ICES Marine Science Symposia, 215: 45-55. 2002

The Fishery Board for Scotland and its participation in international investigations

James A. Adams

Adams, J. A. 2002. The Fishery Board for Scotland and its participation in interna­tional investigations. - ICES Marine Science Symposia, 215: 45—55.

Scotland made a notable contribution to the establishment o f ICES. This partly had its origins in the early 1880s when Otto Pettersson and a group o f Edinburgh oceanogra­phers, including John Murray of the "Challenger" Expedition, became familiar with each other’s work and interests. About the same time, the reconstituted Fishery Board for Scotland gained funding for what became a continuing programme of fisheries research. From the beginning, this included hydrographic studies, and in 1893, Murray advised Pettersson to request the Board’s assistance in complementing work in the Skagerrak, Kattegat, and Baltic by making hydrographic observations in the northern North Sea and the Faroe-Shetland and Norwegian Channels. This the Board did, and in 1896, it supported similar work after the London International Geographi­cal Congress approved Pettersson’s proposals for an international survey in the North Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Baltic. However, in 1898, the Board acceded to the British government’s view that such a survey was only important as an adjunct to investigating the impact o f existing fishing methods. Perhaps as a result, Murray resigned from the Board, his place as scientific member being filled by D ’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, who attended the Stockholm Conference in 1899. While Thompson encouraged the Board to accept the international programme formulated at Stockholm, the official British position initially reflected considerable caution, partly centred on doubts about the programme’s use o f research steamers. Britain con­firmed its participation early in 1902, the Board learning that it would, consequently, lose most o f its science funding. The future o f the Board’s scientific staff and facili­ties was in doubt until the Board was appointed agent for the northern part o f Britain’s contribution, with Thompson, who believed passionately in international cooperation, directing the work from University College, Dundee. By the early 1920s, the distinc­tion between the international work and the Board’s programme had disappeared, although Thompson continued to play an important role in ICES.

Keywords: Fishery Board for Scotland, history. International Council for the Explora­tion o f the Sea.

James A. Adams: 2 Drummond Place, Edinburgh EH3 6PH, Scotland. UK: tel: + 44 131 556 5033: e-mail: jaal@adam59.freesei-ve.co.uk.

Introduction

The United Kingdom’s involvement in the establishment of ICES, and in the resulting international programme, has been described by Lee (1992) and Smed (1996). However, there is a need to detail the particularly Scottish aspects of that involvement which probably had their origins in the early 1880s when Otto Pettersson’s work on the hydrography of the Siberian Sea brought him into contact with John (later Sir John) Murray and P. G. Tait in Edinburgh (Thompson, 1941). Pettersson’s immediate concern was with the advances in physical oceanography stemming from the "Challenger" Expe­dition of 1872-1876 (Deacon, 1971, pp. 366-388; Rice, 1986, pp. 30-39), but the contact no doubt stimulated what was to become Murray’s long-standing friendship

with Pettersson, and interest in his work. Murray may also have introduced Pettersson to the professional industrial and amateur marine chemist Robert Irvine (Figure 1) in whom Pettersson was to find a close and supportive friend, and with whom he stayed in 1892 dur­ing the Edinburgh meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. During this meeting Pettersson described his work and methods to a joint session, chaired by John Young Buchanan, of chemists and geographers interested in oceanography (British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1892a, 1892b).

The early 1880s also saw Murray, Irvine, and others establish the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research at Granton, near Edinburgh (Deacon, 1993, 1996). In becoming involved in setting up this station.

46 James A. Adams

Figure 1. Otto Pettersson’s close friend Robert Irvine (1839-1902) who, in addition to being the Chemical Director o f an oil refinery and printing ink factory at Granton. was active as a marine chemist at the adjacent Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research. He was also a friend o f Fridtjof Nansen whom he perhaps first met in Britain either in the autumn o f 1889 or in the spring o f 1892. From a portrait in the Department o f Medical Microbiology, University o f Edin­burgh, where the income from Irvine’s estate was devoted to the founding o f the Robert Irvine Chair o f Bacteriology in 1913 (Smith. 1994, pp. 37-11).

