Robb Robinson

Outreach Officer

Robb Robinson was born in Hull. His parents were both from Hessle Road families variously involved in fishing and ‘big boats’ for generations.  He graduated from Hull University with a degree in Economic and Social History and later pursued research for his Ph.D on the English fishing industry. He has worked in the field of British and North Atlantic fisheries history, whaling and also the maritime history of Hull and the Yorkshire coast.

He is currently collaborating with colleagues from various countries on a history of the North Atlantic Fisheries and is Treasurer of the North Atlantic Fisheries History Association. He also has an interest in the Great War at sea from the perspective of the smaller vessels involved and also the island of South Georgia. His teaching interests include Fisheries History, Whaling and the Maritime History of the Yorkshire Coast and the North Sea.

A qualified teacher, he works with local schools, community groups, maritime associations and firms thanks to support from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund, to research and publicise the Maritime History of Hull and District and uses Blaydes House as a central resource in his outreach activities. He is strongly committed to raising awareness of Hull’s long and in many ways unique involvement with the world’s seaways and oceans and to using this success story as a means of widening horizons. He has contributed to a number of TV and radio programmes on various aspects of British maritime and regional history.

His publications include

• Trawling: The Rise and Fall of the British Trawl Fishery (Exeter University Press 1995 hardback, 1998 paperback)
• A History of the Yorkshire Coast Fishing Industry 1780-1914 (Hull University Press 1987)
• Four chapters in England’s Sea Fisheries eds. D.J. Starkey, and others (Chatham Press 2000). This included the introductory chapter entitled The North Atlantic Common Pool.
• ‘War, Public Intervention and Structural Change in the Fishing Industries 1914-1930’, North Sea Society Publication (Esbjerg, 2003)
• The Development of the British North Sea Steam Trawling Fleet’ in North Sea: Resources and Seaway eds. L. Scholl and J. Edwards (1997).
• Viola/Dias: The Working Life and Contexts of the Steam Trawler/Whaler and Sealer in The Mariner's Mirror, August 2003 Robb Robinson and Ian B Hart:
• The Effective Use of Scarce Resources: The British Government and fish, fishermen and fishing boats in Fish, War and Politics eds R.Robinson and D.J. Starkey et al. (Rotterdam 2004)