The History of Amwell Magna Fishery
ORIGINS OF THE CLUB
"Doubt not that Angling is an Art; is it not an Art to deceive a Trout with an artificial Flie? a Trout! He that hopes to be a good Angler must not only bring an inquiring, searching, observing wit but he must bring patience and love and propensity to the Art itself."
So says this extract from the hundredth edition of The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton (1888) edited by R.B. Marston founder of the FlyFishers’ Club and formerly editor of The Fishing Gazette, presented by him to "Fellow Members of the Amwell Magna Fishery May 30th 1925.” It was an appropriate gift, for in the seventeenth century Walton almost certainly fished that part of the River Lea which the Amwell Magna was to first leased from the New River Company in 1841.
But how did a group of London gentlemen come to acquire the River Lea from Ware to Stanstead Abbots and a lease of the New River from New River Head at Hertford to Hoddesdon?
For over a century the answer to that question lay buried deep within of the records of the New River Company housed by the London Metropolitan Archives. It was there in 2003 that a chance discovery uncovered a small yet elaborately decorated pamphlet, published in 1897 and simply titled, Amwell Magna Fishery.
Written by Francis Howes club secretary from 1887 to 1906, it details an ownership of this stretch of the River Lea starting on September 18th 1189 when King Richard 1st granted an exclusive right of fishing to the Abbott of Waltham Abbey.
Waltham Abbey was perhaps the greatest of the medieval monastic powerhouses controlling vast sways of lands and property. Fisheries were both socially and economically important. Fish played a significant part in the medieval diet especially on Fridays, during lent, advent and other religious holidays. The Abbott in fact had been granted a commercial monopoly by the crown.
And whilst the abbey was the last of the great monasteries to be dissolved in 1540 ownership the fishery had already transferred to Henry VIII when earlier on November 1st 1531 Robert Fuller, Abbott of Waltham Abbey, had swapped the manor of Stanstead and other lands throughout Hertfordshire and Essex, with the King, in exchange for the priory of Blackmore, the manor of Wormingford and a number of churches in Essex. After the dissolution Robert was to retire on a £200 per year pension.
Having once again become part of the Crown’s possessions in 1559 Elizabeth 1st was to award the manor of Stanstead to her General Surveyor of the Victuals for the Seas, Edward Bashe. The fishery was to pass through several generations of Bashe family and other noblemen until almost three hundred years later when, on March 14th 1836 it was bought at a public auction in Hertford by the New River Company.
The New River Company set about joining what by then known as the Stanstead Fishery to their existing fishery at Ware and in December 1837 leased the combined fisheries to Sir Francis Chantrey one of the country's most noted sculptors. Chantrey was to enjoy a truly remarkable career with a wide and illustrious range of clients including James Watt, William Pitt, George Washington and King George IV.
Chantrey with a live long passion for angling was to share the fishery with two of his closest friends, Henry Warburton MP and William Whitbread son to Samuel Whitbread of the great brewing dynasty.
It was however soon apparent that the Stanstead Fishery had long been neglected and in a letter to the New River Company dated September 29th 1837 Chantrey complains "You must be aware that considerable trouble and expense must be incurred in employing a proper keeper with assistance for at least 3 or 4 years before the river can deserve the name of a Fishery”.
For sporting historians this is an interesting moment in time. Here the foundations of two of the UK's oldest fishing clubs intertwine. The Houghton Fishing Club based at Stockbridge in Hampshire was founded in 1822. One of its founding members was Henry Warburton MP who in 1824 nominated his friend Sir Francis Chantrey who in turn, in 1829, nominated William Whitbread for membership.
Chantrey's occupation of the fishery would appear not to have been a happy one. On September 5th 1840 he would once again write to the board of the New River Company "Mr Mylne will inform you that we have given up those waters in despair of obtaining a sound title to the fishery and from being unable from want of it to protect it from poachers”. Finally on June 21st 1841 Chantrey terminated his lease stating "I am sure that you cannot be surprised at my resolution to be rid of this Ware fishery which has never afforded me half the pleasure which you desire and I hoped.”