Murray was ensuring that he, and the succession of mainly young science graduates who assisted him in the "Challenger" Office, could be involved, even if only in a small way, in marine research at a time when funding for more ambitious deep-sea oceanography was absent. The Scottish Marine Station’s origins meant that its work "promoted the importance of physical oceanogra­phy as an essential ingredient in understanding both the life cycle of individual species and the productivity of the sea" (Deacon, 1993, p. 32). As a result, three of the young workers who had been associated with it and the "Challenger" Office - Hugh Robert Mill, Henry New­ton Dickson, and Thomas Wemyss Fulton - will have been particularly sympathetic towards the work for which, in 1893, Pettersson sought the assistance of the Fishery Board for Scotland, the first official body in Britain to have a fisheries research capability.

The origins and evolution o f the Fishery Board

The Fishery Board for Scotland had its origins in the treaty establishing the United Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. We need only note that £2000 per year was to be provided for promoting fisheries and manufactures in Scotland, but no payments were forthcoming until the Board of Trustees for Fisheries and Manufactures was established in 1727 "to placate the truculent Scots" in the wake of Malt Tax riots (Devine, 1999, p. 58). From the beginning, the Trustees helped develop Scotland’s herring fisheries; then an Act of 1808 assigned that duty to a new board drawn from, and reporting to, the Trustees. This was known as the Board of British White Herring Fishery - but sometimes as the Scotch Fishery Board - and it presided over a phenomenal expansion of Scotland’s herring fisheries (Coull, 1996). By the latter part of the 19th century, however, the need for a board that dealt with all of Scotland's fisheries was recog­nized. Thus, a reconstituted Fishery Board for Scotland was established in 1882, reporting to the Home Office in London until, three years later, the Scottish Office (then, also, London-based) was created and assumed responsibility. These arrangements ended in 1939 when the Board was abolished and fisheries administra­tion became an integral part of a reorganized Scottish Office (Adams, 1996). Then newly based in Edinburgh, that government department is now, following devolu­tion and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, the Scottish Executive within which fisheries are the responsibility of the Environment and Rural Affairs Department.

The development of the Fishery Board’s capability for scientific investigations and the start o f hydrographic studies

The first Board’s scientific investigations (Fishery Board, 1884, pp. xii-xvii) have been described as "desultory and spasmodic" (Fulton, 1889, p. 75). On the other hand, for much of its existence, the Board had associated with it either well-known amateur or profes­sional scientists who did appreciate the contribution that science could make. However, they were conscious of the intractable nature of many of the questions they faced, and the Board itself did not have, nor had it sought, the power to fund scientific investigations on a continuing basis. Likewise, the Act establishing the new Board in 1882 contained no explicit provision for expenditure on science - it referred simply to taking steps to improve the fisheries. Only subsequently did the Treasury agree science funding, with almost £23 000 being allocated over the first 10 years of the Board’s existence.

The Fishery Board fo r Scotland and its participation in international investigations 47

Figure 2. The steam yacht "Garland" (26 m; 61 gross tons), built in Dumbarton in 1880 for J. W. Woodall o f Scarborough, was bought by the Fishery Board in 1886 and continued in its service until 1902. Although she had "comfortable, indeed luxurious, accommodation" for the scientists and the skipper (Mill, 1951), as a working vessel she was "a source o f vexation to all who sailed in her" (Gunther, 1977, p. 92). Illustration, by an unknown artist, from Rapports et Procès-Verbaux des Réunions du Conseil International pour l’Exploration de la Mer, 47, p. 172.

