How the Victorians travelled to their fishing

I refer to the book "A Modern Treatise on practical Coarse Fish Angling" by Henry Coxon - 1896

Anglers Railway Privileges - for anglers living in Nottingham.

All return fares from Nottingham

Cost.......................s d
Burton Joyce...........0/9d
Lowdham................0/10d
Newark...................1/10d
Collingham...............2/4d
Burton on Trent........2/6d
Matlock Bath...........2/10d

And many stations along main routes pro-rata.

In those days virtually every village had a railway station.

This fascinating book is full of advertisments from fishing tackle to cricket bats and from jewelry to lace curtains and from whisky to bicycles. In fact there are fifty advertisement in this publication.

Many modern anglers complain of the number of ads in modern magazines. In the Victorian period they had ads in books as well as magazines.

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As regards being able to travel England for their fishing, there have been few to equal JW Martin.

In 1908, Martin wrote:

"For nearly 50 years I have been a fisherman on many of the rivers, broads and lakes of England, and have had exceptional opportunities of studying the styles and methods adopted by the most local men on twentyfive different rivers."

It is interesting to note that this was in 1908. I doubt if few could make that boast today with our motor cars.

It truly is remarkable the ease at which some of the great anglers of the past got around.

Well.......my first fishing trip, C1960. maybe 1959........i was 4 0r 5.

Trolley bus (posh tram) to Wolverhampton.

Then a real engined Fisherman/bank holiday special bus (single decker 1/2 bull nosed) to Ironbridge.


What a day out that was if at 56 i can remember it so vividly!

Other than walking or being on my bike my first fishing trip involving the train was a day trip to Hampton Court, if I remember rightly it was one shilling return from Wimbledon.
The stations were; Raynes Park, New Malden, Surbiton, Berrylands, Thames Ditton and then Hampton Court.

Ron, have you any idea any idea how F.W.K.Wallis, Ken Clower and others travelled down to Christchurch when they took the Nottingham Style down there, and how much it cost them?
How , and when, did the fame of the Royaly fishery reach them? it must only have been a couple of decades since Gomm (was it?) stocked barbel into the Stour, and it must have taken them a while to work round Christchurch harbour and discover the Avon for themselves... were Wallis and co already there, fishing for sea=trout or roach, when the first barbel made its way up the Avon and picked up the wrong snack?

Did Coxon and Martin ever get down there, or was the Royaly boom after their time?
Sorry to bombard you with so many questions, but it must be quite a story.

For several years I used to take the Anglers Excursion Train which left Sheffield Victoria Station (not there now) out on all stations from Shireoaks near Worksop to as far as Boston. If I remember Boston was 12/6d return.

My favourite spot on the Witham was The Schoolhouse Bend near Kirkstead. There it was possible to catch good bream and roach.

I also fished a lot of the drains entering the Witham. And boy did I walk, I was as fit as a butcher's dog!

Many was the time when I would get on that Saturday early morning train, doss down on the bank under my brolly on the Saturday night and return on the Sunday train.

Some of the catches I took used to astonish the local matchmen.

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Alan Tyler said:

Ron, have you any idea any idea how F.W.K.Wallis, Ken Clower and others travelled down to Christchurch when they took the Nottingham Style down there, and how much it cost them?
How , and when, did the fame of the Royaly fishery reach them? it must only have been a couple of decades since Gomm (was it?) stocked barbel into the Stour, and it must have taken them a while to work round Christchurch harbour and discover the Avon for themselves... were Wallis and co already there, fishing for sea=trout or roach, when the first barbel made its way up the Avon and picked up the wrong snack?

Did Coxon and Martin ever get down there, or was the Royaly boom after their time?
Sorry to bombard you with so many questions, but it must be quite a story.

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The Royalty boom started at some time after the Dorset Stour was stocked with barbel from the Thames and Kennet. Ken Clower was a Nottingham man who was born in 1919. He was related to FWK Wallis and he fished the Avon up to the 1970s. He died fairly recently and was a man of substance, travelling by rail down regularly to Christchurch where he only had to walk a few yards from his hotel.

I don't know how much rail fares were then but FWK Wallis was a very wealthy man who could leave home on long fishing trips whenever he wanted. Yes he took the Nottingham style to the Avon. Ken Clower learned much of his fishing from Wallis.

I don't think Coxon or Martin fished the Hampshire Avon. Martin died in 1916, Coxon in 1927.

Elliot Symak wrote some good stuff on how he used to go Carping on a moped balancing the holdall and all the kit and bait.

I did some epic fishing train journeys as a kid…each fishing trip invariably ending with a panic dash for the last train home after a succession of “one last casts”.

