Mevagissey from Fishing to Tourism

From the collection of

The Box
Established in 1992, the South West Film & Television Archive collection spans from 1893 to the present day containing more than 250,000 items. Formed from a variety of depositors, including broadcast news and programmes material from the Westward and TSW archive. In 2018 the archive collection transferred to The Box in Plymouth.

Mevagissey from Fishing to Tourism


Locals explain the trend of moving into tourism away from a life in the traditional fishing industry.

A reporter interviews a fisherman, Mr Robin on the decline in the local fishing industry in Mevagissey in Cornwall. Martin Chesterfield operates a traditional Cornish lugger, a type of small sailing boat now converted to running on diesel so-named because of its lugsail although the word 'lug' may also have come from an old Dutch dialect meaning to trawl. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Cornwall had a thriving fisheries industry.

Mr and Mrs Lakeman have ended a family fishing tradition and moved into tourism by buying a Bed and Breakfast. Maritime tourism took over where fishing communities could no longer wholly depend on fishing as a source of income. In the sixties more young people went on to higher education instead of staying in traditional industries. Countries used customary international law to protect their coastal waters but in 1945 US President Harry Truman extended US control to its continental shelf and the old 3-mile limit or the so-called cannon ball rule was shot out of the water. Sovereignty was extended to 12 nautical miles and eventually enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).


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