SY Hildegarde and SY Hiawatha

In January 1910, on instruction from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM Treasury passed responsibility for North Sea fishery investigations to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries (later MAFF), who in-turn were required to come to an agreement with the Marine Biological Association (MBA) as to how scientific investigations could continue into the future, in support of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES).[1] On 1 April 1910 staff at the fisheries laboratory in Lowestoft moved to 43 Parliament Street, London, becoming civil servants. The Association closed the Lowestoft fisheries laboratory and sold the RV Huxley. Consequently, from then onwards the now London-based staff were forced to make their research voyages aboard chartered commercial vessels.[1]

During the course of the financial year 1912-13 a grant was made available to allow the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to charter the steam yacht Hildegarde for a series of dedicated studies into the adverse consequences of trawling on herring populations. This was in response to fears raised by parts of the industry at a public meeting held at Great Yarmouth in October 1912.[1] These herring investigations used a variety of different nets including Shrimp trawl, Otter trawl, and herring drift nets. The vessel operated throughout the southern North Sea, but in particular on herring fishing grounds around the Wash and the north Norfolk coast, most notably Saltfleet, Lynn Deep, Lynn Well, Boston Deep, Mablethorpe, Dudsen, and Cromer.[4] A second grant was made available for vessel charter in the following financial year (1913-1914), to allow these studies on the SY Hildegarde to continue.[1]

By 1914 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries also started to make use of the steam yacht Hiawatha (Captain W.H. Stewart).[1] Surveys were made throughout the southern North Sea (as far North as the Northumberland coast, along the Dutch coast and around East Anglia) focused on plankton sampling and demersal fish resources – using a variety of bottom trawl nets.[4] Nearly all of this work came to an abrupt end in August 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War.

Scientist's logbooks from these historical surveys are now held by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) in Lowestoft and datasets have recently been digitized as part of the Trawling through Time initiative.[5]

Additional survey work was carried out by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries on sprat and small herring (whitebait) in 1915 and 1916 aboard the chartered fishing vessel SS Unity (LO 170) although restricted to the East Anglian coast and Thames estuary.[4]

Before the First World War, the SY Hildegarde was renamed as the Managem. On 15 January 1917 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and armed with a 12 pdr naval gun. She served in the ‘special yacht squadron’ as a wireless-equipped armed patrol Group Leader and operated throughout the Mediterranean and Gulf of Suez.[6] Notably she was stationed off Atlit in Israel and used to relay espionage messages from operatives onshore (and briefly used by the Jewish "Nili" espionage group).[7] In April 1917, a new captain, Lieutenant Kane, was appointed to the Managem, while Captain Lewen Weldon represented British intelligence on board. One of Weldon's tasks was to deposit agents and spies on the shores of Palestine and Syria and to transmit telegraphic messages from the ship to British central intelligence in Cairo.[7] Eventually it was decided to withdraw her and to use homing pigeons to convey this information, due to the presence of German submarines in the area. HMS Managem was included on two Admiralty ‘Pink Lists’ (compiled every three to four days to show the stations and movements of ships) from 30 June 1918 and 11 November 1918. The vessel is recorded as being one of several ‘Auxiliary Patrol Yachts’ located in Egypt and the Red Sea.[8]