Controlling Norwegian natural ice imports into the fishing port of Boulogne-sur-Mer,1870-1910

Boulogne’s natural ice imports

The leading sector in Boulogne’s economy was undoubtedly its fishing industry. Around it, a network of professions and ancillary industries evolved, both at sea and on land. This not only involved the fishermen and shipowners directly engaged in the fisheries, but also the numerous trades connected to the shipbuilding industry and the fitting out of ships, the renowned salted mackerel factories and all those employed in the fish wholesalers’ yards located in or near the port. The Boulonnaise model of fishing was similar to that evident in English ports, with industrial fishing being controlled and organised by a handful of shipowning families, especially after the 1850s. Capitalist entrepreneurship and investment dominated the Boulonaisse fishing system by the late nineteenth century, but traditional small-scale fishing did retain a share. Herring, cod and mackerel were the mainstays of Boulogne’s fisheries, with herring especially important to the fortunes of the port’s fishing industry. It was taken in the Channel and North Sea by Boulonnaise drifters and by trawlers in the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea. By 1921, the value of herring to the port amounted to approximately 50m francs. ¹

The progress and modernization of Boulogne-sur-Mer was promoted by the local Chamber of Commerce, which was one of the most active in the region, and realised quite early the benefits that connecting port activities with railway networks could foster for the fisheries. Towards this end, it funded a series of studies relating to a new railway route that would connect Boulogne-sur-Mer with Paris via Amiens. The new railway line was opened on 17 April 1848 and provided a direct link between Boulogne’s fish market and the capital. Building on the navigational improvements delivered by the inauguration of new piers in 1834, the railway brought new and exciting prospects for the port of Boulogne and its maritime industries. These were enhanced when the railway company, Compagnie du Nord, reduced the tariffs on high-speed transit in 1888 and 1890, with Boulonnaise fishermen reportedly very pleased they could ‘now sell their fish products quickly and profitably’. These effective initiatives facilitated the expansion and consistent growth of the Boulonnaise fishing industry resulting in a record number of 39 fishing companies being founded in the city between 1881 and 1914. ²

As a result, the fisheries of Boulogne-sur-Mer required huge amounts of ice to cover their needs for fish preservation. Being deprived of a hinterland and not having the luxury of a supply of harvested ice brought, for example, from the Alps or the Pyrenees, Boulogne-sur-Mer was largely reliant on Norwegian ice imports. The Rouen-based journal, Le Travailleur Normand, reported in 1907 that: ‘the quantities of ice that are received by the Manche ports are nothing compared to that of Boulogne-sur-Mer, the port that receives the most imported ice in France, 16000 tonnes per year’. ³ The port had already established modest, but regular, trade contacts with Norway. ⁴ The earliest reference to Norwegian ice imported in Boulogne-sur-Mer comes from 1871, when a merchant named M. Caveng imported a cargo of Norwegian ice for diverse uses. The first attempt to import Norwegian ice specifically for use in fish handling and preservation came two years later, when M. Fournie Cherie imported a cargo of 250 tonnes from Norway into Boulogne-sur-Mer. ⁵ Norwegian ice blocks would quickly become a steady feature of Boulonnaise imports, prompted by the large ice demand dictated by the needs of the local fishing industry and the reluctance of local fishermen to use artificial ice, which they considered hazardous when used directly on the fish. ⁶ By 1888, Boulogne-sur-Mer’s ice supplies came almost exclusively from Christiania and other parts of Norway. ⁷ The growing market for Norwegian ice in the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer is revealed in statistics sourced from the local Chamber of Commerce Archives. Imports of Norwegian ice climbed from roughly 182 tonnes in 1876 to 1,946 tonnes in 1887 and 7,029 tonnes in 1896. In the years leading up to the First World War, ice imports commonly exceeded 10,000 tonnes per annum, before sharply contracting to just 380 tonnes in 1915. ⁸

The fisheries absorbed large quantities of the imported ice, but the remarkable increase in the trade was also due to demand for Norwegian ice from the capital. Together with the Normandy ports of Le Havre and Dieppe, Boulogne became one of the main suppliers of Norwegian natural ice to Paris. Being the biggest urban centre, with its numerous businesses and industries sustained by ice products and a constantly increasing demand for domestic ice, Paris had to resort to a number of sources to satisfy its ice needs. Accordingly, it was supplied with locally harvested ice from glaciers in, Bois de Boulogne and Bois de Vincennes and from Lake Sylans close to the the Swiss Border as well as imports from Norwegian and Swiss lakes. However, for practical reasons Paris could not receive Norwegian ice directly. Le Monde Ilustreé provided the explanation: ‘Paris does not admit ships drawing more than three metres. The ice ships of Norway have a water draft greater than that. It is necessary then to resort to the railways.’ ⁹ As a consequence, Paris depended on the ports of Le Havre, Dieppe and Boulogne to supply it with ice, cargoes of which arrived by railway at its central markets. Before the opening up of the new railway route that connected Boulogne-sur-Mer with Paris, the biggest quantities of Norwegian ice for Paris came through Dieppe. But once Boulogne obtained a quicker connection with the capital, the Dieppoise journal, La Vigie de Dieppe, noted: ‘the respectable figure of 20.000 for our port has diminished. There are many reasons for that but firstly the new route followed by a fairly large quantity of ice by Boulogne’. ¹⁰

