In days gone by, pilchards were the “silver darlings” of St Ives, supplying “meat, money and light all in one night”. Meaning a healthy diet, oil for lamps and reliable incomes. Throughout the 19th century, the pilchard catch drove the St Ives economy, providing fishing jobs and other industries that served them—the boat builders, coopers, rope and net makers. Women were central to the salting and curing of the fish, the majority of which were exported to Italy in sailing ships. The local folk described the journey as “going to the burning mountain” and were said to drink a toast to the Pope at the end of each fishing season.
By 1847 export of pilchards from Cornwall amounted to 40,883 barrels or 122 million fish.
All my ancestors were involved in some way in this enterprise. One of my favourite relatives so far is Margaret Thomas (1797-1874), great-grandmother to my grandfather Samuel Roach. She married a sailor, John Roach at the age of 23 years and they lived in The Digey, Downalong. By now John was well-established as a fisherman and had even bought a share in a small boat, the Globe, with his brother Samuel. They had five children, the eldest being my great, great grandfather; named John, naturally. But good fortune was not to last, John senior died when their youngest child was one year old. Though I have been unable to discover the cause of his death, it was likely to be cholera, which killed many villagers in that year.
The Digey, 2012, Photo: Lesley Lawson.
Seven years later Margaret was remarried—to a sailor ten years her junior— and was running the Sloop Inn on the wharf. The pub was rumoured to be a smugglers’ den with secret passages to the shore, but when I visited in 2012, the landlord denied it all. One thing that struck me about the Sloop Inn was the low ceilings and doors, signifying the short stature of people in the past.
The Sloop Inn, 2012. Photo: Lesley Lawson.
Margaret and family lived in Pudding Bag Lane, next to the pub, for some 20 years. By 1871 they had moved to Norway Lane, a few houses away from her eldest son (John). Her grandson John and granddaughter Honor made up her household along with two young fishermen. Perhaps Margaret and William were lonely, or perhaps her son’s house was too small for his growing family. The census of this year notes Margaret’s profession as “fish curer”.
Fishermen and fish curers outside a fish cellar, 1871
1871 was the year of a bumper fish catch and the whole community came out to help. and including Margaret who by now was 73 years old. Fish salting or curing took place in open-air fish cellars owned by local businessmen. It was stinky, gruelling work, for which women were paid three pence per hour—along with a ration of brandy, bread and cheese every six hours.
Pilchard cellar converted into an art gallery, 2012. Photo: Lesley Lawson.
English writer Wilkie Collin’s gives his impressions of the goings on in the fish cellars after a catch:
“First of all we pass a great heap of fish lying in one recess inside the door, and an equally great heap of coarse, brownish salt lying in another. Then we advance farther, to get out of the way of everybody… and see a whole congregation of the fair sex screaming, talking, and—to their honour be it spoken—working at the same time, round a compact mass of pilchards which their nimble hands have already built up to a height of three feet, a breadth of more than four, and a length of twenty.
“Here we have every variety of the “fairer half of creation” displayed before us, ranged round an odoriferous heap of salted fish. Here we see crones of sixty and girls of sixteen; the ugly and the lean, the comely and the plump; the sour-tempered and the sweet—all squabbling, singing, jesting, lamenting, and shrieking at the very top of their very shrill voices for “more fish,” and “more salt;” both of which are brought from the stores, in small buckets, by a long train of children running backwards and forwards with unceasing activity and in bewildering confusion. But, universal as the uproar is, the work never flags; the hands move as fast as the tongues; there may be no silence and no discipline, but there is also no idleness and no delay. Never was three-pence an hour more joyously or more fairly earned than it is here”
Margaret would have no doubt been one of these “crones” until her death, age 76.
The Loft Restaurant, 2012. Photo: Lesley Lawson.
When I visit, I search for her spirit in vain. Instead, I eat local mussels in a restaurant in Norway Lane, above the cottage where Margaret lived with her family, and I visit an art gallery in what once was a fish cellar where Margaret and her friends cured the pilchard catch.