This
website is dedicated to all the men who sailed on trawlers out of Milford, and
especially to those who lost their lives at sea. It is also dedicated to
two men in particular: my grandfather, Skipper John Johnson (1864-1906),
who in 1881 was an elastic web weaver in Nottingham, and in 1888 was Third
Hand on the FLYING SCOTCHMAN, the second steam trawler to be registered in
Milford; and my great grandfather, Chief Engineer John Davies (c.1854-1906).
They both sailed together on the GLOXINIA, and died in the same year, long
before they came to have many descendants in common. I am greatly indebted
to the extensive and detailed memory of Skipper Alfred Beckett (1916-2005), who
knew and remembered more about the Milford fishing fleet and the men who served
in it from the 1930s to the 1960s than anyone else from that era, and to his son
Terry, who has inherited his father's remarkable memory for ships and people.
Most of all, I am indebted to the late Mr. Les Jones of Hakin, who dedicated his
life to accumulating an archive of material relating to the history of the port
of Milford; to his widow, who donated the archive to Milford Haven Library; and
to Mr. Clive Richards, the Librarian, who generously allowed my access to it.
Barry
Johnson
Note: On these web pages, following local
tradition, 'Milford' refers to the town and port; 'Milford Haven' to the
waterway.
Milford Haven, at the south-western corner of Wales, is
the drowned valley, or ria, of the Cleddau river, running inland from St.Ann’s
Head for nine and a half miles to Neyland / Hobbs Point, and varying in width
from a mile and a quarter to half a mile. The town of Milford did not
come into existence until the end of the eighteenth century, when it was built
between the Hubberston and Castle Pills (or inlets), and settled by whalers from
Nantucket. The whaling industry was soon abandoned, and while fishing had been
a small local industry on the shores of the Haven (notably at Llangwm), the main
fishing port in Pembrokeshire, and indeed South Wales, remained Tenby
(Welsh: Dinbych-y-Pysgod – “Tenby of the Fish”). Twenty-nine of the
seventy fishing smacks registered in Milford and listed so far on this
site sailed out of Tenby, but many others registered in
Brixham sailed from the port during the summer season.
In the hope of attracting the trans-Atlantic passenger trade, a dock was built
in Hubberston Pill, and opened in September 1888. The first vessel to enter the
dock was the steam trawler SYBIL, although the first steam trawlers to be
registered in Milford were the converted paddle tugs EXPRESS (1887) and FLYING
SCOTCHMAN (1888), which were sailing out of Neyland. The passenger trade went to
Liverpool, but the rapid growth in Milford as a fishing port can be seen
from contemporary Trades Directories. The 1880 edition of Slater’s Directory
does not list a single fish merchant in the port, as the few fish landed
were sent off by special train to Billingsgate; Bennett’s Business Directory
of 1900 lists seven, as well as a “Fisherman and Sailor’s Reading Room” in
Charles Street; while the 1912 Wales Trades Directory gives no fewer than
eighteen firms under the heading of “Merchants (Fish, Wholesale)”. This growth
was fuelled by the decline in the fishing grounds off the Devon and Cornish
coasts, and a rise in those of the Western Approaches, attracting fishing
vessels from Brixham and other ports. In turn, these fishing grounds became
over fished, and more productive ones were sought further afield, speeding up
the switch to steam from sail, which survived until just after the Great War.
Both
World Wars saw the requisitioning of great numbers of trawlers by
the Admiralty, to carry out vital new tasks brought about by the new conditions
of maritime warfare, including minesweeping, anti-submarine operations, boom
defences, and, especially in the early years of WW2, convoy escorting. Not only
the ships, but the men who manned them, were "taken up" by the Admiralty. To the
frequent losses in lives which occurred in times of peace, were added the
greater number of casualties caused by enemy action.
Over the whole period, new fishing grounds were constantly being sought, and
different species caught, but a combination of new technology, increased
competition, and political decisions (especially the consequences of our
subjection to the Common Fisheries Policy) led to a decline in the Milford
fleet from the 1950s onwards, culminating in the conversion of the dock into
a marina in the 1990s.
