X. The Scottish Home Department's Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen

Abstract

Scotland's vital interest in the fisheries needs no stressing. Nor does her interest in marine research, for which reference to the pioneer work of Edward Forbes and the voyages of the Challenger and the Scotia alone are sufficient testimonial. Both in England and in Scotland many Commissions have been set up to try to deal with one fisheries problem or another. The setting up of the Board of British White Herring Fisheries in 1808 may be said to have been the beginning of a new phase; as a result Scotland has one of the best series of fishery statistics, those for the “cured” herring fishery, available to-day—and statistics are the foundation of fisheries research! Apart from this, perhaps Scottish fishery research, as distinct from marine research, may be said to have begun in 1836 when a Dr Knox “was asked, in order to solve a fishery problem in the Firth of Forth, to investigate whether the sprat and the herring were different species or not; and further, in 1842, Mr Henry Goodsir was employed to gain some definite information about the growth, food and habits of the herring. This was just one of many contemporary problems; a later one, of course, concerned the influence of the developing trawl fishery upon the conventional method of lining for demersal fish such as cod and haddock. The duties of this Board were the supervision of the fisheries (of which herring was the principal), the “branding” of herring and “cran” measures, securing the observation of the few international fisheries regulations of that time, guarding the territorial limits from the encroachment of foreign fishermen, and supplying to the Scottish Meteorological Society information about weather conditions in the fisheries.