Norwegian ice and French hygiene regulations

Even though daily ice use was becoming commonplace all over Europe, in parallel with ice’s more extensive industrial applications in the late nineteenth century, ice products did not escape debates centred around their hygienic quality and suitability for direct consumption. This phenomenon was strongly manifested in nineteenth-century France, a melting pot of hygienic ideas and reforms that aimed to reorganise Public Health and Hygiene from its foundations. Ice commerce and its effective regulation for the sake of safeguarding public health was high on the agenda of the Central Hygiene Council as reports linking natural ice consumption and typhoid fever epidemics were flooding into France from the United States, Germany and elsewhere. ¹¹ The Central Health and Hygiene Council appointed a committee assigned to study the issue more thoroughly, led by eminent chemist Dr Alfred Riche. The study was concerned with the ice delivered for consumption in Paris and its suburbs. After collecting and examining under the microscope samples from different ice glaciers, ponds, lakes etc., situated all over the capital, Riche concluded that the majority of these ice collection sites should cease operations because the water that produced ice when it freezes was of bad, or at least suspiciously inferior, quality. Upon completion of the chemical examinations, Riche and the other members of the committee declared ‘that it is a necessary desideratum and urgent, as a minimum of the reform to accomplish, that the ice sold for alimentation is pure and subject to serious inspection’. ¹² To this end, the Committee produced a long report with suggestions for the proper monitoring of the ice put on the market for consumption, the results of which were adapted on 12 May 1893. ¹³ Based on the findings of the report, a six-article Police Order was published on 13 December 1899, constituting the first official decree to place the sale and market of ice to ‘refresh’ the capital under strict sanitary control. ¹⁴

Despite the largely positive results of the 1899 order, when it came to the practical side of ice regulation, the control was far from perfect. ¹⁵ The Director of the Paris Municipal Laboratory reported on the improvements effected since the 1899 decree, but there were still some lacunae in the text that could jeopardise the effectiveness of ice commerce monitoring. It was then decided that for the overseeing of the actual process of ice manufacturing and marketing, it was essential that control be exercised primarily on a local level. Thus, regulation had to be undertaken by local municipal or departmental authorities, under the auspices of the Central Hygiene Council, which identified the relevant regulations with which the local agencies should comply in order to ensure that the ice on the market was fit for consumption.

In a circular addressed to all departments and communes across France, issued by the Ministry of Interior on 20 August 1907, and designed to subject all ices, regardless of their origin and form, to strict sanitary control, it was announced that:

the Artificial ices cannot be fabricated but with water serving the public alimentation. In the case that the industrialists want to use another type of water, they cannot do that but with the authorization of the Mayor and after the opinion of the Sanitary Commission of the Department. ¹⁶

This practically meant that artificial ice-makers were dependent on the local authorities, as well as the Departmental Sanitary Commission, for a seal of approval on their manufacturing procedures. This instruction was rather straightforward and did not leave ground for misunderstandings by the artificial ice factories in the region. The same did not hold true for natural ice offered for consumption in the Pas de Calais Department. The circular explicitly noted that:

The mayors cannot authorize the sale in their communes but for natural ices collected in the lakes or the ponds that the Sanitary Commission has recognized as proper for this use. And further stated that in the case of imported ice this should enter the departments with a certificate of origin. ¹⁷

Ice originating from Norwegian lakes and ponds was thus abruptly thrown out of the market as its exact provenance was often vaguely designated. It was as simple as that: only locally harvested ice that could be placed under the control of local hygiene services would be granted direct licensing and authorization.

Following the Ministry of Interior circular in 1907, all prefects and mayors were called to provide information on the state of alimentary ice and hygiene precautions in their respective prefectures and sub-prefectures. In the Pas de Calais Department, in the small sub-prefecture of Montreuil-sur-Mer, the Mayor’s response was that he did not have any particular observations to make on the matter. He noted, however, that since, in effect, Montreil-sur-Mer was within the jurisdiction of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where large amounts of ice emanated from either an artificial ice factory or from Norway, he was obliged to offer his view. Regarding the part of the circular about the manufacturing of artificial ice he confirmed that fabrication follows all necessary requirements and will continue to do so. Nevertheless, he could not offer any insight on the matter of natural Norwegian ice and referred those entitled to oversee the compliance to the proposed measures to the Mayor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, where Norwegian ice imports were bountiful. He did not fail to note, however, that he found it very odd that the circular prohibited the use of any natural ice that is not collected in local ponds, lakes, etc. and not hygienically approved by the Departmental Sanitary Committee. ¹⁸ What Montreil’s Mayor instantly recognised was that, in essence, there was no strategy in place regarding Norwegian ice imports, whose importance was paramount to the fishing ports of the region, notably Boulogne-sur-Mer.