There is one further letter contained within the board papers of the New River Company that is of interest. Sent just 10 days later and dated July 1st 1841 it begins, "Being exceedingly partial to the sport of angling, I have to request the favour of your accepting me as your tenant.” It goes on to say, "I will endeavour with a few friends to conciliate the neighbouring gentry and at the same time to support your Rights on the River in a way that I trust will be satisfactory to all parties.” Signed, Mr William Shackell Esq, Hammersmith.
The Board accept William’s offer and on 15th July 1841 the company’s seal is affixed to his lease dated, 24th June 1841.
For the son of a London postman William Shackell was to lead a colourful if not turbulent life. Born on the 16th April 1789 he would be apprenticed to the King’s printer, John MacArthur in 1803, be granted the Freedom of the City of London in 1818, become the proprietor of the notorious John Bull newspaper, would be imprisoned three times for libel, become the manufacturer of the printing ink used to print the Penny Black stamp, be declared bankrupt in 1848 and still somehow manage to find the time to establish what is now the oldest fly fishing club in the United Kingdom - and possibly the world - still fishing the same stretch of river and one which in 2016 celebrates its 175th anniversary, the Amwell Magna Fishery.
While publisher of the John Bull newspaper William employed Theodore Hook as editor and gave him instructions to establish the paper as the “Champion of high Toryism and virulent detractor of Queen Caroline.” The 1820s were to be a difficult time for William and the paper.
On May 10th 1821 William was to be summoned to appear before Parliament to face charges of a “False and scandalous libel on the hon. Grey Bennet member of this House”. And while those charges were ultimately dropped later that year, on November 24th William was to find himself appearing before the Court of the King’s Bench, charged once more with libel. He would be found guilty, sentenced to 9 months imprisonment, fined £250 and ordered to pay a further £500 bond on condition that he would keep the peace for 5 years.
What was the source of such outrage, as the trail judge was to so delicately to describe it, William and the John Bull were guilty of publishing an article suggesting that Lady Caroline Wrottesley (sister of Gery Bennet), had been conducting a “life-time criminal intrigue with a menial servant”.
William was to die at his home in 1854 and it is that this point that perhaps the real hero of our story begins to emerge. From records of notable catches made between 1851 and 1870 we find that Henry Wix caught on the Amwell Magna water: 26 large jack (pike), 152!lb of roach. 399 perch, 444 gudgeon, II chub, I Rudd and on the 27th March 1858 the only carp ever caught on the water - and no trout. We still have that carp in our collection of cased fish and believe that it is one of if not perhaps the earliest example of its kind.
The Club, in a letter to The Field in 1958, said that Henry Wix was Clerk to the Governors of St Bartholomew's Hospital. In fact it was Henry’s brother William, also a member of the club, who was Clerk to the Governors of the Hospital while his father, the somewhat controversial Reverent Samuel Wix was the hospital’s vicar.
Shortly after leaving the Merchants Taylor’s School in 1819 Henry was apprenticed to the book publishing giant Francis Revington. He would go on to develop his own business as a bookseller and publisher living and working at 41, Bridge Street, London. It was however following the death of his uncle in 1849, which made Henry independently wealthy, that things really began to take shape. Thereafter Henry appears to have devoted most of his time to both fishing and the fishery. He was to become the Club’s longest serving Secretary and Treasure and in 1860 would write Roach Fishing and its Peculiarities depicting daily events while roach fishing on the river.
It would appear that he could be equally enthusiastic about other forms of leisure. On the 25h of March 1856 the Herts Guardian reported on the trial of Thomas Smith, landlord of the Red Lion Inn, Stanstead Abbots. Thomas had been charged with permitting gambling on his premises. Those caught playing cards, by PC Brewer, three gentlemen from London, Mr Ebenezer Randall, Mr William Eddison and Mr Henry Wix, all members of the Amwell Magna Fishery. After an intervention from Henry during the course of the trail all of the charges against Thomas were dismissed.
