The Herring Girls

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

The herring girls are well documented in archives, letters, photographs and the memories of the women themselves. The figure most often exaggerated is their speed: popular accounts often say 60 or more herring a minute, while archive sources give an average of about 40. Numbers of women vary between sources and years.

Crews of three

established Fish-curing companies engaged the women in crews of three: two gutters and one packer, often the tallest of the three. On being hired, each woman received an engagement fee called arles, usually ten shillings. The herring were tipped into long wooden troughs called farlans, and the gutters removed the guts with a single stroke of a short knife. The packer laid the fish in the barrels in layered rosettes, bellies up and heads outward, with rough salt between the layers, under the eye of a cooper. In Stornoway, barrels were filled three times as the fish settled before being sealed.

How fast?

established The Highland archives record that "most women could gut an average of 40 fish each minute but some were significantly faster", and Suffolk Archives gives the same typical figure. A skilled crew could fill a barrel of about 1,000 herring in about 15 minutes. Experienced crews were known as "first-class women".

traditional Claims that herring girls routinely gutted 60, or even 80, fish a minute are common in popular accounts. Such speeds may have been reached by the fastest gutters, but they were not the norm.

Hard work

established The work was hard and dangerous to the hands. Gutters wrapped their fingers in strips of washed flour sacks to protect them from the knives, but cuts were common, and the brine made them painful. In one recorded week at Wick, each woman in a crew worked 83.5 hours, about 12 hours a day. Pay was by the barrel, so the women sometimes waited unpaid for the boats to come in. First-season learners earned less until they were fully skilled.

Following the fish

established Many herring girls came from crofting families in the Hebrides, who depended on the seasonal earnings. They travelled with their belongings in wooden kists, slept in dormitories above the curing yards, or lodged with local families. The Wick season usually ran from June to August; the women then followed the shoals south, ending the year at Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Lowestoft from October to December. At the peak of the trade more than 6,000 Scottish herring girls travelled to East Anglia each season. Many were the main earners in their families, and many remembered the life fondly: one recalled that "it was a happy, healthy life", though "it didn't matter how much we washed our hair, it always smelt of herring!"

On strike

established The herring girls were not passive. On 22 October 1936 almost all the women at Great Yarmouth struck and marched along the harbour, demanding one shilling a barrel. The union agreed the rate and backdated it to the start of the season. On 24 October 1938, 2,400 women at Lowestoft refused to pack herring caught on a Sunday by English boats, for religious reasons, and the catch was left to spoil on the quay.

The end of the trade

established Herring catches peaked between 1900 and 1913. After the First World War the trade lost its main markets in Germany and Russia. Later, modern trawlers put pressure on stocks, freezing replaced traditional salt curing, and after the Second World War women had more choice of work. 1950 was the last good season, and by the 1960s the traditional trade had all but disappeared.

• Herring girls protected their fingers with strips of flour sacks.
• A gutter removed a herring's guts with one stroke of the knife.
• The typical speed was about 40 herring a minute.
• A skilled crew could fill a 1,000-fish barrel in about 15 minutes.
• Women were hired with a fee called arles, usually ten shillings.
• In one week at Wick, a crew worked 83.5 hours each.
• The Yarmouth rest house treated 2,354 medical cases in 1913.
• In 1938, 2,400 women refused to pack fish caught on a Sunday.

• Do not give 60 or more herring a minute as the normal speed; the documented average is about 40.
• Do not describe the herring girls as passive or unorganised; they struck in 1936.
• Do not describe the 1938 Lowestoft protest as a pay strike; it was a religious objection.
• Do not say the trade ended suddenly; it declined over decades after the First World War.