Included in this sum was £3000 for the Board’s first research yacht "Garland" (Figure 2) purchased in 1886 to enable the Board to conduct experiments to ascertain whether beam trawling was an injurious mode of fishing (Adams, 1996; Smith, 2002). These experiments were conducted in response to recommendations made by the Dalhousie Commission (1885) that had been appointed in 1883 to consider complaints made by line and drift- net fishermen about the allegedly harmful effects of trawling within territorial waters. It appointed Professor William C. M’Intosh of St. Andrews University to ob­tain, during the course of 1884, "accurate information respecting the destruction of immature fish and spawn said to be caused by trawling" and, as will be discussed later, a very public disagreement subsequently arose be­tween M’Intosh and the Board about the nature and the interpretation of the experiments conducted by the "Garland". This was to fuel concerns in the United Kingdom about the role research steamers could play in the proposed ICES programme.

In gaining this comparatively generous funding, the Board had breached, in view of the benefits which, it could be claimed, would accrue to the economically important fisheries, the prevailing political philosophy

that was antagonistic to increases in public expenditure. Unfortunately, since the ensuing expansion of the Board's science programme had not been envisaged by central government, and since no effective independent control was in place, the programme developed in an unplanned way and continual shifts in emphasis wasted resources (Deacon, 1990). On the other hand, valuable pioneering research was done, and here the Board’s work on the physical and chemical environment is high­lighted. For this, it obtained the assistance of John Gibson, an expert analyst in the University of Edin­burgh’s Department of Chemistry (Laurie, 1914). He in turn asked Mill of the Scottish Marine Station for Scientific Research to help, although, because relations between the Board and the station were strained, Mill was required by Murray "to take a holiday" when pro­ceeding on the Board’s cruises (Mill, 1951, pp. 46—4-8).

Gibson and Mill dealt in particular with the hydrogra­phy of the Scottish seas and firths, but the Board also appreciated the benefits of surveying a greater geo­graphical area, and of international cooperation. In 1888, it consented to Gibson’s extending his observa­tions across the North Sea on HMS "Jackal" (Figure 3) and to the vessel’s calling at Kiel and Copenhagen to

48 James A. Adams

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Figure 3. Profile and upper deck of the 45-m-long HMS "Jackal" (formerly the "Woodcock") which was commissioned as a fish­ery protection vessel in 1886. A "Commissioners’ sleeping cabin" and a "Commissioners’ laboratory" were fitted at the aft o f the upper deck, and she made a number o f research cruises on behalf o f the Fishery Board for Scotland. On the basis o f the work done during one o f these. Mill (1951, p. 48) claimed that he introduced the term "continental shelf'. The vessel also had the dis­tinction o f carrying out, on 4 August 1893, the first hydrographic station on what has now become the standard Nolso-Flugga section in the Faroe-Shetland Channel (Turrell and Angel, 1995). © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.

enable Gibson to establish direct contact with the Kiel Commission, and with the Directors of the Danish Meteorological Institute. In addition, Bergen was visit­ed, as it was seen to be the chief centre of Norwegian fisheries. In reporting on the survey, Gibson (1889) noted that the Kiel Commission had established an important system for making observations along the North Sea and Baltic coasts of Germany, and that, since "the value of such observations obviously [increased] in proportion to the area over which they [extended]...the Kiel Commission [had] repeatedly expressed the hope that their system, or a similar system of regular obser­vations at fixed stations, would be adopted by [Britain] and other countries along the North Sea littoral." The Commission’s appeal had not, however, so far met with the response which its importance merited, except in Denmark.

Gibson was also responsible for suggesting that the Chemistry and Geography Sections of the British Association for the Advancement of Science should have a joint session on oceanography at its Edinburgh meeting in August 1892 (Anon., 1892). A highlight of that joint session was a paper by Pettersson on the hydrography of the Kattegat and Baltic. One is tempted to suggest that it was because Mill was impressed by Pettersson’s account that he wrote to the Board the fol­

lowing April suggesting that it make observations between the North Sea and the Atlantic, thereby com­pleting a survey he had made on its behalf to the west of the Outer Hebrides in 1887 (Mill, 1888). Also, since Mill by then was Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society in London, he suggested that this might be done by Dickson, his former Edinburgh colleague who had since done similar work elsewhere (Fishery Board, 1893, p. 278).

