Merchant Shipping (Fishing Boats) Act 1883
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1883 c. 41 |
| Year | 1883 |
Merchant Shipping (Fishing Boats) Act, 1883
(46 & 47 Vict.) CHAPTER 41.
An Act to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1854 to 1880, with respect to fishing vessels and apprenticeship to the sea fishing service and otherwise.
[25th August 1883]
W HEREAS the enactments of the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1854 to 1880, with respect to fishing vessels, require amendment, and it is desirable to make further provision for the encouragement and regulation of the fishing trade:
And whereas it is expedient to amend the Acts relating to merchant shipping in certain particulars:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1 Title and construction of the Act.
1. This Act may be cited as theMerchant Shipping (Fishing Boats) Act, 1883.
This Act and the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1854 to 1880, the Merchant Shipping (Colonial) Act, 1869, and the Merchant Shipping (Colonial Inquiries) Act, 1882, may be cited collectively as the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1854 to 1883, and shall be construed as though they formed one Act. This Act shall not apply to Scotland.
2 Division of Act into parts.
2. This Act shall be divided into two parts, the first part relating to fishing boats and the sea fishing service, and the second part to miscellaneous matters.
Part I.
Fishing Boats and the Sea Fishing Service.
3 Application of the first part of this Act, and definitions.
3. Such portions of the first part of this Act as in any way relate to indentures of apprenticeship to the sea fishing service or agreements with boys under sixteen years of age with respect to such service shall apply to all fishing vessels of twenty-five tons register tonnage and upwards; and such portions of the first part of this Act as in any way relate to discipline, or the settlement of disputes between a skipper or owner and a seaman, or to deaths, injuries, punishments, ill-treatment, and casualties, and section twenty-five shall apply to all fishing boats and to the whole fishing service. The remainder of the first part of the Act shall apply to trawlers of twenty-five tons register tonnage and upwards only, and to no other fishing boats.
The Board of Trade, by order under the hand of the President of the Board of Trade, to be published in the ‘London Gazette,’ may exempt any class of such trawler or trawlers belonging to any port from the whole or any portion of the said part of this Act from the date in such order mentioned, and may in like manner extend all or any of the provisions of the said part of this Act to any fishing boats in such order referred to, and may in like manner from time to time revoke, alter, or amend any order made by the Board as aforesaid. The Board of Trade may, before making any order under this section, institute such inquiry as in their opinion may be required for the purpose of enabling them to make such order by such person or persons as the President may appoint for the purpose, and the person or persons so appointed shall have power to take evidence on oath or otherwise, and shall have all the powers of an inspector appointed under the First Part of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1854.
In this Act ‘fishing boat’ means a vessel for the time being employed in the sea fishing service, but shall not include a boat used by its navigators for catching fish otherwise than for profit. The onus of establishing any exemption or exception under or in the said part of this Act shall be upon the person or persons claiming or asserting such exemption. The ‘second hand’ of a fishing boat in this Act means the mate or person next to the skipper in authority or command on board of her.
The registered tonnage of a fishing boat registered under the Merchant Shipping Acts, 1854 to 1883, and in the case of an unregistered fishing boat a certificate stating her register tonnage (ascertained according to the methods sanctioned by the said Acts for the ascertainment of a ship's register tonnage) and purporting to be given under the hand of a Board of Trade surveyor, shall be conclusive of the tonnage of such boat.
Apprenticeship to the Sea Fishing Service and Agreements with Boys under Sixteen with respect to such Service.
4 Apprenticeship indentures and agreements with boysunder 16 how to be entered into.
4. All indentures of apprenticeship to the sea fishing service, and all agreements with boys under sixteen years of age with respect to such service, shall be entered into before a superintendent of a mercantile marine office, who, before allowing the same to be completed, shall satisfy himself that the indenture or agreement complies with all the requirements of this Act, and that the master to whom the boy is to be bound is a fit person for the purpose, and that the boy is not under thirteen years of age, and is of sufficient health and strength, and that the nearest relations of the boy or his guardian or guardians assent to the boy's being apprenticed (in the case where the boy is apprenticed), and to the stipulations in the indenture or agreement, and shall make and sign an endorsement that he is so satisfied on the indenture or agreement. Where the nearest relations or guardian or guardians cannot readily be found, or are not known, or if there are none, the superintendent shall act as guardian for the occasion and state in the said endorsement that he has so acted. The said endorsement shall be evidence of the facts therein stated, and the superintendent's signature or appointment as superintendent shall not require proof. All such indentures or agreements shall be in triplicate, one to be kept by the master, one by the boy, and one by the superintendent.
5 Indentures of apprenticeship and agreements to containprovisions set forth in second schedule, otherwise to be void.
5. All such indentures of apprenticeship or agreement as are in section four referred to shall be in the forms in the second schedule to this Act set forth, and shall contain all the covenants, provisions, stipulations, and certificates set forth in the said forms in the second schedule, and also the endorsements on the forms in the said schedule, and the directions therein shall be complied with.
Her Majesty may from time to time, on the recommendation of the Board of Trade, by Order in Council annul, modify, or alter any of the said covenants, provisions, stipulations, or certificates, or make new covenants, provisions, stipulations, or certificates in addition thereto, or in substitution therefor, and any alterations or modifications in or additions to or substitutions for such covenants, provisions, stipulations, or certificates made in manner aforesaid shall be of the same force as the covenants, provisions, stipulations, and certificates in the said schedule.
6 Limits of age for lads employed in sea fishing.
6. No boy under the age of thirteen years shall enter into any indenture of apprenticeship to the sea fishing service, or agreement with respect to such service. Every indenture or agreement entered into contrary to this section shall be void.
7 Penalty on persons receiving money for binding apprentice.
7. Every person who receives any money or valuable consideration from the person to whom a boy is bound apprentice to the sea fishing service, or to whom a boy under sixteen years of age is bound by any agreement with respect to the sea fishing service, or from anyone on his behalf, or from the boy or anyone on his behalf, in consideration of the boy being so bound, and every person who makes or causes to be made any such payment shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, whether such boy was or was not validly bound apprentice or was or was not validly bound by such agreement.
8 Indentures and agreements with boys to be void if notentered into before a superintendent of mercantile marine.
8. Every such indenture of apprenticeship or agreement as aforesaid with respect to the sea fishing service not complying with the provisions of this Act or not entered into before a superintendent of a mercantile marine office and endorsed by him as aforesaid, or otherwise not made as by this Act required, shall be void, and the person to whom such indenture or a agreement purported to bind the boy shall, if he takes or causes the boy to be taken to sea, be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds. Every person who takes or causes to be taken to sea for the purpose of serving in some capacity connected with the sea fishing service a boy not bound by an indenture or agreement as aforesaid, or purporting to be bound by an indenture or agreement which is void under this Act, shall, for every such offence, incur a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds. Nothing in this Act shall prevent the daily employment in a fishing boat of any boy under sixteen years of age, who is under no obligation to remain in such employment for a longer period than one day, and with whom no written agreement has been made.
9 Penalty for taking boy to sea under void indenture oragreement, and powers of superintendent in such...
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