South Wales Sea Fisheries Committee

The collection includes agendas, minutes and reports of the General Committee, which held four ordinary meetings each year; of its standing sub-committees, viz. the Boat, Cockle, Executive, Finance, General Purposes, Oyster, and Pollution Prevention Committees; and of the annual meetings of the Association of Sea Fisheries Committees and of Sea Fisheries Authorities.

The local sea fisheries committees of England and Wales were set up under the Sea Fisheries Regulation Act, 1888, to regulate the sea fisheries inside territorial waters. Each local committee consisted of persons appointed by its constituent local authorities together with an equal number of members appointed to represent the fishing interests. By the 1950s there were eleven local committees, covering between them the entire coastline of England and Wales.

The South Wales Sea Fisheries District Committee was created in 1912. Prior to that year there were two sea fisheries committees in South Wales, the Glamorgan Sea Fisheries District Committee, set up in 1890 and responsible for the area from Nash Point (Porthcawl) to Worms Head (Gower), and the Milford Haven Sea Fisheries Committee, set up in 1892 and responsible for the area from Worms Head to Cemans Head (Cardigan). There was no sea fisheries district for the Bristol Channel east of Nash Point. However, the Order combining the two district committees into a single committee made the new committee responsible for an area which extended from Cardiff to Cardigan. The local authorities represented on the South Wales Sea Fisheries District Committee were the counties of Carmarthen, Glamorgan and Pembroke and the county boroughs of Cardiff and Swansea.

Local committees were empowered to make bye-laws restricting the activities of the fishing industry, controlling the shellfish industry, and regulating the discharge into the sea of solid or liquid substances likely to be detrimental to fish or fishing. They were also authorised to enforce various Acts and Orders which had relevance to the welfare of fish and of the fishing industry. The income of local committees was a charge on the rates of their constituent authorities.

Of particular interest among the papers of the South Wales Sea Fisheries District Committee are various reports relating to the cockle industry of the Loughor estuary, to oyster culture, to the effect on the South Wales fishing industry of the military firing ranges in the locality, and to the problems posed by oil pollution and the discharge of sewage and industrial waste into the sea along the South Wales coastline.

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A hard copy is available at the West Glamorgan Archive Service

Usual copyright regulations apply.

All records received by the West Glamorgan Archive Service have been retained

Accruals are not expected.