About the same time, and perhaps unbeknown to Mill, Murray, having learnt of plans for cooperative Scan­dinavian investigations, advised Pettersson to write to, among others, the Chairman of the Fishery Board (Murray, 1893). This Pettersson did in a letter dated 9 May 1893 in which he explained that the Swedish and Danish governments had granted the funds, and the assistance of naval vessels, for hydrographic surveys of the Skagerrak, Kattegat, and the Baltic during the peri­od 1 May 1893 to 1 May 1894. Pettersson referred to the link between the appearance of migratory fish on the coast of Sweden and the periodic influx of certain water strata through the Norwegian Channel, noting that, although the exact origin of these waters was unknown, they "must pass over the North Sea plateau between Shetland and Norway." His request was, therefore, for a vessel to work on the slope of the northern North Sea

The Fishery• Board for Scotland and its participation in international investigations 49

and into the Faroe-Shetland and Norwegian Channels at the beginning of August, to complement the Scandi­navian work in the east.

Since the survey area was very similar to that detailed by Mill, and since the Board believed that the work could prove beneficial, Pettersson was informed of the Board’s support, provided the expense was not beyond its available funds. Also, at the prompting of the Secretary for Scotland, confirmation of the scheme’s official recognition by the Danish and Swedish govern­ments was requested (Fishery Board, 1893, pp. 276-277). By the time the Board met on 31 July, a note had been received from the Minister for Sweden and Norway formally requesting the Board’s cooperation, together with a note from the Danish Minister support­ing his Swedish colleague! Also, the Board was able to note with approval the fact that Dickson had joined HMS "Jackal" at Aberdeen two days earlier at the start of Scotland’s participation in the work (Fishery Board, 1893, p. 351).

The arrangements for Dickson to join the "Jackal" were made in a letter which he received from the Board’s Scientific Superintendent Thomas Wemyss Fulton on 22 July 1893 informing him that observations were required from 1 August. Although Dickson was prepared to go to sea on 31 July [contrary to the date of 31 August given by Adams (1995)], the arrangements had been made with little time to spare and, in Dickson’s view, he had been inadequately briefed regarding what was expected of him. Perhaps in view of Dickson’s con­cerns, Mill wrote to Pettersson on 27 July setting out what Dickson was planning to do. At the same time, Mill invited Pettersson to submit a description of the work that had already been done in the Baltic for publi­cation in the Geographical Journal (Mill, 1893). In the end, Mill was unable to get Pettersson’s material pub­lished in the Journal, but it was accepted by The Scottish Geographical Magazine where its appearance (Pettersson, 1894) made the work of Pettersson and his colleagues accessible to a much wider audience than ever before.

Further cruises of the "Jackal" followed in November 1893, February 1894, and April-May 1894 (Adams,1995).

Scottish involvement during the period 1895-1902

The cruises organized by Pettersson in 1893-1894 con­tributed to the evolution of the scheme - for an inter­national survey of the chemical, physical, and biological conditions of the waters of the North Atlantic, the North Sea, and the Baltic - which gained the unanimous ap­proval of delegates at the Sixth International Geograph­ical Congress (Keltie and Mill, 1896). This was held in London in 1895 with Mill closely involved in its organ­ization, and with Dickson, Murray, and Irvine being

among those who attended. Irvine seconded Pettersson’s motion that a committee be appointed to draw up a res­olution regarding the scheme, while Dickson was secre­tary to the resulting committee; in addition, a paper by Dickson noted the Board’s participation in the 1893-1894 survey. In the ensuing discussion, Murray said that he thought that there could be no doubt that the work ought to continue, and he suggested that, since the Scandinavian nations had already gone so far, their gov­ernments should take the initiative by approaching the British government. However, in May 1896, well before this happened, Dickson asked Murray (by then the sci­entific member of the Board) to draw the Board’s atten­tion to the desirability of making further observations in the Faroe-Shetland Channel. He suggested that this would best be done at times corresponding with those of the 1893-1894 "Jackal" expedition and noted how the Geographical Congress had recognized the value of such work (Fishery Board, 1896, p. 264). The "Jackal" could not be spared, but the Admiralty agreed that the officers of HMS "Research" would make the observa­tions and obtain the samples that were subsequently reported on by Dickson ( 1897), Cleve (1897), and Scott (1897).

