PROTECTING THE OYSTERS 150 YEARS AGO
By Sybil Brand
Another fragment of local history is brought to light and to life from the pages of an old manuscript book
A Vellum covered book, hand written, which contains the minutes and accounts of an Oyster Fishery Protection Association formed in 1789 has been lent me. Between its covers lie many details of life in our oyster villages, particularly Mersea.
What follows is a brief history of the Association and some sidelights on this part of Essex in the reigns of George III and George IV.
The cost of the book, half a crown, is entered in the accounts. Half a crown seems little enough to us until we remember the purchasing power of money 170 years ago; it was expensive and was made the most of. The Article of Association and subscriptions are entered at one end. Then the book is turned upside down and expenditure entered the other end.
Ambitious start
The Association was formed on September 2, 1789, by eleven oyster merchants from Brightlingsea, 13 from West Mersea, three from Wivenhoe and three from Tollesbury.
The first secretary and treasurer is William Mason of Colchester, Attorney at Law, and all details are set out in a clerkly hand.
The annual general meeting of the Association is to be held at the Three Cups Inn, Colchester, each September. All the members paid half yearly subscriptions at the rate of 2s. in the pound of their annual rents for layings, plus 4s. for each boat; a total of £33.4s. Anyone who apprehends a thief is to get five guineas plus his expenses.
So far, so good.
By February 24, 1790 there was a balance of only 14s. 8d. Eleven members signed their approval of the account to date, but had the remuneration for catching offenders been fixed too high? We shall see.
They now subscribed another £35 8s., but when the annual meeting was held in September, expenditure had risen to £44 7s. The account was in the red.
Some members must have already left the Association without due notice as a double subscription was the penalty and £3 was received in forfeits. Also, a levy at 6d. in the £ was made on the members to balance the accounts.
The page finishes with this ominous entry = "We whose Names are hereunto subscribed and set do allow of these Amounts and the Balance of one pound twelve shillings and eight pence is paid by Mr Mason the Treasurer towards the expenses of this day and it agreed that this Association shall be at an end." ( I should explain the Articles provided for a guinea for expenses at the Annual Meeting and £1 12s. 8d. cleared the account.)
This entry is signed or marked (not all the members could write) by 20 members.
Mersea on its own
What grumblings and undercurrents there were behind this momentous decision we shall never know.
Mr Mason ceases to be secretary and treasurer, the names of Brightlingsea, Wivenhoe and Tollesbury are crossed out in the Articles, the fee for apprehending is reduced from five to three guineas and Mersea starts up on its own.
Bennett Hawes, a trustee of Church lands, Thos. Overall, churchwarden at West Mersea, H.M. Hawes, Wm. Barrett and Chas. Cooke are in office as treasurers during the next 30 years.
The meeting place is now the White Hart, West Mersea, and the accounts are kept in a more rough and ready fashion. Considering the book has plain pages throughout it`s surprising the columns of figures are so even.
The subscriptions very from year to year and even half-yearly. In January, 1807, layings paid 5/- in the £ and boats 10/- each. In June, layings paid 2/6 in the £ and 5/- each boat. Subscriptions were fixed according to expenses incurred as bills for 1811 were roughly twice the amount of those for 1807; there had been much more thieving.
The situation of the various layings will be familiar to Mersea men; Salcott Fleet, Salcott Fleet above Sluice. Tollesbury Fleet, Dyche, and Fleet below Causeway are all mentioned.
Common cause against thieves
At times, merchants from Rowhedge, Brightlingsea, Burnham and Tollesbury did subscribe to the funds. I`ve discovered the reason for this outside support. No less than five men were prosecuted for theft at the end of 1802. No doubt their activities were not confined to Mersea, though the Association was responsible for taking legal action.
This entailed visits to a London Solicitor named Ireland and to Chelmsford Sessions; Mr. Ireland's bill amounted altogether to £52. What with four days hire of a horse and chaise, which cost 8s. per day, for travelling to Chelmsford, and letters at 6d. and 8d. each (this was before the days of the penny post) expenses mounted. Mersea Association, being responsible for the prosecutions, could do with some outside help.
In 1805 the Association again took the initiative.
The accounts show an item:
Expenses, Mersea Company resisting the claim of the Corporation of Ipswich to Harwich Harbour and preventing Dredging there. August 28th. To I. Braisted and Self going to Tollesbury to consult on the Business 6s. 10d. To John Ennew & Son rowing us up, 4s. 0d.
Watch houses
At home, thieves were still busy, and a Watch House was built for the Association by Thos. Worrell at a cost of £20. A new Watch House was built by him in 1810 but it is not clear whether it replaced the previous one or was additional. No mention is made of the situation. Apparently, they were manned by members of the Association at irregular intervals when thieving was widespread.
Then in February 1818 John Hubbard, a member, was appointed watchman at 10s. per week. As early as 1810 members had been watching for 3s. per night. Now they would help the employee in exceptional circumstances.
By 1824 the watchman must be more mobile and a boat, the SARAH, was bought for his use from C. Cooke for £6. His wages were raised to 16s. per week; inflation is no new thing, it seems
The last subscriptions were paid in 1829 and one only in 1830. There are a few short entries on the expenditure side for 1829-1833.
The writing in these is unformed in contrast to the maturer style of earlier entries, so was probably written by a boy in his teens.
