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Fisherman's Day
"🎶 Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’?
They’re bonnie fish and halesome farin’;
Wha’ll buy my caller herrin’,
New drawn frae the Forth?"
~ Caller Herrin', music by Nathaniel Gow (1763–1831) and words by Carolina Nairne (1766–1845)
Fisherman's Day is celebrated on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, honoring fishing communities and their vital role throughout history. One such community is Newhaven, a maritime village nestled on the shores of the Firth of Forth. Newhaven was especially renowned for its fishwives—formidable women who were central to the local economy and culture. Clad in striking traditional outfits of blue and red stripes, now commemorated in tartan, these women were easily recognizable and widely admired.
Newhaven fishwives were celebrated not only for their beauty and robust stature, but also for their flair, quick wit, and no-nonsense attitudes. While their voices soared in the harmonious choirs of fisherlassies and fisherwives, they were equally known for their sharp tongues and famously salty language—so much so that the Scots phrase "a tongue like a fishwife" was born.
Up until the 1950s, these hardy women would trek into Edinburgh, creels strapped to their backs, calling out “Caller Herring!” or “Caller Ou’!” as they sold their fresh fish door to door. Their cries became part of local soundscape and legend—so much so that in 1798, Nathaniel Gow, a celebrated violinist and bandleader of Edinburgh, wove their street calls and the chimes of St Andrew’s Church into his famous composition, Caller Herrin’. The tune remains one of his most iconic pieces, echoing the legacy of Newhaven’s indomitable fishwives. ❤️ 🤍 💙 🎣 🧺 🐟 🐟 🐟
From the Newhaven Heritage Center:
Charles Reade wrote a novel in 1853 in which he described the typical Newhaven fishwife: ‘On their heads they wear caps of Dutch or Flemish origin with a broad lace border, stiffened and arched over to forehead, about three inches high, leaving the brow and cheeks unencumbered. They have cotton jackets, bright red and yellow, mixed in patterns, confined at the waist by the apron-strings, but bobtailed below the waist; short woollen petticoats, with broad vertical stripes, red and white, most vivid in colour; white worsted stockings, and neat though high-quartered shoes. Under their jackets they wear a thick spotted cotton handkerchief, about one inch of which is visible round the lower part of the throat. Of their petticoats, the outer one is kilted, or gathered up towards the front, and the second, of the same colour, hangs in the usual way. Their short petticoats reveal a neat ankle, and a leg with a noble swell; for Nature, when she is in earnest, builds beauty on the ideas of ancient sculptors and poets, not of modern poetasters, who with their airy-like sylphs and their smoke-like verses fight for want of flesh in women and want of fact in poetry as parallel beauties. These women have a grand corporeal tract; they have never known a corset! so they are straight as javelins; they can lift their hands above their heads — actually! Their supple persons move as Nature intended; every gesture is ease, grace, and freedom.'
The wife of the fisherman was the mainstay of the household. They arose early to harvest mussels to bait the lines. They prepared and sold their husband’s catch on the street corners and around the houses of the Town. They cooked, cleaned, kept the house, and reared the children.
The Newhaven fishwife’s distinctive dress singled her out from fisher folk in other areas. Her brightly coloured but functional dress was specifically adapted to her tasks - short petticoats, knitted stockings, usually black, and neat shoes. The numerous petticoats were secured round her waist by broad bands, and the bulging flannel formed a saddle for the creel, without which it would be equally difficult to balance and to carry. The numerous folds formed a protection both against wet weather and the drip of the creel.
Their brightly coloured dress attracted the attention of many during Victorian times which led to opportunities for some of the more ambitious. They were invited to concerts in many large English towns, and a dozen of them were sent as attendants to the great London Fisheries Exhibition of 1883, when they were hospitably entertained by Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle, and by the Prince and Princess of Wales (afterwards King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) at Marlborough House.
As a result of this visit the fisher girls’ garb as a costume for ladies became fashionable all over the country, silks and finer cloths being substituted for the more common and more durable material.
This unidentified plaid was recorded in the registry without other detail.
For more about Newhaven Fisherwives and Fisher folk, click the painting of The Fisher Lass by John McGhie (1867–1952).