TWO pioneering giants of the British trawling industry in the era when Grimsby could rightfully claim to be Europe's largest fishing port have died within a few days of each other.
They are John Ross, former managing director of Ross Trawlers, and the son of Carl Ross, founder of the great Ross Group food and fishing empire. He was aged 75.
The other is John Butt, a former joint managing director of Northern Trawlers, which ran Grimsby's other powerful fishing fleet. He was 87. John Butt went onto become a director of British United Trawlers created in the 1970s when the Northern and Ross fleets merged to face up to the new economic realities facing the industry.
With over 100 ships under his control, JOHN ROSS was in charge of the world largest distant water fishing fleet for over a decade between the 1950s and 1960s.
Through another division, Rossfish, the group also had the country’s largest fish merchanting operation and was the first company to dispense with sending supplies by train, creating instead its own dedicated fleet of refrigerated lorries.
He was educated at Shrewsbury School, where his contemporaries included Michael Heseltine, the former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister, and Richard Ingram and Paul Foot who later founded the satirical magazine Private Eye. He then went to Cambridge University where he read law and economics and later qualified as a chartered accountant.
Returning to Grimsby, his father put him in charge of the Ross fishing fleet which had ships based at ports throughout the UK. John commissioned a number of innovative new stern fishing vessels (quite radical in those days) , such as the Ross Fame and Ross Fortune and the smaller Ross Daring and Ross Delight. He built the Ross Illustrious, one of the first stern freezer trawlers. He also bought the world’s longest sidewinder trawler from a bankrupt Icelandic company and renamed it the Ross Revenge. She later found a new career as the pirate radio station Radio Caroline.
A few years after leaving Ross Group, he moved into the Great Grimsby Coal salt and Tanning Company which provided what its title said – coal, salt , sails and provisions for the fishing fleet.He knew that with the loss of fishing, the company had to change if it was to survive. So he renamed it Cosalt, floated it on the London Stock Exchange and introduced a new business focus like caravans and marine lifesaving equipment.Under his leadership, it won at least two Queens Award for Export Achievement under his chairmanship. His son David, co-founder of the Carphone Warehouse Company, now heads Cosalt.
John, who battled bravely against Parkinson's Disease in later life, was awarded the MBE and made High Steward of Grimsby, a position held by his father.
JOHN BUTT was a member of one of Grimsby's oldest fishing families. The Butts moved to the town in the mid 19th century when it was emerging as a major force in deep sea trawling although their early business dealings were associated with the timber trade. But within a couple of decades they were the owners of more than 100 ships under such illustrious names as the Great Grimsby and East Coast Steam Fishing Company..
With the outbreak of the Second World War the young John Butt joined the RAF and spent four years in Northern Ireland in the marine craft section, servicing Sunderland and Catalina flying boats which were used to hunt German U-boats.
He re-joined the Butt family trawling business after the war which sold out to Associated Fisheries and became part of the Northern fleet. He was in charge of some of the finest fishing vessels ever built. They became regular top earners.
John Butt, who served on a number of fishing related charities, retired in 1978 when the UK caved into demands for a 200 mile fishing limit from countries like Iceland, Norway and Russia.
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