Black Friday puts Kirk in eye of the storm

THEY were known as the bravest fishermen in Scotland - men who would risk any storm to bring home their catch and feed their families.

When 129 of them lost their lives in Britain’s greatest fishing disaster, many only yards from shore, their sacrifice amid a hurricane only added to the legend.

But an ancestor of a fisherman who died alongside his comrades in 1881 will this week expose the shocking truth behind the catastrophe that robbed the small Berwickshire port of Eyemouth of a generation.

He claims vital improvements to the village’s harbour that could have prevented the tragedy had not been carried out because of a row over money with the Church of Scotland.

The Church was legally entitled to take 10% of the fishermen’s income in ‘teind’ - a historic tithe on fish - even though the practice had been all but abandoned in other parts of Scotland. In return for paying the church tax, the Eyemouth fishermen were exempted from paying harbour dues to the local port authorities.

This meant the port had no funds to make improvements to the village harbour to make it safer. Even after the fishermen’s battle to stop paying tax to the Church succeeded, it took another 20 years to get the go-ahead for the safety work.

Tragically, detailed plans for the scheme were posted only weeks before the fleet set sail on its fateful journey to the North Sea fishing grounds.

The story uncovered by Peter Aitchison - a BBC editor from Eyemouth, whose great-great-great grandfather, James Lough, died in the tragedy - is set to reopen old wounds that the Kirk had thought were healed.

The Rev Dan Lindsay, the current Church of Scotland minister in Eyemouth, said: "It is a piece of subjective conjecture as to whether there is a link between the teind issue and the disaster."

But Aitchison insists there is a direct connection. "The date when this occurred was always known as Black Friday and I was brought up on stories of this on my grandmothers’ knee," he said.

"The fault - for fault there was - lay not at the feet of the fishermen but at the door of the Kirk, and I do not want this to be forgotten."

The origins of the disaster were in Eyemouth’s boom as a fishing port in the 19th century. The fleet quadrupled in 20 years and by the 1850s more than 40 boats and 300 men were earning a living from the sea.

While other places, from Dunbar to Wick, were given hundreds of thousands of pounds in state aid, Eyemouth did not get a penny.

To make a living, the Berwickshire men were forced to take risks when returning to their haven, which had a narrow entrance and was affected by strong currents. They won a reputation around the coast for bravado. One fishery officer wrote: "The Eyemouth men go out first, go out farthest and stay out longest."

But what Aitchison could not understand was why, given the progress of Eyemouth as a fishery station, nothing was being done for its main resource - the harbour.

"The truth was that no government would touch Eyemouth until a simmering row with the Kirk was settled," he said. "Unfortunately that dispute would run and run, right up to Black Friday."

The Kirk used to have a general right to a portion of the earnings of Scottish fishermen, and, sniffing profits of up to 4,000 a year, a considerable sum at the time, decided to take its share from booming Eyemouth, Aitchison said.

Matters came to a head in the early 1860s when the Church’s attempts met with dogged refusal and then violent resistance. But the law took the side of the Kirk. In November, 1861, protests ended when the ringleader - fisherman William Spears - was imprisoned. However, the cause he led was ultimately successful and after an intervention by the Lord Advocate, the Kirk agreed to surrender its rights on payment of a 2,000 lump sum.

Sadly, this was not paid off until 1878, and during that time Eyemouth, because of the tithe debt, still got nothing for harbour improvements.

At long last, with the teind dues paid, a plan to create a deep water port, accessible at all states of the tide, was published in August, 1881.

Six weeks later the hurricane came down on the Berwickshire coast while the fleet was at sea. "Those boats that tried to make the harbour were often swamped on the rocks which guard and protect the bay," Aitchison said. "The men were drowned within sight and sound and near touching distance of frantic relatives."

Aitchison argues that had the harbour mouth been widened, more of the boats would have stood a chance of making it to safety.

More than 70 widows were left behind and 300 children orphaned by the disaster.

It took a century for the population of Eyemouth to reach the level of 1881, but the legacy of the disaster has never dimmed.

Jim Evans, the Eyemouth representative of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, said that many of the residents were descended from those lost in the disaster.

"It is still talked about even though it was four generations ago, but there is no problem with the Church of Scotland now."

The Rev Lindsay said that on the centenary of the disaster he had been asked to lay a wreath to the victims.

"This seems to suggest that there are no hard feelings between the fishermen and the Church of Scotland.

"The teind issue is done and dusted, but the disaster will be remembered," the Rev Lindsay added.

FALL OF THE KINGFISHER

HE WAS known as the ‘Kingfisher’, the best fisherman in the revered Eyemouth fleet, but Willie Spears’ supremacy was challenged by the Rev Stephen Bell.

When the ‘Disruption’ split the Church of Scotland in two in the mid-19th century, the Kirk looked with covetous eyes at the potential income that could be derived from the Eyemouth teind.

Bell was ordered to demand a full tenth of the local catch. Had he been successful, his income would have leapt from 100 to around 4,000 a year.

The fishermen, led by Spears, bonded together, with hundreds putting their mark to a document of defiance. When the Church instituted legal action against 28 skippers, the entire community of 2,000 people marched to the court house behind a flowing banner. But in November 1861, an attempt to seize Spears was botched. . In a four-hour riot, townsfolk pelted the police with bricks and mud. Fearing murder, Spears gave himself up. But the cause he led was ultimately successful and after intervention by the Lord Advocate, the Kirk gave up the teind in exchange for 2,000.

By the time of the disaster Spears had retired, but he appears to have been traumatised, spent his money on drink, and by 1885 was admitted to the poor roll despite his heroism.

BLACK FRIDAY IS ON BBC 2 SCOTLAND AT 7.30PM ON TUESDAY 17 DECEMBER.

PETER AITCHISON’S BOOK CHILDREN OF THE SEA - THE STORY OF THE EYEMOUTH DISASTER IS PUBLISHED BY TUCKWELL PRESS, PRICE 12.99. SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY READERS CAN OBTAIN A COPY FOR THE DISCOUNTED PRICE OF 10 DIRECT FROM WWW.TUCKWELLPRESS.CO.UK, OR ON 01620-860 164.