I do remember we used to fish Barnes Elms in the middle of London and take all the tackle on the rush hour tubes and trains. You get some very funny looks believe me. Weighed down like a pack mule, rods poking out in all directions, nets hanging off you, dressed in folded down rubber waders I always cracked up when a fellow tube passenger obviously unable to contain themselves any longer would ask “…are you going fishing?”

Philip said:

I do remember we used to fish Barnes Elms in the middle of London and take all the tackle on the rush hour tubes and trains. You get some very funny looks believe me. Weighed down like a pack mule, rods poking out in all directions, nets hanging off you, dressed in folded down rubber waders I always cracked up when a fellow tube passenger obviously unable to contain themselves any longer would ask “…are you going fishing?”

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This wouldn't have happened in Sheffield. Virtually every other man you saw on a train on a weekend was piled down with fishing tackle.

I forget who once wrote that Sheffield and Nottingham have more anglers per head of population than any other city in England. It may have been Bernard Venables.

I recall H.T.Sheringham writing of special deals for anglers on trains before the War. I think he refered to a season pass.


He was, of course, refering to the First World War, unaware that it was soon to start all over again.



Nevertheless, I don't imagine many working men having either the time or the monet for such trips...you'd have to go a fair few times to make that season ticket count.


I suspect that the Trent Otter, Martin, was using his substantial wealth to support him. He made his fortune with tackle and cheap books on how to fish, he priced his products cheaply and consequently sold all the more.




Wallis was a J.P. , a Justice of the Peace. In those days it wasn't any Tom **** or Harry invited on to the Bench, you had to be a man of substance and most were retired military officers, who of course retained their title of rank in retirement.

A few words on Wallis here...scroll down to Angling Legends...


Paul Witcher Productions - Myths and Legends

the indifferent crucian said:

I recall H.T.Sheringham writing of special deals for anglers on trains before the War. I think he refered to a season pass.


He was, of course, refering to the First World War, unaware that it was soon to start all over again.



Nevertheless, I don't imagine many working men having either the time or the monet for such trips...you'd have to go a fair few times to make that season ticket count.


I suspect that the Trent Otter, Martin, was using his substantial wealth to support him. He made his fortune with tackle and cheap books on how to fish, he priced his products cheaply and consequently sold all the more.




Wallis was a J.P. , a Justice of the Peace. In those days it wasn't any Tom **** or Harry invited on to the Bench, you had to be a man of substance and most were retired military officers, who of course retained their title of rank in retirement.

A few words on Wallis here...scroll down to Angling Legends...


Paul Witcher Productions - Myths and Legends

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I have a copy of a 1920s / '30s Great Western Railway paperback guide to Angling waters for Londoners. Can't remember the exact title, stored away, years since I've seen it.

As for Wallis and the Royalty... If anyone finds the many volumes of the gloriously written, both in style and caligraphically, hardback-bound diaries of a man named Gordon (G.E.) Edwards in an auction / carboot sale / whatever somewhere, diaries I was shown and allowed to read when I first met Gordon in my late teens and was taken up as a lad who could centrepin cast and fish, years and years and years of his fishing (late 1920s to late 1950s) on the Royalty and at Christchurch for bass and mullet, then in Wales where I met him, diaries that disappeared shortly after his death aged 76 in 1988 (I know who took them), well, let's just say that on their discovery a must-read book of British Angling history could be written, for Gordon knew, fished with (and sometimes /often outfished) and had the gentleman full-time fisher's insider knowledge (and sometimes dirt) on them all - Wallis, Hayter, the Parkers (Brian of the Royalty & the Captain of Downton), Walker, Venables, the Warrens...

the indifferent crucian said:

I suspect that the Trent Otter, Martin, was using his substantial wealth to support him. He made his fortune with tackle and cheap books on how to fish, he priced his products cheaply and consequently sold all the more.

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Martin was, however, born in very poor circumstances. Little is known of his mother and father for example. He left "school" at the age of 11, hardly being able to read or write and became a "barge boy" on the Fenland drains and canals. However by the age of 30 he had taught himself to read and write to a very high level, which enabled him to become a prolific author.

He spent a lot of his time as a "professional angler", being a "man" to the wealthy who wanted a days fishing. He spent 12 years on the Trent where he caught so many fish he was knicknamed "The Trent Otter" by his contempories, who included Wallis, Bailey and Coxon.

The latter part of Martin's life was spent in London where he ran a tackle shop in Clerkenwell under the name of J.W. Martin and Son, which was conveniently situated near Euston Station.

