Enkhuizen has been a major harbour since the middle ages, and its links with herring fishing are still recognised today with three herring on the town banner. In this extract about the fishermen and farmers of Enkhuizen we include some video footage from the Pathé archive of the Dutch herrring fleet in 1947. Receiving its city rights in the 14th century and having its own Dutch East India Company chamber or VOC (the Dutch, ‘Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie’, means ‘United East India Company’, hence, VOC).
One of the things setting Enkhuizen apart is the ‘farmers quarter’ towards the northern edge of the town where the old big farmhouses with original stables remain standing. The hinterland was a peat area, with lots of waterways and ditches. So many farmers lived next to the fishery, who every morning and every evening rowed out to the fields passing the town wall through gates, to get to the meadows, milk the cows and return with their milk kettles. Today Enkhuizen is probably even more important then Hoorn as a ‘nautical centre’.
In this archive footage, we see a view of the fishing trawlers alongside the quay, with supplies going aboard the ships, including storage ice. The herring fishermen are preparing for an eight week trip to the North Sea. There’s shots of Dutch women in traditional costume repairing nets and the crowded fishing harbour with trawlers ready to leave. Fishermen bade farewells to their families with close-up shots of fishermen, women and children. We see the ships going out to sea and the silver bodies of fish as the fishermen pull the nets.
Created at the beginning of the 20th Century by the Pathé brothers, the newsreel was the world’s first televised news platform. Pioneering the technology and methods of cinema, British Pathé stayed at the forefront of filmed news for decades. Releasing three newsreels a week during that period, British Pathé was the way the people of Britain experienced world events until the advent of television.