III Former Industries
For many years the condition of the people of Scilly was not an enviable one. Their isolated situation, without any regular communication with the mainland, threw them for long periods upon their own resources, which were very limited. They lived by agriculture, fishing, “kelping,” and piloting, with some admixture of smuggling; but sometimes their services as pilots would not be required for months together; their crops, their kelp, and their fishing would fail, and their smuggling ventures miscarry, and then they would be in a sorry plight, and in danger of famine.
Under these circumstances we cannot wonder at an Order of the Council, issued in 1740, forbidding the exportation of corn; for the islanders used to sell everything they could to passing ships, and not keep enough for themselves.
Another order is more puzzling. It prohibited all masters of ships or boats “to import any stranger to settle here, or to carry any person from the islands” under penalty of a fine of ten pounds. It is easy to understand why strangers might not be imported; but since Scilly was supposed to be over-populated at that time, why were the islanders not allowed to leave? This was indeed turning the islands into a prison, and giving a real ground for Heath’s quaint supposition:—
“Here is no prison,” he writes, “for the confinement of offenders, which shows that the people live upright enough not to require any, or that the place is a Confinement of itself.”
Smuggling was a very popular employment. It was so easy to slip over to France and return with a cargo of contraband goods, which could be dropped overboard attached to a buoy if the revenue-officer inconveniently appeared. Even the clergy engaged in the traffic. It is said that Parson Troutbeck, who speaks feelingly of the drunkenness occasioned by smuggling, was himself obliged to leave the islands from fear of the consequences of having taken part in it. The Parsonage on Tresco was originally built in a spot especially convenient for this trade, although not otherwise suitable; and one of its tenants had also to run away because he was mixed up in some smuggling affair.
In 1684 a new industry had come to the aid of the people. Kelping was introduced by a Mr. Nance from Cornwall, and for nearly one hundred and fifty years formed one of their chief employments.
Kelp, as every one knows, is an alkali, of value to glass-makers, soap-makers, and bleachers, and obtained by burning seaweed, or “ore-weed,” as they call it in Scilly.
I am tempted to commit a bold piracy and quote in full the vivid description of the kelping given by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in Major Vigoureux, for I could never hope to rival that description in its force and picturesqueness. It occurs in a romance, but all its facts are based on contemporary records, and are strictly true to life.
“All the summer through, day after day, at low water, the islanders would be out upon the beaches cutting the ore-weed, and, as the tide rose, would drag it in sledges up the foreshore, and strew it above high-water mark, to dry in the sun. On sunny days they scattered and turned it; on wet days they banked it into heaps almost as tall as arrish-mows.
“From morning until evening they laboured, and towards midsummer, as the near beaches became denuded, would sail away in twos and threes and whole families, to camp among the off-islands and raid them; until when August came and the kelping season drew to an end, boat after boat would arrive at high water and discharge its burden.
“These operations filled the summer days; but it was at nightfall and a little earlier that the real fun began. For then the men, women, and children would gather and build the kilns—pits scooped in the sand, measuring about seven feet across and three feet deep in the centre. While the men finished lining the sides of the kiln with stones, the women and girls would leap into it with armfuls of furze, which they lighted, and so, strewing the dried ore-weed upon it, built little by little into a blazing pile. The great sea-lights which ring the islands now make a brave show and one which the visitor carries away as the most enduring, most characteristic recollection of his sojourn; but (say the older inhabitants) it will not compare with the illuminations of bygone summer nights, when as many as forty kilns would be burning together and island signalling to island with bonfires that flickered across the roadsteads and danced on the wild tide-races. From four to five hours the kilns would be kept burning, and the critical moment came when the mass of kelp began to liquefy, and the word was given to ‘strike.’ Then a dozen or fourteen men would leap down with pitchforks and heave the red molten mass from side to side of the kiln, toiling like madmen, while the sweat ran shining down their half-naked bodies; and sometimes—and always on Midsummer Eve, which is Baal-fire night—while they laboured, the women and girls would join hands and dance round the pit. In ten minutes or so all this excitement would die out, the dancers would unlock their hands, the men climb out of the pit, and throw themselves panting on the sand, leaving the kelp to settle, cool, and vitrefy.”
The kelp was ready to be exported as soon as it was cold; and the sooner the better, for it was apt to deteriorate with keeping. A single mass, formed in a kiln of the size above mentioned, would weigh from two and a half to three hundredweight. When the industry first began, the price obtained by the islanders was only eighteen to twenty shillings for every ton. This afterwards rose to forty-four shillings a ton; but for a long time the steward of the islands, who represented the Godolphins, insisted on acting the part of middleman, paying only twenty shillings, and threatening to turn any one out of his holding who sold it elsewhere for a higher price. Later, when the islanders had broken free from this tyranny, they were able to get from the merchants of Bristol and London as much as five pounds per ton of twenty-one hundredweight. But the amount of labour involved was colossal. It has been estimated that more than three tons of seaweed were required at a burning, in order to produce three hundredweight of kelp. This huge mass of weed had all of it to be cut from the rocks, carried, scattered, dried, and stacked, before it was ready for burning; and many times must the entire operation be repeated during the season.