It appears that the Board had been perfectly willing to support the work suggested by Dickson in 1896. However, in 1898, when the Swedish-Norwegian Mini­stry of Foreign Affairs sought the opinion of the coun­tries bordering the North Sea and the Baltic about implementing Pettersson’s proposals, Great Britain’s response stressed that, however valuable such a study might be, it should only be an adjunct to investigating whether any existing methods of fishing were having a detrimental effect upon fish supplies (Fishery Board, 1898, p. 403). Murray was very annoyed by this reply and, in writing to Pettersson in September 1898, he mentioned how some people at the Treasury seemed to think that, given the opportunity, he would "run the country in for another ‘Challenger’ Expedition costing many, many thousands." He continued, "1 think the best thing 1 can do is to separate myself from all government work and retire in mv shell" (Smed, 1996, p. 144). Interestingly, at the beginning of October, he resigned from the Board, although his letter informing the Chairman (Fishery Board, 1898, p. 407) gives no indi­cation whether or not his resignation had indeed been prompted by the annoyance and concerns conveyed in his letter to Pettersson. Two months later, his place was taken by D’Arcy (later Sir D’Arcy) Wentworth Thompson, Professor of Natural History at University College, Dundee.

Thompson’s long association with ICES started when he represented Scotland at the preparatory Stockholm Conference in June 1899. Fellow delegates were WalterE. Archer, Chief Inspector of Fisheries for England and Wales, and Murray - both proposed by the Board of Trade - while Edward R. E. Vicars of the Foreign Office went as secretary, and Irvine attended, apparently in a

50 James A. Adams

personal capacity as he was not mentioned when Vicars (1899) arranged the submission of the delegates’ claims for subsistence allowances to the Foreign Office.

In November, Thompson gave a generally favourable account of what had been achieved and of the programme that had been agreed. Regarding Scotland, he wrote:

acceptance in a general way of the Stockholm pro­gramme would involve no new organisation but mere­ly the strengthening of what we possess. ... With a new and seaworthy vessel in place of the ‘Garland’, that has for years past been confessedly inadequate for her work, I have every hope that the essential points of the Stockholm programme could be effec­tively dealt with, and that the local investigations with which the Board are peculiarly concerned would at the same time be very greatly facilitated (Fishery Board, 1899, pp. 472-473).

The Scottish Office supported the Fishery Board’s bid to replace the "Garland". However, the Under Secretary for Scotland. Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff, writing to the Foreign Office in November 1899, partly foreshadowed the reply which Britain sent to the Swedish government the following May (Fishery Board, 1899, pp. 473-474). This stated that Britain would support the International Council for two years:

On condition that the Council collated and analysed the sea fishery investigations which [had] already been made by participating countries with a view of seeing how far investigations conducted on similar lines [were] likely to afford information of practical value to the fisheries, and having done so to submit a clear programme of research based on specific evi­dence (Archer, 1908, Question 6929).

The British position partly reflected the Treasury’s unwillingness to incur additional expense while the sec­ond Boer War was being fought in southern Africa (Smed, 1996). It also reflected concerns about the meth­odology to be used, particularly regarding the effective­ness of research steamers in determining the distribution and abundance of groundfish; a point which, Archer stressed, should be addressed by evaluating the outcome of the Board’s use of the "Garland" during the previous 13 years. Before being appointed Chief Inspector of Fisheries for England and Wales in 1898, Archer had been, since 1892, the Board’s Inspector of Salmon Fish­eries in Scotland. Consequently, he would have known that the Board's trawling experiments had been ham­pered by the inadequacies of the "Garland", including her only being able to handle a trawl with a beam of 25 ft compared to the beams of 50 ft used by commercial trawlers. Frequent repair needs further reduced her use­fulness as she aged. He would also have been aware of M ’Intosh’s very public criticisms which, in addition to those about the "Garland" and her gear, centred on the methodology both in the field and in analysis. Archer may not, however, have been aware that M ’Intosh’s uncompromising stance perhaps stemmed in part from the Board's not having placed him in charge of its trawl­

