paying rent to a private landlord, but if a family owned a property they would often rent part of it to another, leading to overcrowding. Six children often slept in one big bed. The baker was usually the most popular man in the town, as he would rent out space in his ovens to families who had no cooking facilities of their own. All the fisherman's clothes were made by the women in his family, from the knitted underclothes and thick Guernsey jumpers to the flannel shirts and fear-nought cloth trousers.

Although the 1870 Education Act brought order to children's learning, Dame Schools lingered on. These would provide an income for seaman's wives who would set up a school, even if they had no teaching qualifications or sometimes even if they were illiterate. In 1850 Brixham had a free school on the national system, attended by 130 boys and 110 girls who paid one penny a week to attend. There was also an orphanage and a reformatory in Berry Head Road. The reformatory was a prime source of apprentices for the trawlers and often the boys would be taken into the fisherman's own home when the boat was in port between trips. Until 1883 an apprenticeship lasted 7 years and was then reduced to five. This cheap labour lasted until the 1930's and was much abused in the 19th century. There were cases of 11-year-old boys being bound as apprentices for ten years.

The church or the pub provided the only regular forms of social gathering and entertainment. Brixham in 1850 had a population of 7000 of which 1600 were mariners, and there were 20 inns and taverns and another 6 beer houses.

A lot of this information comes from a book by John Corin called Provident and the story of the Brixham smacks.