Chief amongst summer resorts for the kelp-making families were the Eastern Islands, where, as Woodley tells us, they would reside “during the whole of the kelping season—not forgetting, however, with their characteristic attention to religious duties, to repair to the church of the nearest inhabited island on Sundays!”
Each island had its limits for gathering the ore-weed, and seldom a year passed but some offenders were brought before the Council and punished for encroaching on the territories of other islands. The distant ledges were free to all.
Great skill was required in burning, especially in knowing the exact moment when to “strike,” and in keeping the sand from getting into the kiln and spoiling the kelp.
The smell of the burning weed was peculiarly offensive and very penetrating. Even in the height of summer doors and windows had to be barred to keep out the smoke, the odour of which would cling to clothes and furniture long after the kelping season was over.
It was never an industry that paid well. In some years it brought into the islands as much as £500 to £700, but each family could seldom by much hard work earn more than £10 in a season. Still, that was better than nothing, and it was a great blow to the islanders when, owing to increased competition, they could no longer find a market for their kelp, especially since only a short time before effective measures had been taken to put a stop to smuggling.
In 1819 the distress was very great, and in order to alleviate it £13,000 was collected on the mainland for the purpose of starting a mackerel and pilchard fishery. Fish-cellars were built on Tresco, and boats and nets were provided; but the success of the enterprise was only short-lived, owing to the want of capital to fall back upon.
At last, when matters were so bad that it seemed as if they could get no worse, a new means of earning a livelihood was discovered by some enterprising Scillonians. They found that by exporting to the shores of the Mediterranean their surplus produce (which consisted chiefly of potatoes), in ships of their own building, and bringing back cargoes of fruit to England, they could get a good return for their outlay.
This discovery gave a great impetus to agriculture and to shipbuilding, and many a trim schooner was turned out from Scillonian shipyards. At that time there was a duty levied on all vessels of 60 tons and over, so the shipwrights strictly limited the tonnage of their vessels to fifty-nine and a fraction.
And now, while this industry was still young, a great change befell the islands. In 1831 the lease of the Duke of Leeds, who was then the representative of the Godolphin family, expired, and he declined to renew it. For a few years the islands remained in the hands of William IV., and some attempts were made during that time to improve their condition. But what they really wanted was a thorough reorganisation. They had been too long under the management of stewards, who had been either unwilling or unable to make the necessary changes, and who had on some occasions used their power for purposes of extortion. Moreover, there had been very little encouragement to the people to make improvements on their land, for short leases had been the rule.
The advent of a new Governor changed all this. In 1835 Mr. Augustus Smith, having taken up the lease from the Crown, arrived in Scilly to inspect his new property, and before long the islanders discovered what it was to have an energetic and far-seeing Governor resident amongst them, instead of an inapproachable and preoccupied absentee landlord.
At first his acts were considered arbitrary; the ne’er-do-weels were dispatched to the mainland; sons were not allowed to remain at home on the farm if there was not sufficient work for them; schools were opened, and education made compulsory long before it was so in England. The people covertly resented what they considered to be the loss of their freedom, but the islands are still reaping the benefits of this autocratic rule.
Under it the shipbuilding grew into an important industry, and only declined with the introduction of steam.
In those days the services of pilots were still much in request. The “Road” was often full of merchantmen, who had put in for repairs or supplies, or to wait for orders; and since every harbour in Scilly has its reef of rocks at the entrance, and around the islands the sea hides many a sunken ledge, a pilot was always signalled for at the earliest opportunity. A busy trade also was done in supplying these vessels with food, and executing necessary repairs. During the Franco-German War (1870-71) the frequent presence of German vessels in the harbour brought quite a little fortune into Scillonian pockets.
An old lady of my acquaintance well recalls putting into Scilly in those days, on her way back from Australia. She remembers how the islanders boarded the vessel with supplies of vegetables, fowls, and eggs, and what fine and handsome men they were; and she has never forgotten the taste of the eggs, with their fine flavour of oranges! An orange-ship had been wrecked off the islands a short time before, and the hens had evidently failed to hand over the salvage to the Receiver of Wreck.
With the advent of steam all these various employments have vanished; and the building, piloting, provisioning, and repairing of ships no longer form part of the daily routine of Scilly.
Instead there has arisen the flower industry, which was started about thirty years ago. Improved communication with the mainland gives to Scillonians a ready market for their flowers during the first quarter of the year, and the exporting of early potatoes follows close on the heels of the flower-season.
With these sources of revenue, and with relays of visitors who are beginning to appreciate the climate and the many charms of Scilly, the islands are now more prosperous than at any former time.
On the death of Mr. Augustus Smith in 1872 they passed into the hands of his nephew, Mr. T. A. Dorrien-Smith, who still carries on the traditions of his predecessor, and takes a keen interest in all that concerns the welfare of the people.