For several hundred years the Cornish Pilchard Fishing was sustained by one large Italian market. In the early 1800s Pilchards from some locations were even sent to the W. Indies, and in the 1870s they were sold in the fish markets of New York as Sardines. In 1909 the Italian market was hit by a large earthquake in Messina. In Britain there was no taste for Pilchards and even with a fast train service to London the salted pilchards were never popular. In London they were almost unheard of. After hundreds of years the market was changing. There was an intervention by the 1914-1918 Great War which also saw the introduction of more efficient engines for fishing boats.