He always thought a lot about what he called: "the working man angler". His books were priced so that the less well off could afford them.

Another lost thread...

My grand-dad on my mother's side, a man who died some years before / shortly after my birth, was something fairly big in a Burton Upon Trent brewery and also the owner of a pub or two in the town. He was a massively keen Trent Angler in the last years of the 19th Century and very early years of the 20th (doubtless where I got it from, having declared at the age of four and a half that I had to fish - my Mum, much later, told me that she felt a shiver and smiled when she heard me say this, as her Dad had thrashed her and her several sisters after they had broken into their Dad's rod-room and used "the great bamboo-cane rods as vaulting poles"), who knew everyone and who knew and fished with F.W.K..

Pity. If only one or two men had lived a bit longer...

Peter Jacobs said:

Other than walking or being on my bike my first fishing trip involving the train was a day trip to Hampton Court, if I remember rightly it was one shilling return from Wimbledon.
The stations were; Raynes Park, New Malden, Surbiton, Berrylands, Thames Ditton and then Hampton Court.

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Hi mate I went to UNI at Kingston Poly during the 80's ( bit of a blur ) and lived in Surbiton for a while , when I was 21 I jumped off the bridge while being watched by punters outside the bishop and Gazebo , having drunk in the White Hart previously ( hic ) .

Through fishing forums I have found out that within a few months a fellow forum member was floating underneath fishing for perch from a boat , while another was taking a leak off it on his stag do, do you have a connection to that bridge circa 1980 something or other ?

I'm convinced that bridge must be on a ley line or something since so many people I have met online have either ****** off it , jumped off it or fished underneath it , or in my case 2 out of 3 .

Incidentally while a student , they called us effing Bob Dylans locally , we tried to break into the Maze late at night , she must have been IN cos I never seen so many Police suddenly appear in all my life.

Do you still live in the area ?

Ron The Hat Clay said:

Martin was, however, born in very poor circumstances. Little is known of his mother and father for example. He left "school" at the age of 11, hardly being able to read or write and became a "barge boy" on the Fenland drains and canals. However by the age of 30 he had taught himself to read and write to a very high level, which enabled him to become a prolific author.

He spent a lot of his time as a "professional angler", being a "man" to the wealthy who wanted a days fishing. He spent 12 years on the Trent where he caught so many fish he was knicknamed "The Trent Otter" by his contempories, who included Wallis, Bailey and Coxon.

The latter part of Martin's life was spent in London where he ran a tackle shop in Clerkenwell under the name of J.W. Martin and Son, which was conveniently situated near Euston Station.

He always thought a lot about what he called: "the working man angler". His books were priced so that the less well off could afford them.

Click to expand...

Indeed so, Ron.


He was a true philanthropist, and I feel that he wanted 'to give back to angling' as it had done so much for him. I shudder to think what might have become of him in such times with such a poor start in life, had he not turned out to be so gifted. Hard enough to learn to read and write unaided, harder still to do it as a child trying to earn a living too. That he turned out to be such a successful author and angler is extraordinary.



One gets the sense that he thought himself a lucky man and wanted to help others too, but I suspect he made his own luck with self-determination and courage.

bennygesserit said:

Do you still live in the area ?

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I fished either side of that bridge many times in the late 60's and 70's; used to be good for Roach on the seed and some cracking Dace too.

We lived in Wimbledon up to when I got married and moved away into deeper Surrey. These days (and 3 wives later) I live in a quiet village about 12 miles from Salisbury and right across the road from the Hampshire Avon where old Frank Sawyer was the riverkeeper. (see his book, Keeper of the Stream)

Thanks, Ron, that's fascinating stuff.
I dug out my "Lonsdale Library" Coarse fishing book last night, with Wallis' chapter on the "Modern Light Float Cast from the Reel". I was hoping to find some dates, but there were none; even the book itself is undated. (I do wish publishers wouldn't do that!)
Aware that Ken Clower was still with us until recently, did anyone think to interview him and ask about his adventures? I know he contributed a chapter or two to a few books, but I should have liked to see his best stories compiled.
Amen and "hear, hear" to all the plaudits for J.W.Martin; he made the most from a poor start by enthusiasm hard work and kindness, and the fact that he was so keen to share his knowledge at a knock-down rate makes him one of the greatest anglers ever, in my book.
One thing I'd completely forgotten, from the Lonsdale book, was the involvement of "Bendigo", a famous prize-fighter, in the development of the Nottingham cast.
I bet the banks of the Trent were rather surprisingly polite and genteel spots with the likes of him and Wallis, J.P. around!
Paul, I really hope those diaries can be properly edited and published - maybe you could show him BennyG.'s post and threaten to send him round?
Benny, yer mad, bad and dangerous to know! Good job I could only cycle as far as Richmond...