When Henry finally resigned at the AGM of 1874 the members tendered to 'Mr Wix their warmest thanks for the judgement, zeal and courtesy he had so uniformly exercised for upwards of 35 years in the management of the affairs of the fishery'. He continued as a member until his death on 27 March 1881, at Walthamstow, and was buried at Chingford Old Church. He was seventy-seven.
The photograph of Henry on page ***** was taken in the mid 1860s. Far from the setting being an idyllic one on his favourite water, it is actually a studio portrait by photographer Henry Godbold set against a backcloth and taken in Hastings. The picture may have been taken for the Club, with his two-piece rod in its bag, the beautiful basketwork creel with fastener, and some- thing in his left hand presumably to do with fishing but impossible to identify.
While most of the members came from London and would stay for a few days in local hotels and pubs, Henry for example had a private set of rooms at the Red Lion Inn, there was one member who didn’t have quite so far to travel.
William Chadwell Mylne was a member of a famous family of architects and engineers and as important to the development of the New River as the founder, Sir Hugh Myddleton. William lived just across the valley at Great Amwell.
The Mylnes' forebears had been master masons (architects) to the Kings of Scotland, supervising the building of Holyrood Palace. William's father, Robert, constructed Blackfriars Bridge, was surveyor to St Paul's Cathedral and engineer to the New River Company from 1770 to 1811. William was a leading authority on water supply, succeeding his father as engineer to the New River Company. He constructed settling reservoirs at Stoke Newington and replaced Sir Hugh Myddleton's wooden pipes with cast iron ones between Charing Cross and Bishopsgate Street. He was one of the original signatories to the Rules of the Amwell Fishery, 1856, one of the earliest documents possessed by the club that was signed by each new member from then until 1907.
He also attended the AGM of 1852 held at the York hotel, New Bridge Street, was a member of the Management Committee, and Treasurer of the Fishery. He is recorded as having caught a brace of trout weighing 7/lb at Ware Mill on 16 April 1857.
His son, Robert, also an authority on land drainage and water supply, was elected an honorary member in 1888. At that time the Mylnes owned much of the land bordering the Club's waters. In 1877, Robert was charging the Club 10s (50p) a year for crossing his land leading to Brown's Cottage and £3 a year for a six feet water
frontage along nearly a mile of his land. There is no evidence that he fished, but his death in 1890 at Home Lodge, Amwell, was noted by the river keeper, Arthur Brown, in his Keeper's Record Book.
EARLY RULES AND REGULATIONS
FROM the beginning the membership was confined to twenty members and this was not increased to twenty-four until 1893. And while many of the first members were associated with or members of the Stationers Company, no doubt through William Shackell’s membership, Henry Wix severed on the Court of the Company for many years, others came from equally illustrious backgrounds, bankers, magistrates, barristers, stocker brokers, wine merchants, architects and copper mine owner. Sixteen of the twenty members in 1852 were from London with addresses in Regent Street, Cavendish Square, the Strand and Lombard Street.
We find that Fred Remnant, who caught a 6/lb trout off the River Ash in 1851 was a bookbinder, and W. Carbonell a wine merchant. Up to the Second World War the membership is littered with gentlemen of private means, the occasional MP, officers of high rank including a Lieutenant-Colonel and an Admiral, doctors, Knights, etc. A. H. Debenham (member 1887-1909) was a solicitor, Town Clerk of St Albans and captained St Albans Cricket Club. E. B. Barnard (1907-20s) was a JP, MP for Kidderminster and Vice-Chairman of the Lea and Thames Conservancy Boards and the Metropolitan Water Board. A. G. Sandeman (1897-1900) of port fame lived at Presdales, now a comprehensive school.
