ship n Cp OED ~ sb1 1 (1622-) for sense 1; for combs. in sense 2: DC ~ fishery (1963), ~ room (1829-). See also FISHING SHIP; cp BOAT.
1 A vessel engaged in the English migratory fishery in Newfoundland, esp in the carrying of men and supplies for the season's enterprise and their shipment home with the catch; freq in place-names deriving from customary rights and practices of the migratory fishermen.
[1583] 1940 Gilbert's Voyages & Enterprises ii, 400 [Hayes' narrative] [As] they tooke their cocke boate to go aboord their own ship, it was overwhelmed in the sea... What became afterward of the poore Newlander, perhaps destitute of sayles and furniture sufficient to carry them home ... God alone knoweth. 1613 Willoughby Papers 17a, 1/2 Here is a good beach and the fishing neare, to be assured of a good place to fish and a beach, boats and stage may be worth more than one or two hundreth pounds yearely for a shipp. [1663] 1963 YONGE 58 The men in these voyages have no wages but are paid after this manner: The owners have two thirds and the men one third; this one third is divided into so many shares as there are men in the ship. [1705] 1895 PROWSE 251 Quantity of fish made by ships 18,000 qtls. [1794] 1968 THOMAS 174 I have heard of a Dog who was absent from a Ship on the Grand Bank for Two days, on the Third he return'd with a Hegdown in his mouth. [1811] 1965 Am Speech xl, 169 Precaution against the dreadful event of a fire in this Town requires that a facility of access to the Ships Coves should be preserved in the utmost possible degree. This is to give notice that all obstructions are expected to be removed. 1951 Nfld & Lab Pilot i, 109 Ship harbour is entered between Isaac point and Ship Harbour point. 1979 TIZZARD 323 One winter when I was very young some fishermen were going to the ships' run, the waters between New World Island and Black Island, to fish for turbot.
2 Comb ship fisherman: English fisherman engaged for a specified period in the migratory fishery in Newfoundland; cp SERVANT1, SHAREMAN, WEST-COUNTRY(MAN).
[1674] 1895 PROWSE 191 [They argued that] the Trade could not support the charge of forts and a Governor; and that in winter the colony was defended by ice and in summer by the ship fishermen. 1895 ibid 275 In 1711 and 1712 the common danger had united the ship fishermen and the planters in arrangements for orderly government.
ship fishery: English migratory fishery in Newfoundland.
[1764] 1969 Can Hist Rev l, 152 The ship fishery is in a manner dropped or excluded, the country crowded with poor, idle, and the most disorderly people, who are neither good fishermen nor seamen. [1824] 1954 INNIS 320 Thus the ship fishery has diminished to little more than a name, the result of the two systems being last year the production of 750,000 quintals from the boat or island fishery while that of the ships made only 34,000 quintals. 1870 Stewart's Qtly iv, 137 But its main object was to perpetuate the old system of a ship-fishery from England, as a means of strengthening the navy of the kingdom.
ship(s) room: tract or parcel of land on the water-front of a cove or harbour from which English migratory fishermen conducted the cod-fishery; structures erected in such a place; ADMIRAL'S ROOM, FISHING ~ , ROOM.
[1693] 1793 REEVES ii [They shall have] liberty to go on shore on any part of Newfoundland, or any of the said islands, for the curing, salting, drying, and husbanding of their fish, and for making of oil, and to cut down wood and trees there for building and making or repairing of stages, ship-rooms. [1726] 1976 HEAD 73 The Ships that come here to fish upon the Banks, generally leave England in ffeb. & are in the Country some time in March, the first thing they doe is to Land their Stores, & make choice of a Stage & Flakes belonging to it, what they call a Ships Room. [1765] 1973 Can Hist Rev liv, 267 There are, or might be made, twenty convenient ship's rooms, and above that number of ships have been known fishing there in one summer. [1820] 1895 PROWSE 409 ... extending from the house and stores occupied ... at the East end [of Water Street, St John's] to the public Ships Room, commonly called the Western Ships Room. at the West end thereof. [1839] 1916 Nfld Law Reports 20 Thus all those parts of the country which had at any time been used as 'Ships-rooms' since the year 1685, were for ever appropriated to the use of the fishing-ships; but a permission to occupy and possess all the sea-coast, not included in any of these ships-rooms, was distinctly conceded to the resident inhabitants.
