Don't you just love the old advertisements

I have a copy of "A Modern Treatise on Practical Coarse Fish Angling", written by Henry Coxon of Nottingham in 1896. In it are over 50 full page and half page advertisements covering everything from fishing tackle to clothes and from bicycles to lace curtains and antimacassas.

Here are a few:

"Anglers ask for Hicktons Hop Bitters and Mineral Waters".

"****son & Parker's Athletic Outfits".

"Cycling, Cricket, Tennis, Boating, Riding, Fishing, Shooting and Football."

"Ambrose Middleton - Rupture Specialist"

Manufacturer and dealer in trusses, abdominal & Riding Belts, Elastic Stockings, Knee Caps, Anklets, Leggings, Suspensary & other Bandages.

(Anglers would do well to note this!

"Armitage Bros High Street, Nottingham"

Bamboo canes and fishing rods from 8d each!

"Skinner & Rook"

Specialities in Irish and Scotch Whiskies. John Jameson Old Liqueur Irish Whiskey per doz: 75/-

"Spratts Patent DOG CAKES!"

"See that your cakes are stamped "SPRATTS PATENT and with an X."

The Lightest rods in use:

"Booth's Five Joint Bamboo Roach Rod" weight 7 to 10 oz.

4s. 8d for cash only

"R.P. & H.B. DAFT, All England Sports Warehouse"

Daft's Physical Execiser recommended by Medical Men

"Francis M. Walbran - Practical Angler"

Manufacturer of rods, reels, lines and every description of High Class fishing tackle.

The "Swaledale" Roach Rod, whole cane , snake rings, fully fitted in bag complete, 10/6 each.

"WM. King, Chemist"

King's Natural Paste Bait. Highly recommended by the editors of the Fishing Gazette. The Trent Otter says: "I killed with King's bait 39 fish which weighed 22 1/2 lbs, many over 1lb each"

Does not wash off the hook. Packets - 3d, 6d, and 1s.

"DEWARS celebrated SCOTCH WHISKY"

Awarded 50 gold and prize medals.

Dewars Perth Whisky is known and appreciated wherever the English language is spoken. It is highly appreciated and prescribed by the Medical Profession and recommends itself to the public by its delicious flavour, mellowness and roundness, its exhilerating qualities and by the fact that it leaves no bad after effects.

"This is good, pure and wholesome Spirit" - Lancet.

"BURBERRY'S PATENT GABARDINE COMBINATION ANGLING SUIT!" (And not a Chav in sight)

Protects against thorns, fishhooks, rain, sleet, snow, hot or cold winds, rot, mildew ants and spiders. (we need protection against him even in these days.

Have you noticed how many complain about the amount of adveratising in today's fishing magazines. The Victorians had far more!

Oh and finally:

"Modern Improvements in Fishing Tackle and Fish Hooks"

by H. Cholmondeley Pennell.

Even he was around then

Yes, Great Uncle Henry taught **** everything he knew

Love the Booth's Five Joint Bamboo Roach Rod,7-10oz,thats lighter than many fibreglass rods of the 60's!

Especially the solid glass rods.

As regards tackle, the latter part of the Queen Victoria's reign saw the golden years of English angling. It was a time of great changes in the sport and it was also a time when the ordinary man could get around on the vast railway network which we now do not have in this country.

Anglers were given privileges on the railways. For example:

These are fares from Nottingham:

Burton Joyce.............9d
Newark.......................1 10d
Collingham.................2 4d
Matlock Bath.............2 10d
Bakewell....................3 9d

Hooks were superior then to what we had in the 60s and 70s. J Theaker was a highly respected Rod Maker who offered "Practical barbel rods as used by Mr H Coxon at the International Angler's tournament at Wimbledon Park Lake on Saturday May 9th 1896. Mr. Coxon's rod had been used in heavy Trent fishing for 25 years. These celebrated rods, made for work, have Double Brazed sockets. Winch fitted to balance, upright or snake rings, stoppers, in bag all complete, 8/6, 10/6 and 15/6 each; extra top 1/6."

And Theaker's pure silk plaited lines were the best in the business. A roach line was 1/8d and a barbel line was 2/2d.

This was also a time when anglers started to return their fish, encouraged by men such as Coxon and JW Martin.

I have been looking at some old american marvel comics ( online ) they are full of adverts for x-ray specs, sea monkeys , Charles Atlas dynamic tension excercise regime and how to make an career in technical drawing.

Ron The Hat Clay said:

Hooks were superior then to what we had in the 60s and 70s. J Theaker was a highly respected Rod Maker who offered "Practical barbel rods as used by Mr H Coxon at the International Angler's tournament at Wimbledon Park Lake on Saturday May 9th 1896. Mr. Coxon's rod had been used in heavy Trent fishing for 25 years. These celebrated rods, made for work, have Double Brazed sockets. Winch fitted to balance, upright or snake rings, stoppers, in bag all complete, 8/6, 10/6 and 15/6 each; extra top 1/6."