Makes me realise how lucky I was as a youth being able to walk down to the Medway or "Witches Wood".

The bus journeys tended to be into Maidstone to fish the town water or Mote park. I can certainly remember journeys back to Barming where I literally was so frozen that i couldn't use my fingers to get my bus fare out of my pocket!!!

I used to cycle over to Holmesdale Lake at Sevenoaks..not so much to fish but to watch the South's top match stars fish the opens that were regularly held there.

I think I was a bit slow on the uptake as a kid. Fishing little drains for perch and minnow, and not many of those, whilst a mile down the road Chris Yates and his brother joined a local angling club and went fishing all over the South East by club coach. I think it was their milkman who talked the two boys into joining?

I didn't even know that there were clubs or match fishing.


That's right....Chris Yates was a match-fisher in his youth

Best thing, fishing-wise, I ever had happen to me was to be taken under the wing at the age of six by a local, West London meets South Bucks, jobbing gardener and full-time local council groundsman and regular winner of our local club's club matches right through well into his seventies. Not only could he fish light with both lead and float, but thought nothing in the mid 1960s of slamming a golfball-sized lump of his special cheespaste onto a size 6 or size 4 on 8lb mono straight through and catch whacking Thames chub. Same with the barbel. Natural-born Angler who thought nothing of fishing in different ways from the rest of his club mates, for he knew almost by instinct that such non-standard baits and methods would catch (watching him once absolutely murder Thames roach on elderberry below an Old Windsor bridge one hot, late summer's afternoon was a revelation to an 8- or 9-year-old, so was the way that at 8o'clock in the evening, just before we left for home, he pulled a 7-foot solid glass spinning from his Efgeeco holdall, then "buzzed" a big lump of flake right across the river to land under the far-bank trees, then in very short order have a "knock" and go on to land a 3-pound chub, a whacker to my young eyes). I owe that old-style clubfisher a lot.

Before i could drive i use to get on my bike loaded with gear and cycle to ponds, canals etc. As i broadened my fishing horizons i began to catch up to 3 buses to get to venues (keen as mustard)

I have to laugh, once i was waiting at the bus stop by a hedgerow in all my finest camo gear, stuck my hand out and the ****** drove past.................

Heres one Ron

Greville F. ( Barnes ): The Rail and the Rod; or, Tourist-Angler's Guide to Waters and Quarters thirty miles around London. No. 1 Great Eastern Railway.

He did a series of these guides

http://www.fishingmuseum.org.uk/sproughton_mill.html

Off the top of me head

John Greville Fennell (1807–1885), was an artist, naturalist, and angler.

Fennell was born at sea between Ireland and England in 1807. He began his career as an artist by winning the silver medal offered by the Duke of Sussex[disambiguation needed] for a drawing of Hercules, and afterwards was a student at Finden's house, where he was intimate with Hablot K. Browne, who was similarly employed. As a young man Fennell succeeded best in comic painting, but later in life was fonder of landscapes. In some of these, however, he was very careless, and was always unequal in his work. He drew pictures of the tournament at Eglinton Castle for the ‘Illustrated London News.’ His fondness for natural history displayed itself chiefly in observations on the habits of fish and waterside birds.

These he carried on simultaneously with the practice of angling, of which he was a devoted follower, especially in the Thames. He was a member of the ‘Field’ staff from the commencement of that paper in 1853, and wrote week after week in it on fishing subjects; besides which he was a frequent contributor to the ‘Fishing Gazette’ and other sporting papers on angling and outdoor pursuits. He was author of ‘The Book of the Roach,’ 1870, an exhaustive treatise on angling for that fish; and contributed a paper called ‘Curiosities of Angling Literature’ to Mr. Cholmondeley Pennell's ‘Fishing Gossip,’ 1866. This is a discursive attempt at the humorous style in writing on angling topics, which was at that time fashionable. He also wrote ‘The Rail and the Rod,’ a meritorious guide-book to the favourite angling resorts of the Thames.

Generous to a fault, and an excellent practical angler, Fennell was never so happy as when relating to a circle of friends reminiscences of ****ens, Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold, Mackay, and Harrison Ainsworth, with all of whom he had been on intimate terms. He lived long at Barnes, and late in life at Henley, at both of which places he was favourably situated for the pursuit of angling. At the latter town he died suddenly on 13 January 1885, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and was buried in Trinity churchyard, not a hundred yards from the house in which he spent his last two years, under the appropriate epitaph, ‘The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament.