The Great Depression and the Fishing Community of Island Bay

The hardships and challenges of the small fishing community of Island Bay mirrored those of millions of people throughout the world, well described by historian Kevin Boon:

“The depression bit deeply into community life, punishing people in debt, and those at the bottom or on the margins of society who lacked a male breadwinner. In many ways women bore the brunt of hardship.” They were not entitled to relief payments, and family allowances, widows and old age pensions were cut. A strong work ethic offered no escape from worry and frustration. Award wages and public service wages were reduced by 10 percent in 1931. It has been estimated that nearly 30 per cent of the workforce were not formally employed by 1933, and up to 40 per cent of the male workforce were unemployed in the worst of the crisis. Mass unemployment overwhelmed charities and charitable aid boards, etching images of the soup kitchen in popular memory”.

Paul Elenio has reported on the arrival of the Great Depression and its effect on the Island Bay fishing industry in his history of Italian migration in the Wellington region:

In 1929 word spread that Picton-based fishing boats had found new banks of groper off Mana Island but kept the exact location a secret. But a furtive operation by one of the Island Bay boats which crossed the Strait at night, hid along the coastline and then watched where the Picton boats put down the lines resulted in the Bay boats finding the great new source of fish. But when the huge catches were trucked into town prices fell dramatically. The Great Depression had arrived sucking enormous amounts of spending power, and coupled with the huge quantities of fish - one launch brought in 500 in one day – this drove the price down. Warehou was being sold in bundles of 10 for next to nothing. Groper from the new banks were fetching just sixpence. From earning a reasonable living the fishermen suddenly found it hard to make ends meet, to earn sufficient to buy fuel for their boats and to pay the groceries and mortgages. Distressed at their uncertain future and believing they were being taken advantage of by the wholesalers, the Eastbourne and Island Bay fishermen decided to take matters into their own hands. Skippers and crew of 28 boats had a meeting and decided to form a co-operative. They found a strong and able leader for the grouping in Scotsman Alec Wilson who was made president of the co-op. He took the responsibility of finding a depot to be used as the co-operative’s fish market. He approached the Wellington City Council which offered the old municipal milk department station in Dixon Street which was empty at the time. ... A manager and staff were employed, scales and trucks bought. The fishermen agreed to take just 25 shillings income a week each in order to get the co-operative established financially. It didn’t matter if one boat brought more fish than another, the arrangement was the same for all. 

The caring generosity of the local Italian grocer, Mr Bamao, whose fruit and grocery shop was at the bottom of Brighton Street played an important part in helping the Wilson family survive the depression. He let them run up a bill for several years,saying that Elsie Ann was to get whatever she needed from his shop and to pay when they were able. Although she only bought the necessities, it was not until after the Depression when Nicholas left the fishing and obtained other work that the debt was finally paid.

Lots of people came to the door during those depression years. A man and a boy, their clothes in tatters appeared at the Wilson house, and Elsie Ann gave them soup. They were outside eating it when a policeman came by, tipped out the soup and told them to go away, telling Elsie Ann that she shouldn’t be feeding them; however she managed to tell them to come back later. Not all visitors had good intentions however, and a couple of times when Nicholas was away, fishing out of Paremata, attempts were made to break into the house in Brighton Street. On one occasion Elsie Ann discovered a hand reaching through the fanlight in her daughter’s bedroom. She slammed the window shut and called out to a neighbour for help. Another night when Elsie Ann and the children were all in the main bedroom, which had a bolt on the door, they could hear someone trying to prise the lock from the front door. Alerted by a whistle, a trusted neighbour came to the family’s aid armed with a poker.

The Government slashed expenditure, particularly in education and health, and during the depression kindergartens, school dental clinics, and teachers’ colleges were closed. In hospitals nurses’ wages were reduced and staff numbers cut. In 1933 the age at which children could begin school was increased to six. So Nicholas and Elsie Ann’s youngest child started at Island Bay School when he was six years old in early 1933. He remembers his mother making extra porridge in the morning, and when he and his brother and sister came home at lunchtime, the porridge, baked under the grill, was eaten for lunch. Often he had a plate of mashed tatties and a cup of milk. Their diet was mostly fish, tatties and milk at that time. At Island Bay School in 1935, 70 children were reported to be suffering from malnutrition and 24 were ill-clothed.

The Government had a policy of “no pay without work”. Much of the work was digging and manual labour. One of the local relief work projects which men were engaged on was at the top of the hill on the Houghton Bay Road, where a number of men were employed in reducing the grade and making the road safer for motoring traffic. Another project eventuated in 1933 when the Unemployment Board and the City Council engineers asked the Sisters at the Home of Compassion if they had any work that unemployed men could do on the grounds. The work of levelling the hill intended as a site for the future nursery was suggested, and the work began soon afterwards. The relief workers made a tribute to the Sisters in the Evening Post 18 May 1936, saying that since their work began many of them had been helped on a personal level by the Sisters. They had visited the wives of the men, provided parcels of clothing, and whenever any of the men had been beset with any particularly distressing circumstances the Sisters had always given help.

Many people lost their life’s savings; others had to leave their businesses or homes because they could not afford to pay the interest on their mortgages. The suicide rate increased, while the birth rate decreased. By the mid-1930s New Zealand had begun to climb out of the depression. However it had made a deep impact on the people who lived through it and the lives of many had been permanently scarred by their experiences and the effect of the Great Depression.