As soon as the circular was received in the sub prefecture of Boulogne-sur-Mer, the city’s administrative officials decided to take action. The Sub Prefect assigned M. Bruno, Director of the Chemistry Laboratory of the Pas de Calais Department, to prepare a report, presenting his views on the necessity of applying the proposed measures and their consequences to all the interested parties, mainly Boulonnaise industrialists. Bruno appeared aware of the fact that Boulogne-sur-Mer’s primary industry, the fishing industry, could find itself on shaky ground if the proposed measures were adopted. He forecast that the prohibition of all natural ice from abroad would give a definitive advantage to the artificial ice industry, at the expense of the fishing industry. It is not difficult to understand why: the local fishing industry relied heavily on imported Norwegian ice that was sold in Boulogne at a lower price than artificial ice, and if the prohibition was adopted the fishing industry would lose this favourable condition. In addition, he believed that the hygiene pretext of the suggested measures did not justify the prohibition of imported natural ice: ‘this measure, in this particular case, is it necessary for hygienic considerations? We don’t think so.’ ¹⁹

According to him, the criticism about using contaminated ice when handling fish or meat could be easily smoothed over:

The fish that comes into contact with ice, is not eaten raw, it is washed, scraped, cleaned and cooked before being eaten, and I think we could assimilate the ice taken by our fishermen, to the ice to be refreshed that the butchers use in the double walls of their shops, rather than the one that refreshes absinthe in the cafes. ²⁰

As for the request for a certificate of origin, Bruno simply rejected it as being impossible in the case of the ice coming from – often vaguely designated – Norwegian lakes. Furthermore, there was no realistic way the local Sanitary Commission could guarantee the suitability and drinkability of this ice and it would be almost comical to expect it to do so. He concluded that it would be regrettable to prohibit imported natural ice for use in the fishing industries. His suggestion was that an article ‘concerning the ice imported from Norway and destined to facilitate the conservation and transport of fish’ should necessarily be added to the text. ²¹

It appears the issue was left unaddressed for a while, as the time the matter of ice trade regulation arose in the region was in March 1908. After an invitation from the Ministry of Interior, the Prefectures were called again to report on ice trade surveillance in their Departments. Reporting to the Pas de Calais Department’s Salubrity Division, M. Vuaflart, Director of the Agronomic Station in Arras, revived the discussion on the necessity to modify the article that prohibited the sale of any natural ice not locally collected. He reminded the Ministry of Interior that the Port of Boulogne imported considerable amounts of Norwegian ice, the majority of which served the needs of the local fishing industry. In line with Bruno’s viewpoint, he maintained that ‘it is evidently illusive to ask the importers of Norwegian ice for a certificate of provenance and the opinion of the Sanitary Commission for all the ices originating from other Departments’. ²²

Vuaflart further wondered how it was possible to restrict with such force the use of imported natural ice when local natural ice was so scarce, and the artificial ice produced in the region barely covered the needs of the Department. For him, this topic deserved special attention, since it was not solely the fishing industry that would be severely damaged, because any other trader employing ice, from butchers to confectioners, would be equally affected. The solution he suggested was to clearly define the exact use of imported Norwegian ice and apply a strict distinction between alimentary and industrial ices. ²³ This recommendation was saluted as necessary and was reflected in the newly modified decree on the fabrication of alimentary ice, issued by the Prefecture of Pas de Calais. This was published on 1 April 1908, ²⁴ and the section on Norwegian ice read as follows: ‘The sale and marketing of ices (for alimentary uses) that do not comply to the above conditions are prohibited. These ices and notably the ice of Norway cannot serve but for industrial uses, transport and conservation of fish, glaciers etc.’ ²⁵

Bureaucratic foresight and pragmatism

The addendum about Norwegian ice must have been met with relief within the ranks of the local fishing industry. It guaranteed the steady flow of Norwegian natural ice into a region where ice was scarce, to say the least. Moreover, the modified decree offered reassurance to many fishermen and merchants that they would not have to resort to using artificial ice in handling their merchandise. The foresight of two local hygiene officials was responsible for this outcome. In contact with the realities of the fishing trade and knowing what was at stake for the local economy, Bruno’s report and Vuaflart’s proposition took a moderate and pragmatic stance on the matter of imported ice regulation. These two hygiene officials realised that the adoption of the proposed measures would have tremendous repercussions for the Boulonnaise fishing industry. They also recognised the absurdity of the efforts to control and monitor the import of a product shipped from faraway Scandinavian ports. In Boulogne-sur-Mer, Norwegian ice was not merely another ice type on offer. It was essential for the smooth operation of the city’s primary industry, which would have instantly suffered a severe blow had Norwegian ice imports come to a halt.