Eyemouth Disaster memorial at the village of Cove by sculptor Jill Wilson, showing families awaiting the return of their loved ones
On 14 October 1881 Scotland witnessed Britain’s worst ever fishing disaster; a disaster that could have been avoided and a tragic event that was decades in the making. On that bright, sunny, almost windless morning, most of the fishing boats on Scotland’s North Sea coast had tied up at port. A storm was brewing – not just any storm, but a European cyclone with hurricane-force winds. The Eyemouth skippers, however, along with a number of fishermen from nearby ports, ignored the weather warnings and set out at the crack of dawn. By midday they were in the teeth of a severe storm for which their wooden boats were no match.
By the time the storm abated, 26 of Eyemouth’s 46 fishing boats were lost, along with 189 fishermen, 129 of them the town’s menfolk.