Did the Association peter out?
Well-known names
The foregoing is just a brief history of the Association but details of some of the people and places mentioned should bring it more alive to present-day readers.
Of the original subscribers, Tabor and Winterflood of Brightlingsea, Brand and Haward of Mersea, Nicholson of Wivenhoe, and Bowles and Barrington of Tollesbury will be familiar names. Later on when Mersea was on its own, Cooke, Mussett, Sheldrake, Rice and French are in the list.
There was one woman member, Mrs Elizabeth Overall:
May 7th, 1802, Jonathan Cadman having run up Saltcoat Fleet at an improper time of Tide - came ashore at Mrs Elizabeth Overall's Laying, but in consideration of the said Jon. Cadman paying 10s. 6d. for expences and 4s. for an advertisement in the Chelmsford Chronicle acknowledging his fault, no prosecution was instituted against him.
In all probability Mrs Overall was an ancestress of Mrs Mary Overall Smith,
the grandmother of our present Mersea baker.
I make no apology for mentioning my own great grandfather Thomas Brand as I know enough about him to picture him as a person. In 1814, he signs for William Brand, an original member. I assume William was Thomas's father, as William signs no more.
Thomas Brand lived at St. Botolph's Cottages (commonly called Buttles ) at the end of a lane passing Creek Hall. Apprentices from the workhouse, who were properly indentured, worked on his layings. They lived with the family and slept in wooden bunks.
From the silver spoons added to the family collection in 1805 lettered B/TM we can conclude he married Mary Ann, born 1785, in that year. I`m told by experts these spoons lettered with the initial of the husband`s surname above and the two Christian names underneath are now collector`s pieces.
The births of his nine children are meticulously entered in the family Bible. Here's a typical entry:-
"My daughter Mary was born May 16th about eleven o clock in the morning, 1811."
Prison and politeness
Sentences then were severe in contrast to those of our day
Easter Sessions 1811.
Jas. Cook for dredging and carrying away a Quantity of Oysters. The Chairman told the prisoner he was found guilty of Felony which subjected him to Transportation for Seven Years but the Court in Mercy only sentenced him to Twelvemonths Imprisonment and hard Labour in the County Gaol at Chelmsford."
Colchester Castle was used as a prison. In February, 1820, two men were "Committed to Colchester Castle to take their Trial at the Quarter Sessions at Chelmsford."
Does the Bridewell Keeper mentioned in the following extract come from the well-known Bridewell Prison near Blackfriars Bridge which was open until 1864?
"1793 Four men Harwich pleaded Guilty ...
their punishment mitigated South having assisted the Bridewell Keeper in the other prisoners attempting to make their escape ?"
(There's stuff for an adventure story here.)
There was also civility in those less sophisticated times:
1819. Sept. 28. "Hubbard and W. Theobald going out to Watch on the Night before, there being a great many Boats Anchor'd on the Layings in Salcott Fleet - they were all very civil and told W. Theobald if they were doing wrong they would not go again except a Man by the name of Bunn who said he didn't know they could hinder him Anchoring on the layings.
There is one note about "fixing Meets on the Marsh in 1811."
Where was 'The Blue Posts'?
Beer was cheap. The price for a gallon at the Watch House in 1810 was 2s. Of the inns mentioned The White Hart, West Mersea, is well known and the Three Cups Inn, Colchester, is of course the present Cups Hotel.
Twice during 1820 expenses at the Blue Posts are incurred but there is no indication of the locality except that it was not far from Colchester.
While collecting evidence against offenders in the same year members paid a bill at the Queen's Head, Tolleshunt D'Arcy. Some must have stayed at the White Hart, Chelmsford, for several days, probably for the Assizes. There the bill came to £17 15s. 8d.
The names of only two boats are mentioned. The SARAH I had already spoken of. Here is the other.
"1812. March 23. Cash Paid Mr Ste. Overall - expenses taking Jos. Cooke to before the Magistrate for throwing several things of the SWALLOW's Deck and c as per bill £2 9s. 4d.
Article from Essex County Standard 17 April 1964. Transcribed by Joe Vince September 2025.
The Blue Posts"
Letter to Essex County Standard
Sybil Brand's informative article on the Mersea Oyster Fishery mentions the "Blue Posts", a sign not to be found on the Island or in the neighbouring parishes. It was most probably the inn so named in St. Botolph's Street, Colchester, which was closed when Osborne Street was projected in the 1840s.
A house of standing, it was the meeting place of the Harmonic Society, the members of which in August, 1816, played a cricket match on the Ordnance Field, between the Majors and the Minors for "55 guineas and gloves", an old custom. Victory went to the Minors by two runs; and "the day closed, as might be expected, with perfect harmony."
In April, 1822, some 60 members of the Loyal Association of Colchester, partook of an excellent dinner provided by Host Lingwood, in honour of the King's birthday, when "the utmost conviviality prevailed until a late hour." Some years later, in May, 1835, "a numerous and respectable party of about 60 favoured Mr Thomas Court with their company to dinner", on his removing to the house from the White Hart Inn at Witham.
Two years later George Strait from the ancient Angel Inn in High Street took over the house, which was "replete with every convenience for Commercial and other Gentlemen, having well-aired beds, excellent Dining and Sitting Rooms, and Good Stabling.
G.O. Rickword, Colchester
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