Speaker: Josh Ivinson, University of Cambridge

Chair: Alan James, Senior Lecturer in War Studies

Newfoundland fishing crews were pioneers of transoceanic commerce in the North Atlantic. From the mid-sixteenth century, hundreds of ships and thousands of labourers were making the crossing annually to catch and process fish on seasonal fishing settlements on the shores of North America. But there is relatively little about nascent pre-colonial years of this enterprise, or exactly how this sizable yet decentred industry was able to overcome its various hazards and uncertainties. This paper will utilise an original database of several hundred legal proceedings from various English courts, both national and local. The details discussed in these cases, particularly in the first-hand witness statements of fishermen themselves, cast a new light on the risk-managing institutions, methods and experiences of these intrepid crews both in the port towns of Europe and on the shores of the New World.

Josh is a final year PhD in Economic and Social History at the University of Cambridge. He is a member of the 'The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure' as well as the 'Trinity College Dublin Centre for Environmental History', where he is due to start work as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the current 'North Atlantic Fish Revolution' project upon completion of his PhD.

Hosted by the Laughton Naval History Unit of the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War on behalf of the British Commission for Maritime History and the Society for Nautical Research