This website is intended to provide family historians and other researchers with
details of Milford-based trawlers and other fishing vessels, especially
their official numbers (where applicable) and the dates between which they
operated from the port, as these are the criteria by which crew lists are
indexed in record offices. (Some Milford crew lists have been transcribed and
are available at Bryan Richards’
Swansea Mariners website.) The main criterion for inclusion is gross
tonnage, with the smallest fishing smacks under 15 grt at present excluded, in
accordance with the listings in Olsen’s Fisherman’s Nautical Almanack.
These lists of trawlers are far from definitive, especially in regard to
trawlers registered in other ports. Many of these landed their catches in
Milford on a seasonal basis, or only occasionally; others spent virtually the
whole of their working lives in Milford. Thanks to the work of the late Mr Les
Jones, of Hakin, who built up records of every vessel entering Milford Dock, it
has been possible to some extent to distinguish between the occasional or
regular short seasonal visitors, employing crews mainly from elsewhere, and
those vessels which spent a year or more operating from Milford, with a high
probability of mainly Milford crews aboard them. Only those trawlers in the
latter category are listed. It is important to bear in mind that, at any one
time, there were likely to be almost as many “other registrations” as
Milford-registered trawlers operating from the port, while in the later years
the latter were in the majority. (A quick survey of the data on this website
suggests that the balance between Milford and other registrations in the three
sample years of 1900, 1920 and 1950 was 39/23, 44/43 and 36/73, respectively.)
As the Milford Registers give precise dates of registration and cessation, the
steam trawlers are listed by date of entry on the Register, in three periods,
each with introductory general information on the development of the industry;
trawlers registered in other ports are listed alphabetically by name, and some
caution is necessary in making use of the time period of Milford operation as
given. Milford fishing smacks are listed separately and
alphabetically. An index to all Milford registrations showing the period
to which each trawler belongs is included, while other lists provide details of
the War service of Milford registered trawlers, and the names of
skippers, with their certificate numbers where available, and their ships,
with dates. These have been compiled from a variety of sources, and are very
far from complete.
From the point of view of
human interest and social history, the list of trawler losses, with links to newspaper and other accounts of the
circumstances of each loss, are always interesting and often very moving.
Accidents to both men and ships were frequent; in a small port like Milford,
losses like those of the MILFORD VISCOUNT and ROBERT LIMBRICK, with no
survivors, were deeply felt by the whole population. Pages of accidents
and incidents mainly based on transcriptions of log books and of cuttings
from local newspapers compiled by Les Jones (see Sources and Further Reading),
are linked to the relevant ships’ names, shown in
BLUE
or, if a photograph of the trawler is included, in
RED.
Most of the trawler photographs have been generously supplied by John
Stevenson, of Hakin.
Photographs of the Haven and the Docks, trawler crews and owners, and documents
related to the port and the fishing industry, are displayed in the Gallery.
A Chronology of the fishing industry in Milford outlines the major
developments.
Additions, corrections (citing the source of
information) and suggestions are welcomed via
milfordtrawlers@googlemail.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chronology of Milford as a Fishing Port
_______________
Trawlers
registered in Milford:
Index of All Milford Registrations
Fishing Smacks 1869- 1971
Steam / motor trawlers:
1888-1914
1915-39
1940-88
______________
Trawlers
registered in other ports:
A-H
I-P
Q-Z
Milford
registered trawlers taken up by the Admiralty:
WW1
WW2
Peacetime and Civilian Wartime Losses
Skippers:
A-H
I-P
Q-Z
Sources and Further Reading
Gallery
Links
Updated
27th April 2008
Milford
registrations 1888-1988 have been checked, corrected, and builders' yard
numbers have been added.
Currently doing
the same for other registrations A-H, with names beginning B~.
visits
(Since 22nd October 2005)