One of the Club's most eminent members was R. B. Marston, formerly editor of The Fishing Gazette and Honorary Treasurer and founding member of The FlyFishers’ Club. He presented the Amwell Magna with a magnificent two-volume set of the 100th edition of Izaak Walton's Compleat Angler, which he edited. The first volume contains a number of superb photographic views of the Lea, including the Amwell Magna water, by the leading exponent of Victorian naturalistic photography. P. H. Emerson. Emerson was an inspired choice as he was to claim his own place in photographic history as one of the early exponents of promoting photography as an art form. **** We reproduce one on the front cover. *****
Another member of more recent years was Michael Hordern, the well known actor. From the Club records, he appears to be a fine fisherman, having caught thirty-
seven trout in eight visits to the water.
The Club has come a long way from a famous occasion when Henry Duprey refused to consider an application for membership (just 100 years ago) because “he could not accept a gentleman living on the Fishery”. The candidate lived at Ware! John Hammond, a malterseer who lived in Star Lane Ware, was one of the first local members. Even so, his membership was always endorsed for fly fishing only. This did not prevent him from consistently catching trout including specimens of 63/4, 51/2 and 41/2lb.
In 2016 we have fifty-five members predominantly from the greater London area and from many walks of life. Membership is still vetted to ensure that a new member
is a sporting and knowledgeable fisherman or fisher-woman, but the practice of electing by ballot and that “Two black balls will disqualify any Candidate from
becoming a Subscriber,” contained in the rules throughout the nineteenth century has long been abandoned.
Fees. From 1841 to 1874 the annual subscription was £4 a season. As the purchasing power of the pound then was equivalent to about ninety of our pounds today this
was a lot of money, but that it should remain £4 for forty- three years is an accurate comment on the financial stability of that era. The subscription then increased to 8
guineas to help pay for the new Fishing House to be erected adjacent to the Keeper's Cottage at Amwell Marsh. There was an increase to 10 guineas in 1912 by which time the Club had long been purchasing trout for stocking purposes. There it remained through two world wars, the General Strike, the Wall Street Crash, right up to the Festival of Britain in 1951.
More recently of course, the pressures and complexities of the modern world have taken their toll: increased rents, the introduction of rates (vigorously con-
tested and reductions obtained at the time by Henry Duprey), contractor bills, costs of stocking with trout, upkeep of the club house, insurance etc, and above all, inflation. The subscription after 175 years is now £350, roughly one hundred times the original amount. Thus, in relative terms, it is cheaper to belong to the Club today than it was in 1877.
The Fishery. It is clear that from the outset the Club was a mixed fishery with the jack (pike) fishing being most prized. It commenced on the first day of July and ended
on the last day of March. Livebaiting was the most popular method, and the Keepers were expected to net out small roach and minnows for this purpose. Incidentally,
it is not until 1891 that the word 'pike' is used as opposed to 'jack'.
Trout fishing began on 10 April and finished on 30 September. 'No Subscriber shall fish with worms at the pools, waste-gates, tumbling bays, and mill tails; no Visitor shall fish for Trout in any other way than with a fly.' Members obviously could, and a number of trout appear to have been caught livebaiting with minnow and also by
spinning. In the early years the New River could be fished in what was termed 'fair fishing in season.'
Subscribers were allowed to introduce one friend personally and have six tickets for the introduction of visitors. This was a custom which persisted into the twentieth century and, even today, members are allowed to bring a friend to fish on a limited number of occasions.
AMWELL MAGNA AND THE FIELD
THE first mention of the Fishery in The Field was on 15 May 1858. In a paragraph on the Lea it stated, 'The Amwell Fishery is the best of the subscription waters on the Lea. It is confined to twenty subscribers at £4 per annum.' In 1865, there was great concern among over twenty clubs and organisations fishing the Lea because of widespread netting and pollution. A meeting which Amwell Magna did not attend resulted in the formation of the Lea Valley Protection Society, and it was this pressure group which finally led to a Bill that gave birth to the Lea Valley Conservancy Catchment Board.
In 1866, The Field launched its fishing correspondent, Greville F. Barnes, on a stroll along the Lea. and this appeared entitled 'The River Lea and its Tributaries'.
'It is decidedly the best preserved water on the River Lea, well stocked with trout. Jack, perch, enormous chub and so on, and is most admirably looked after by its bailiffs and watchers. The visitor is restricted to the use of certain tackle - that of the fly. and we believe spinning for trout is exclusively reserved for the sub-scribers.