And Theaker's pure silk plaited lines were the best in the business. A roach line was 1/8d and a barbel line was 2/2d.

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It's amazing that we catch anything these days with mono/fluoro/braid and blunt, weak hooks, eh? :wh

But at least we don't now have to use a Line Dryer after each session.

What would the average working man's wage have been back then, Ron?

they certainly knew how to make stuff sound the business!

Simon K said:

What would the average working man's wage have been back then, Ron?

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In the 1950's about £2.50 to £5.00 although more generally £3.00 a week getting up to £10 to £15.00 for a fully trained man with at least 10 years experience by the mid 1960's.

Not a lot of money and no central heating, no double glazing very few homes with indoor toilets and baths (old tin bath and kettles of hot water) very very few had motorbikes and even less had a car. 2 channels on tv, petrol under 10p a gallon ah! the good old days...hehehe

Simon K said:

What would the average working man's wage have been back then, Ron?

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Based on what I know and the price of whisky then, your average skilled working man would earn about 30 shillings (£1.50) a week. In buying power this would equate to about £150.00 a week today. But remember that the average man did not aspire to the heights that many do today. The ownership of a bicycle was equivalent to the ownership of a car in these day. Horses, and horse drawn carriages where the perogative of the wealthy.

Henry Coxon, the man who wrote the book I am referring to, was a skilled lace worker in Nottingham. He was also a skilled engineer and cricket scorer at Trent Bridge cricket ground. He invented the Coxon Aerial reel with which he won a casting competition in 1896.

Coxon was a highly educated man who could lend his skills to many different jobs. As a result he was greatly in demand and also wrote many articles for local newpapers and the "Fishing Gazette".Coxon was certainly a man of substance.

It's thought that it was FWK Wallis who invented the "Wallis Cast". I am not so sure, it may have been Coxon.

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Further, a decent bicycle was £12 to £14. That is 8 to 10 weeks earnings for the average working man.

But for the man with initiative, the latter part of the Victorian age was a boom time, and a time when a man could better himself. JW Martin left school when he was 10 and barely literate. With the help of a more educated friend, Martin taught himself to read and write to a level where he wrote many books.

If Martin had had a decent education, who knows what he could have become.

Unfortunately war reared it's ugly head, first the Boer War, secondly WW1. Many of the educated people of the late Victorian and Edwardian period were slaughted, first on the African veld, second, in the trenches of France.

I don’t consider that FWK invented the Wallis cast either Ron, and I don’t believe he ever claimed to. He was, in fact a brilliant exponent of ‘ The Nottingham Cast’ and in his book Fine angling for coarse fishthere is a chapter ‘The Modern Light Float Cast from the Reel – Nottingham Style’ states ‘and this style of cast evolved from first emergence on the Trent in the 1850’s’. IMO the Wallis Cast is not so much an invention as a variation he made popular.
Jerry
PS Not sure where Coxon comes into the equation.

All I've got is that Coxon was a brilliant caster with the centrepin reel.

He wrote:

"It would ill become me to say precisely what distances with light floats I have thrown with the reel (Coxon Aerial). I was twice succesful at the International Angler's Tournament held at Wimbledon Park near London, on May 9th 1896, and in a review of the reel published in the "Fishing Gazette" of July 11th, in the same year, the Editor remarks: "This is certainly the lightest reel we have evet seen, the revolving portion or drum consisting merely of two ebonite hoops connected by light metal bars reminding one of the great wheel at South Kensington."

Probably all goes back to one these 'Nothing New Under the Sun' categories.
Jerry

barbelboi said:

Probably all goes back to one these 'Nothing New Under the Sun' categories.
Jerry

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Like I have said Jerry, the second half of the reign of Queen Victoria, say 1870 to 1900, was the great golden age of English angling. The innovations achieved during this period would stagger you. Now is not the time to mention them, other than to say that a number of paper back reprints by the likes Coxon, Martin and Bailey are now available at reasonable prices. If you can, read them.

Midland Railway, and others provided cheap weekend tickets. And many used to take their bicycles with them.

In those days as an angler, England was your oyster.

In addition to all this, angling was very highly regarded as a sport by the vast majority of the population. No-one even contemplated being against the persuit. There were no antis!

The only real downside was that as the 19th century came to a close, some of our rivers became badly polluted. The Thames mainly from raw sewage, the Trent from the potteries of Stoke and the rivers Don, Rother, Dearne and others in the Yorkshire area from steelworking and mining operations.

Martin left Newark and opened a shop in London. He was right next to one of the main railway stations north, which I am sure he used on many occasions.