Fishmongers

Fishmongers

Image left: A 16th-century fishmongers stall. Bartolomeo Passarotti.

A fishmonger (fishwife for women practitioners - "wife" in this case meaning of "woman") is someone who sells raw fish and seafood, especially from a shop or stall. Fishmongers can be wholesalers or retailers, and are trained at selecting and purchasing, handling, gutting, boning, filleting, displaying, merchandising and selling their product.

The purpose of this project is to gather together information about fishmongers and connect GENi profiles of those who worked as fishmongers for a living. This is a universal project. Please link profiles to the project, no matter where from or whether of note or not.

See also Fishermen

Billingsgate Market in London is a very famous fish-market which was previously known as Blynesgate and Byllynsgate. Billingsgate was originally a general market for corn, coal, iron, wine, salt, pottery, fish and miscellaneous goods and wasn't associated exclusively with the fish trade until the sixteenth century.

In 1699 an Act of Parliament was passed making it "a free and open market for all sorts of fish whatsoever". The only exception to this was the sale of eels which was restricted to Dutch fishermen whose boats were moored in the Thames. This was because they had helped feed the people of London during the Great Fire.

Until the mid-nineteenth century, fish and seafood were sold from stalls and sheds around the 'hythe' or dock at Billingsgate. As the amount of fish handled increased, a purpose-built market became essential. In 1850 the first Billingsgate Market building was constructed on Lower Thames Street but it proved to be inadequate and was demolished in 1873 to make way for the building which still stands in Lower Thames Street today. This was designed by the City Architect, Sir Horace Jones, and built by John Mowlem. It was opened in 1876 and is now a listed building. In 1982 the Market relocated to Docklands.​​

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