ing experiments in continuation of his work for the Dalhousie Commission, and its not having involved him in the selection of the vessel. M’Intosh’s antagonism increased in 1897 when (in addition to having recently severed its ties with his laboratory and having with­drawn its financial support) the Board refused to fund an experiment in which M'Intosh wished to rework, with commercial trawlers in a manner similar to that used in 1884, the areas he had surveyed for the Dal­housie Commission (Fishery Board, 1897, pp. 406-409; M’Intosh, 1899, p. ix; Gunther, 1977).

Archer made his own study of the numbers of fish caught by the "Garland" in the Firth of Forth during the period 1889-1895. Between neighbouring stations a few miles apart, he found great variation in the numbers of each species and claimed, therefore, that conclusions based on samples taken some distance apart (inevitable because of the large area covered by the International Investigations) were "more likely to be erroneous than true" (Archer, 1908, Question 6988). However, Walter Garstang of the Marine Biological Association, having reanalysed the Board’s data, concluded that, in spite of errors associated with the Board’s original analysis, the trawling experiments conducted by the "Garland" had "been largely successful in throwing light on the prob­lem which they were designed to elucidate" (Garstang, 1900, p. 17).

Garstang’s conclusions appear to have dispelled con­cerns about using research steamers for groundfish sur­veys; Archer, however, remained hostile to their use for that purpose. This is evidenced by the fact that his state­ment about conclusions based on samples taken some distance apart was made in 1908 when he was reiterat­ing his belief that Britain’s funding two steamers for the international programme had been to the detriment of the collection of statistics at the fishing ports, and of sending competent experts to sea on board commercial fishing vessels (Archer, 1908, Question 6930).

The British response of May 1900 surprised the Scandinavian promoters of the scheme, and the desir­ability of clarifying the situation encouraged them to put into effect plans for a further international meeting, ini­tially arranged for October 1900 in Kristiania (Smed,1996). In the interim, Britain had sent a circular to the other powers urging that the meeting consider the prohi­bition of trawling in certain areas where young fish congregated. In view of the importance attached to this matter, it was decided to send Moncrieff as the British delegate, "accompanied by one or possibly two savants to attend to the scientific questions to be discussed" (Moncrieff, 1900). However, the meeting was post­poned, and it was April 1901 before Moncrieff wrote to his "savants", now three - Thompson, Mill, and Garstang - mentioning travel arrangements and provid­ing background papers for a meeting the following month (Moncrieff, 1901a).

Moncrieff reported on the outcome of the meeting at the end of May, and in June informed Thompson that he

The Fishery ' Board fo r Scotland and its participation in internationul investigations 51

Figure 4. The Fishery Board for Scotland’s laboratory (brick building towards the centre of the photograph) at the Bay o f Nigg, Aberdeen, was erected in 1898, the hatchery (extreme left) being transferred from Dunbar the following year (Adams, 1996). When this photograph was taken in 1934, the Board’s facilities had been partly abandoned for a new laboratory at the present Victoria Road site, and the bay was a popular relaxation spot. Consequently, the "ICES" notice advertised refreshments, not an outpost o f international fisheries investigators! Reproduced with the permission o f Aberdeen City Libraries: Central Library.

and his counterpart in the Board of Trade had met with their "chiefs" who were strongly in favour of Britain’s going ahead. Consequently, he was "now preparing a note with a forecast of expenses which they would take to the Chancellor of the Exchequer" (Moncrieff, 1901b). However, it was January 1902 before it was announced that HM Government had decided that Britain should play a full part in the scheme prepared at the Stockholm and Kristiania Conferences, and that application was being made to Parliament for a grant. As explained by Lee (1992), these actions, even then, were considered, in some quarters, to be premature and ill advised, and were condemned in a flurry of letters and articles in the press. On the other hand. Mill was probably pleased since the Sixth International Geographical Congress had, for the first time, taken steps to try to ensure that resolutions passed did not "remain a dead letter" (Keltie and Mill, 1896, p. v).

