The Newfoundland bank fishery : government policies and the struggle to improve bank fishing crews' working, health, and safety conditions, 1876-1920

• Main Author: Winsor, Frederick Archibald
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 1996
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/1505/; https://research.library.mun.ca/1505/1/Winsor_FrederickArchibald.pdf; https://research.library.mun.ca/1505/3/Winsor_FrederickArchibald.pdf

The re-establishment of the Newfoundland-based bank fishery during the late 19th and early 20th centuries came about as a result of the Newfoundland government's policy of economic diversification. Several factors assisted in its rapid growth including the presence of an ongoing bait fishery, and Newfoundland's incubator bank fishery – the western boat fishery, the attendance of foreign bank fishing fleets around the coast of Newfoundland and the need to find other forms of employment in the face of deteriorating job opportunities in the sealing industry. -- In the late 1870's, successive Newfoundland governments provided bank fishery and shipbuilding subsidies. These initiatives, coupled with substantial fish landings encouraged increased participation by local fishing firms. While financial incentives to encourage the bank fishery ceased after only a few years, the Newfoundland government continued to subsidize the shipbuilding industry which it saw as both a form of import substitution and a seasonal make-work program. -- A successful decade in the 1880s saw the rise of St. John's as the largest bank fishing port in Newfoundland. Commencing in 1889 the bank fishery declined in terms of landings and participation. Fishing firms in St. John's and in other northeast coast communities gradually withdrew from it. St. John's, the base of the bank fishery in the 1880s, witnessed only a fraction of bankers outfitting from its wharves after 1890. By the late 1910s the bank fishery used the south coast as the base of its operations where it remained until being replaced by the deep sea dragger fleet in the late 1940s. -- Labour legislation in late 19th century Newfoundland fishery consisted of the Masters and Servants Act. One-sided labour laws, they underlined the considerable power wielded by Newfoundland (and in particular, St. John's and Conception Bay) fish merchants. Many firms operating from these ports required bank fishers to sign written contracts guaranteeing to remain with the employer for the duration of ...