Fishermen's Protective Union

The FPU was founded on 3 November 1908 by William Coaker and nineteen men following a speech by him at the Orange Hall in Herring Neck[1] as a cooperative movement for fishermen on the northeast coast of Newfoundland.

[1] With a rallying cry of "to each his own" the FPU sought to achieve reforms in Newfoundland society to attain an equitable distribution of wealth in the fishing industry.

[5] In the next few years, Coaker toured the country, enlisting members, helping start new councils, and rallying support for the FPU's eventual entry into politics.

In social policy, it proposed the reduction of tariffs on staple foods, improvements to old age pensions, free and compulsory education and a minimum wage.

The Platform also called for democratic reforms such as the right to recall Members of the Newfoundland House of Assembly and having a salary for elected representatives to make it feasible for those who are not independently wealthy to be involved in politics.

[7][8] The FPU entered electoral politics in 1913 by establishing the Union Party, campaigning on the Bonavista Platform and in particular calling for government regulation of the fisheries, administrative and constitutional reform, and the extension of education and social welfare.

In his maiden speech to the House of Assembly, Coaker spoke of the significance of outport fishermen gaining a measure of political power.

Coaker initially had had a warm relationship with the progressive Plaindealer newspaper and Edward Morris's People's Party, and had eschewed the Liberals, who, under Prime Minister Robert Bond had favoured limited government and retrenchment.

Journalists, parliamentarians and others attacked the union for attempting to undermine duly constituted order, for seeking to alter the inexorable law of supply and demand, or being "godless.

One notable event in FPU history was its protests and petitions to arrest Abram Keanfor his role in the sealing disasters of 1914.

The FPU did not seek to extend its influence or mandate to cover other members of the broader working class, though occasionally fishers or sealers held rallies in the city and sometimes received the support of locals.

The Union [members] don’t want to rule..."[5] This meant that even some fishing areas of the country, such as the southwest coast, were deprioritized and tended not to have many councils or UTC stores.

[17][18] The church's hostility initially discouraged the continuation of FPU locals in Catholic areas of the southern Avalon Peninsula, such as those in Argentia, Salmonier, Riverhead and Trepassey.

FPU members of the House of Assembly joined Edward Patrick Morris' wartime National Government of 1917 with Coaker as minister of fisheries.

The source of the tune has been identified as the American Civil War song "We Are Coming, Father Abraham, Three Hundred Thousand More", a call to arms written in 1862 by James Sloan Gibbons.