By the middle of February 1902, the Board had been informed that, in view of Britain’s commitment to the

international programme, its science funding for 1902-1903 was to be reduced by £2000 to £770. Consequently, the Board faced the possibility of inform­ing its scientific staff and the master of the "Garland" that their employment would be terminated. Questions were also asked about what use, if any, was to be made of its new laboratory (Figure 4) at the Bay of Nigg, Aberdeen (Fishery Board, 1902, p. 21). In early March, the Scottish Office prepared a confidential paper enti­tled "Reasons for utilising the Fishery Board in connec­tion with Sea Fisheries Investigation and the Christiania Programme". It noted the special claims arising from the Board’s sacrifice of £2000 per annum from its sci­entific revenues, and the importance of keeping the Board in a "position to resume its scientific work" when the International Investigations ended. Moreover, if two vessels were to be used, it seemed desirable that the Board and the Marine Biological Association should carry out the northern and southern divisions, respec­tively, of Britain’s contribution (Anon., 1902).

52 James A. Adams

Figure 5. Crew and scientists on board the "Goldseeker” (35 m; 206 gross tons). She was built in Aberdeen in 1900 as a trawler for E. M. W. North o f Grimsby, and was originally hired, and later bought, to undertake Scotland’s contribution to the International Investigations. Scientists dressed in a manner similar to the officers, and on the extreme right o f the photograph is Alexander Bowman, a graduate o f the University o f Aberdeen, who was appointed by Thompson in 1904 to take charge o f the work at sea. He later became the Board's Scientific Superintendent and was closely involved in the work o f ICES. Photograph provided by Alexander Bowman’s grandson. Dr William C. Allan.

The Fishery Board as "agents of the government"

In mid-June 1902, the Board received, and accepted, the invitation to be the government’s agent for the northern area, and for the boat that would work "somewhere off the Shetland Islands"; funding was to be £5500 annual­ly for three years plus £2000 for outfit (Fishery Board, 1902, p. 76). Preparations proceeded quickly, and in August, the three naturalists at the Bay of Nigg were employed by the scheme. This, together with the provi­sion of a vessel to replace the "Garland", limited the impact of the reduction in the Board’s own science fund­ing. However, it was Thompson, not the Board’s Scien­tific Superintendent, Thomas Wemyss Fulton, who di­

rected the international programme. Thompson did this from University College, Dundee, where A. J. Robertson (a hydrographer) and support staff were employed. In addition, R. M. Clark, an assistant in the Department of Botany at the University of Aberdeen, worked on plankton, while a Board employee collected, from a limited number of trawlers and liners landing at Aberdeen, details of the grounds from which their catches were taken (Thompson, 1903). At sea, the August 1902 survey was done by the "Jackal" with B. Helland-Hansen sailing with the vessel (Adams, 1995; Blindheim, 1995). and afterwards carrying out chemical analyses at Dundee and training an assistant in the meth­ods. Training was also given to Robertson and Clark by sending them to the first of the international courses for marine scientists in Bergen (Schwach, 2002, Figure 2).

The Fishery Board fo r Scotland and its participation in international investigations 53

The "Jackal" was again used in December 1902 and May 1903, by which time the new vessel, the "Gold- seeker" (Figure 5), was ready and also participated.

