Publications | Down Survey | 2002 Issue Contents

Joseph Fisher and Sons, coal merchants and agents, Newry
Noreen Cunningham

Joseph Fisher and Sons Ltd Newry was one of the better-known minor cargo lines trading in coal across the Irish Sea during the last decade of the nineteenth and throughout the first half of the twentieth century. This article describes archival material relating to Fishers that was salvaged by Newry & Mourne Museum shortly before the Albert Basin office was demolished prior to the building of Quays Shopping Centre.

Memorandum concerning the SS Seapoint, 14th November 1905 (Courtesy of Newry and Mourne Museum) Click here to read

Newry has had a tidal harbour on the Newry River since medieval times. The earliest known map of Newry dating to 1568 shows a boat on the river, with an accompanying annotation: 'Into thys place maye come a barke or a Goye off tenne or twelve tonne at a spring tyde'. In the eighteenth century Newry was the premier trading port in Ulster surpassing Belfast and Derry with trading links to the West Indies, Newfoundland and Riga. The maritime importance of the town was enhanced by the completion of the Newry Canal
in 1742, famous for being the first summit-level canal in the British Isles and predating two other famous British canals, the Sankey Navigation and the Bridgewater Canal. Like these later canals, the Newry Canal was also built primarily to transport coal, in this instance providing Dublin with a home-produced source of coal and reducing reliance on coal imported from mainland Britain. The coal was mined near Coalisland in Co Tyrone and transported across Lough Neagh to Portadown, then via the canal to Newry and by sea to Dublin. The Tyrone Coalfields, after an initial stage of high productivity did not merit expectations, though the canal remained an important transport artery from the eastern seaboard into mid Ulster until the arrival of the railways.

Letter concerning the steamer SS Ulidia, 14th November 1905 (Courtesy of Newry and Mourne Museum) Click here to read.

The Ship Canal opened in 1767, provided Newry with an improved navigation channel to Carlingford Lough. Silting of the Newry River had always been a major problem for maritime traffic, and it was hoped that the ship canal would be a permanent solution to this problem. Initial hopes were soon dashed when silting reduced the draft from ten feet to five feet. Despite dredging of the canal, the only real improvement came with the building of a new ship canal between 1842 and 1850. The new sea lock, the Victoria Lock completed in April 1850, could accommodate quite large coastal vessels of 700 tons gross tonnage , having dimensions of 220 feet by 50 feet and a depth of 17 feet 9 inches. The building of the Albert Basin, also completed in 1850, improved the port facilities in Newry, by accommodating ships of over 500 tons. It was here at the Albert Basin that Joseph Fisher was to build and expand his ship owning and coal merchant business.

Letter concerning the steamer SS Ulidia, 18th November 1905 (Courtesy of Newry and Mourne Museum) Click here to read.

Joseph Fisher was born near Kilkeel in 1836 into a farming background. In 1852 he started his own ship broking business, and in 1867 he invested in ship owning when he purchased shares in three locally owned sailing ships. Shipping has always been a conservative occupation especially in the Irish Sea, but Joseph Fisher was soon to show his mettle by investing in steam, purchasing the Kilkeel in 1892. In comparison with sailing ships, steamships were more expensive to run and additional finance was required. Setting up of companies with shareholders was the usual method of financing such operations, and the Newry Steamship Company Ltd was soon established. After a number of setbacks, the most severe being the loss of the Clanrye, the company was reconstituted in 1886 as the Newry and Kilkeel Steamship Company Ltd. The company was in operation until 1958 when it went into voluntary liquidation. Other companies managed by Joseph Fisher were the Frontier Town Steamship Company, the Mercantile Steamship Company of Ulster Ltd, and the Carlingford Steamship Company.

The minute books and various correspondences of the companies are located in the Public Records Office Northern Ireland (PRONI), but a small amount of archival material relating to Fishers was salvaged by the museum in the late 1990s. Material relating to the Antrim Iron
Ore Company was also salvaged, but in accordance with John Fisher's wishes this was deposited in PRONI. These records consist of a small amount of correspondence mostly dealing with shares and shareholders dating from the 1920s and 1930s, and a shareholders' ledger from 1879-89.

The Fisher material rescued includes two bundles of correspondence for the years 1905 and 1906 and gives an interesting insight into trade and commerce in the early twentieth century, at a time when Fishers were consolidating and expanding their coal importing business. Other items include a laundry book for the MV Walnut dating from 1967, correspondence relating to the grounding of the Walnut in December 1968 and invoices for subsequent repairs; a paper wallet containing insurance and entry certificates for the MV Olive, and weekly pay sheets, bills, receipts, and dock duties relating to the SS Broom in the period August to December 1942.

The correspondence for the years 1905 and 1906 is quite eclectic but deals nearly exclusively with the coal trade; the arrival and departure of Fisher vessels from ports ranging from Bangor, Cardiff and Liverpool; letters to coal merchants in North Wales, and orders for coal from businesses throughout Ulster and beyond, ranging from Caledon Woollen mills, Grocers in Ballinagh and Monaghan and a saw mill in Larbet, Stirlingshire. This material vividly demonstrates the importance of coal importation in the coastal shipping of the Irish Sea.

Although the Fisher correspondence is not extensive, it is of interest in that it illustrates the day-to-day running of a coal-carrying agent and how business with clients was carried out in the early years of the twentieth century.

The correspondence details the voyages of a number of the vessels owned by the companies managed by Fishers. The minute books of three of the companies were compared with the correspondence. For the Frontier Town Steamship Company, 1905 had ended on a sad note with the loss of the Clonallon on the 8-lOth December with all hands whilst on a voyage from Swansea to Dublin. In 1906 the annual report mentions a new steamer being built and the Frontier Town having been sold at a very satisfactory price. For the Newry and Kilkeel Steamship Company the annual report described 1905 as ending in better prospect, and recommending the directors to purchase a new steamer and sell the oldest steamer the John Fisher. In the following year it was reported that a new steamer the Oak had been delivered and the shareholders were asked to sanction borrowing a portion of the purchase price from the bank.

The Mercantile Steamship Company operated only one vessel, the Ulidia, and there are regular dispatches in the Fisher correspondence from places as far apart as Cardiff and Constantinople. There is also a letter expressing a view to purchasing the Ulidia dated November 14th 1905, but she was not sold until over a decade later and the company wound up.

The correspondence for 1905 and 1906 was computerised using Microsoft Excel and the data illustrated by a line graph. Two things come immediately to notice, that peaks of activity were in the spring, the traditional period for the coal trade, and that 1906 was a busier year than the previous one. As the material only relates to two years, it would be wrong to read too much into the data. However, analysis of the company minute books revealed that these were important development years for Fishers, when much of the base for their later success was established.

Noreen Cunningham is Curator of Newry and Mourne Museum.

I would like to thank Sean Patterson for helping with the collection of the Fisher material and for information he supplied.