W.F. Tidmarsh and the History of Lobster
Canning in Prince Edward Island
Liam Mather, History
Supervised by Prof. Suzanne Morton
Portland Packing Co. Lobster Label
Methodology
This study is a social biography of William Francis Tidmarsh, a
prominent PEI lobster packer. Importantly, I do not present
Tidmarsh as the most decisive force for change in the
industry. Rather, I use his career to examine wider trends in
the commercial development of the Canadian lobster fishery
and the government's failed efforts to protect the stocks
from overfishing. Highlighting one individual in this manner
allows for an investigation of local level developments and
interactions between members of the industry while
avoiding generalizations based on class or occupation.
Sources
Who was William Tidmarsh?
Tidmarsh was the PEI manager of the U.S-based Portland
Packing Company, the largest lobster canning company in the
Maritimes. The growth of the fishery in the 1870s was fuelled
by American companies like Portland, which had developed
the caning process and relocated to Atlantic Canada after
exhausting New England lobster stocks. During his career,
Tidmarsh managed numerous canning factories throughout
the province and employed thousands of fishermen and
factory workers, directed large sums of capital. He entered
the industry in the 1870s and retired in 1935; his career
spanned most of the period when canned lobster was King.
For this study, I consulted the Charlottetown Guardian, PEI's
most popular daily, which was digitally archived by the
Robertson Library at the University of Prince Edward Island.
The Guardian frequently reported on the state of the lobster
fishery, the proceedings of Royal Commissions that
investigated the fishery, meetings of the Charlottetown
Board of Trade, and on Tidmarsh’s business operations. I also
studied the reports of the Royal Commissions themselves,
other government documents, and the secondary literature
on the lobster fishery.
Under the helm of Tidmarsh, the Portland Packing
Company used the truck system to prosper at the
expense of the fishermen he employed. Since fishing was
a seasonal occupation, the majority of fishermen did not
own their gear, and the cannery loaned the supplies to
them on credit. Due to low wages, however, fishermen
often failed to pay back the cannery at the end of the
season and became tied to that merchant in an endless
cycle of indebtedness.
A cannery in Souris, PEI
The Tragedy of the Commons
Lobster Canning
Canned lobster was first marketable form of the Atlantic
Canadian crustacean. In pre-Confederation days of slow
transportation, no artificial refrigeration, and limited curing
technology, there was no method of keeping lobsters alive or
preserving cooked lobster meat for shipment to markets in
America and Europe. The resource generated no economic
value. The introduction of the canning process in the 1870s
solved these problems, causing a commercial boom. From
1869 to 1881, the value of the lobster fishery grew from a
mere $15,275 to $2.9 million in 1881. After the Second
World War, new technology caused the market for canned
lobster to be replaced by live lobsters and the industry
declined.
The Truck System
Lobster factory crew at Annandale Cape
In response to the commercial boom in the 1870s, the
federal government introduced measures to protect the
supply of lobsters, including a size limit, a close season,
and a ban on canning egg-bearing lobsters. However,
these were unsuccessful: in Prince Edward Island, the
total annual catch began to plummet in the mid 1880s
and it did not rebound to the boom levels of the 1870s
until 1983 – a century long slump. Tidmarsh provides a
good case study in why these regulations failed. I found
that the government did not have the resources to
enforce the regulations, and Tidmarsh, along with other
canners, frequently broke the laws at no penalty. It was
not until the 1920s that Tidmarsh began advocating for
better enforcement of the laws in response to
significantly lower annual catches and profits, but
overfishing continued to be rampant.