The facilities at University College, Dundee, were used until 1919 when the remaining staff - two female clerks dealing with statistics - transferred to the Board’s office in Edinburgh. Earlier, responsibility for hydrog­raphy had passed to Captain C. H. Brown, a member of the staff at Royal Technical College, Glasgow, since the Dundee hydrographer had left about January 1907 when Britain’s continued participation was in doubt (Thomp­son, 1907). At Aberdeen early in 1903, Thompson had rented the upper floor of a small warehouse facing the fish market and close to the usual berth of HMS "Jackal" and "Goldseeker". This served as a store and small laboratory and was later replaced by rooms, ini­tially at Mearns Street, and subsequently in the Old Post Office, Market Street. Although all the scientific staff at Aberdeen came under Fulton’s supervision in 1914, it was 1923 before they came together at what is now the Marine Laboratory’s Victoria Road site in Aberdeen. By that time, the earlier distinction between the Board’s programme and that of the International Investigations had ended.

Controversy and diplomacy

Gunther (1977), Lee (1992, 1996), Smed (1996), and Southward (1996) have described the friction between members of the early British delegations and of the feuding, among various parties, surrounding Britain’s participation in ICES. Thompson no doubt played his part; certainly he did not see eye to eye with Archer whom he believed was hostile, particularly in the earli­er years, to the international programme. Thompson, on the other hand, believed passionately in its value. He was also concerned that feuding between parties in Bri­tain could endanger the future of international coopera­tion. When Professor Max Weber, the Dutch Delegate, wrote to him in 1906 fearing that adverse criticism of the ICES programme in Britain’s House of Lords was influencing his own government (Weber, 1906), Thomp­son, replying in a style that gives credence to Adam Sedgwick’s view that Thompson "ought to have been a diplomatist, not a zoologist" (Dobell, 1949, p. 606), rec­ommended that Weber try to persuade his government to:

at least keep up in some form or other the inter­national bond. If this be done, we may then in a year or two reach better times and have our Grants increased again. But if the international scheme be once broken down it will take a life time to build up another (Thompson, 1906).

Conclusions

Rozwadowski (2002) describes how ICES did survive and evolve; and in the evolving organization, Thompson played a long and honourable part (Clark, 1949; Thompson, 1958), although his opposition to Johan Hjort’s and Einar Lea’s use of herring scales for the determination of age delayed the use of stock age struc­ture studies as a routine tool (Sætersdal, 2002). How­ever, it was the capability to espouse so readily Petters­son’s vision for international cooperation that can be highlighted as Scotland’s particular contribution to the United Kingdom’s involvement in the establishment of ICES. That stemmed in part from the links established between Pettersson and Murray (and other Edinburgh oceanographers) in the early 1880s when Edinburgh still enjoyed a dominant position in the world of oceanogra­phy following the return of the "Challenger" Expedition in 1876. It also stemmed from the fact that, from the beginning of its research programme, the Board, and workers associated with it, placed a strong emphasis on hydrographic observations, enabling it to respond posi­tively to Pettersson’s request for assistance in 1893. Finally, in Thompson, the Board had a scientific mem­ber who believed passionately in the value of interna­tional cooperation, and who, in 1899, already had for the emerging ICES a vision - apparently not accepted by all - that came close to characterizing its fishery science programme and fishery advisory activities of 100 years later (Griffith, 2002).

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Artur Svansson and Jens Smed for their help in answering my many queries about the early con­tacts between Otto Pettersson and Scottish workers. In particular. 1 thank Artur for sending me details and some copies of the relevant letters in the archives of the University Library, Göteborg. I also thank Charles J. Smith for arranging the copying of the portrait of Robert Irvine and for helping to clarify details of Irvine’s life; Tom Mclnnes and the Fisheries Research Services Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, for preparing and provid­ing the photograph of the "Garland" illustration; the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, for providing the photograph of the plans of the HMS "Jackal" and waiving the reproduction fee; Aberdeen City Libraries: Central Library for providing the photograph of the lab­oratory and hatchery at the Bay of Nigg and likewise waiving the reproduction fee; and Dr William C. Allan for providing the photograph of the crew and scientists on board the "Goldseeker". Finally, I thank my wife Betta for her unfailing support and assistance.

54 James A. Adams

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