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My family was one of the Sheringham fishing
families who moved to Whitstable in 1901. My grandfather Robert
William Johnson (known as “Will”) and his wife Ellen Johnson
moved with their three-month old son in January 1901. The baby
grew up to be my uncle, Will Johnson, who was a whelker himself,
and who kept the shop in Cromwell Road. I remember him telling
me that his parents told him that while they were on their way
to Whitstable from Sheringham, they heard the news that Queen
Victoria had died. This would make it January 1901. Shortly
after this, in April, the 1901 census was taken, and on this
they appear as “visitors” staying with a family named Blyth
in Whitstable, a Salvation Army family living at a house named
“Eden Villa”, along with another visitor from Sheringham,
William J. West, whom I understand is the grandfather of Derrick
West.
Other whelk-fishing families who moved to
Whitstable from Sheringham around the same time are said to be
the families by the name of Cox, Green, West, Bishop, and Able.
My grandparents and their family lived
first at 77 Albert Street for a few years, then 108 Sydenham
Street, and then from 1919 they lived at 98 Harbour Place (now
Woodlawn Street), a house which remained owned by our family
until 2004. We have a photo of the family from 1913 – my Dad
is the baby in the picture, together with his big brother Will,
and sisters May (who wrote the poem about the 1953 flood) and
Mary.
The Johnson Family in 1913 - Photo
supplied by Ian Johnson
As John Harman said, they brought with them
from Sheringham a new method of whelking - the whelk pot. They
were hefty pots with an iron frame, baited at the bottom with
useless bits of fish and trimmings left over from fish stocks
after sorting at the large ports, and which the whelkers had
delivered to them especially for the purpose. The net across the
top prevented the whelks getting out again. The method was
well-established in Sheringham.
The following photos and descriptions are
reproduced with kind permission of Norfolk
Museums and Archaeology Service: Cromer Museum....
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Above: |
Whelk
pot made of an iron frame and base wound with a tarred
rope and a canvas strap for a handle; with a neck of
netting. ( |
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Below: |
Whelk
pot of traditional design of a round perforated base and
iron frame, bound with a tarred rope and a net braided
around the opening; with a long loop of rope for
attachment. |
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(Photos
reproduced with permisson of Norfolk
Museums and Archaeology Service: Cromer Museum) |
Apparently, in Whitstable, the usual method
of catching whelks was either dredging for them or catching them
on long lines bunched with crabs.
The photo below was taken around 1900 and
it shows my grandfather’s uncle and cousin, known as Old
“Billy Butcher” Johnson and Young “Billy Butcher”. In
this case, the pots are crab and lobster pots rather than
whelk pots.....
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Old "Billy Butcher"
Johnson with Young Billy Butcher - Photo supplied by Ian Johnson
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The
whelkers’ stores (never known as sheds!) were situated close
by the harbour lighthouse, at the start of Long Beach. There
were two rows of stores, at right-angles to each other. My
sister Jenny did a nice painting of whelk stores around 1965,
and John Harman has kindly let me use a photo of his, which
shows what the interior of a whelk store looked like.
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Above: Painting of
Whitstable whelk sheds in 1965 by Jenny Ashford
(nee Johnson)
Left: Interior of a cockle shed, similar to that
of whelk sheds. This row of stores/sheds was one terrace
of about six stores with a long sloping roof covering
them all from front to back (Photo and description
supplied by John
Harman) |
The ex-Sheringham men: the Wests, Gaskins,
Greens, Bandmaster Cox of the Salvation Army, my grandfather
Johnson, and his younger brother Henry Johnson had their stores
together in the row facing the water's edge, as they carried on
their traditional way of working off the beach – Sheringham
has no harbour. John’s father’s cockle store was also in
this row, at one end. Jenny’s painting shows the other row, up
against the lighthouse, stores which were occupied by the Court
brothers, Fryers, and Camburns.
The whelks, once caught, were boiled in
“whelk coppers”, large tanks by the stores. A measure of
whelks was called a “wash”. We have an order which was sent
by postcard to my grandfather for a wash of whelks.....
The measure of a "wash" was five
gallons of whelks.
At the back of each store was a separate
small store area where they kept the bait of old herring and
fish “bits and pieces”. Also round the back of the stores
was an old copper-lined pit where they would dip their whelk
pots in tar for durability and to prevent rust.
As John Harman said, the Sheringham crabber
boat was usually characterised by its “double end”. A cousin
of my grandfather, Johnny Johnson, was one of the foremost
boatbuilders in Sheringham and, between 1906 and 1949, he built
130 boats, mainly crabbers, in his small workshop. I have
recently made contact for the first time with a distant cousin
of mine who is Johnny Johnson’s grandson, and have learnt a
fair bit more about Sheringham and the Johnson family there from
him.
The photo below provides another view of
the whelk boats in their usual place at the harbour - Dead Man’s
Corner. The date is not known but it must be 1940s
or earlier.
Thanks again to John Harman for his help
and photo of a whelk store.
Ian Johnson
Huddersfield
West Yorkshire
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