Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

A Scottish silver cast pepper modelled as a Newhaven fishwife in traditional striped working dress and cap, her arms folded, the figure raised on screw off circular base, by William Hamilton & Son, Edinburgh 1926, height 8.8cm. £300-£400

The Newhaven Fishwives were photographed by David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson between 1843-47, as part of a series of photographs documenting the life and work of the fishermen and women of Newhaven, an independent fishing village to the north of Edinburgh. Because their early paper-negative process (calotype) could not record the fishermen at sea, Hill and Adamson focused instead on Newhaven’s fishwives. Whilst the men went out to sea, the women did most of the land work, such as gutting and preparing the fish and they would walk the hilly two miles from Newhaven to the centre of Edinburgh carrying willow baskets filled with freshly caught fish. They were known for their distinctive traditional costumes of brightly coloured striped working dresses, woollen aprons and white caps and their robust natural beauty. They were admired for their strong and heroic character and were renowned for their sharp tongues which gave rise to the Scott’s expression “a tongue like a fishwife”.

Image Caption: A calotype of the Newhaven Fishwives by Hill and Adamson, 1843-1847.