Fonds GB 0210 WESTFISH - Western Sea Fisheries Records,

Western Sea Fisheries Committee was established by Act of Parliament in 1888 as one of twelve government District Committees responsible for regulating fishing off the Welsh and English coasts. Four of these covered the coast of Wales, namely the Western, Glamorgan, Milford Haven, and Lancashire Committees. The Western and Lancashire Committees were amalgamated in 1897 to form the Lancashire and Western Sea Fisheries Committee, responsible for some 2,000 square nautical miles of coastal waters from Cemaes Head, Pembrokeshire, to Haverigg Point, Cumbria. The body is now (April 2003) known as the North Western and North Wales Sea Fisheries Committee. The Committee is funded by local authorities, and consists of local government officers and government-appointed representatives of fishing, scientific and environmental authorities. It is responsible for protecting the interests of fishermen and the coastal sea fishery, by enforcing the law relating to the mesh of nets and fish sizes; it also undertakes scientific work. Its main functions are executed by the granting of Fishery Orders, and the work of Fishery Officers and Fishery Patrols. Until 1943, the Superintendent of the Committee was Dr James Travis Jenkins, of Preston, Lancashire, an authority on fishery management and otoliths, who had appeared as an expert witness in the Sardine Case of 1912.