'The fishery commences in the upper part at Ware Flour Mill, worked by water and steam by its proprietor, Mr French. Here four noteworthy trout have been taken this season - Mr Howse (Thomas, Secretary/Treasurer 1874-75) killing one of 81b and the other of 71b; Mr Hooper one of 7!lb and Mrs Henry (wife of a member) - an accomplished lady angler - picking, with great grace and delicacy a handsome fellow out from amongst a shoal of chub with a fly, as recorded in The Field of Sept 2.
'The deepest spot in the pool is from eighteen to twenty feet; the bed is of a fine gravel and one of the keepers (Morton) tells me he has seen thirty to fourth trout on the scour here at a time in the act of spawning. We have plenty of dace that top three quarters of a pound, and shoals of roach of one pound, and a few of one pound and a half.'
The Field reporter then proceeded towards Hertford from Ware along the New River 'until we arrived at the Red House, the gauge house for measuring the water drawn from the Chadwell Spring, or, as it is more commonly called, the New River Head. The Amwell Magna Fishery extends therefrom down to St Margaret's. At the
junction of this portion of the New River with the canal-like cut from the Red House (called Watersmeet by the Club) large quantities of jack and perch congregate."
The party then returned to the Old Lea at Ware Tumbling Bay and over the meads. 'There are very fat and heavy Trout in this pool which is from nine to ten feet deep, with a gravelly bottom, well protected with ponderous [sic!] stones brought here and elsewhere in the bed of the Lea by Mr Mylne, the former engineer of the New River, from the grandfather - if I may so term it - of the present bridge at Blackfriars.'
The stones would almost certainly have been placed there by William Chadwell Mylne, a member of the Management Committee, their availability no doubt
arising from the fact that his father, Robert, built the new Blackfriars Bridge. 'From the pool down to the cottage of Brown, the head keeper on the Amwell water, the stream looks most likely for chub, and perhaps for barbel, but we are told it is not much coveted.’ 'But here is Brown's cottage, the fishing box, and enough of flood gates, scraps of wit, tracings of big trout and pike, and sundry curiosities upon its interior walls to engage our attention for half an hour or so. We are warned, however, that our time is short; and glancing at a drawing upon the panelling by Rolfe, of a jack 17!lb, that was formerly cut in outline on the brick, but worn by the feet of many visitors - we cross through the well kept water gates and find ourselves on the Stanstead Mill stream, between which and the old river we now make our way.
'There are very fine roach and jack in this water, and plenty of stones of large size as shelter for trout, so much wanted in the Thames. There are two falls from mill stream into old river, the second one, the Five Gate Pool (now called Six Gates) a superb pool of some fourteen feet deep.' The other one, now dry and crossed by a wooden bridge, was called the Overshott.
After Six Gates Pool 'to our right on the old river is, perhaps, the most likely place we have yet commented upon for trout, in being a tumbling bay erected by the club, and but five feet deep in the deepest place, with a dashing scour, well protected with large flint and other stones. We now pass through a gate, and find the old river joining the navigation, just above the St Margaret's railway station, and here ends this excellent and much coveted fishery.'
Two years later, in the edition of 20 June 1868, came one of those apparently incredible fisherman's tales of the one that did not get away. W. J. Hooper, who
escorted Greville Barnes over the Fishery, penned the following account of his capture:
'On the 2nd September 1865 you recorded the capture by me of a 71/2lb trout at Ware Mill on an Alder Fly. On the 11th June this year I killed a fine trout of 71/2lbs at Feildes Weir (near Rye House) with a Black Palmer ribbed silver. On Tuesday 9th I pointed out to my daughter a whirling eddy caused by a rapid from a flood gate saying "That is just the spot I would expect to find a trout if there were any left in this part of the water", at the same time taking a careless cast over the particular spot. The fly had no sooner dropped in the water than it was seized by a big fish which was so un-expected 1 was quite unprepared for the rush. The line came to grief and the trout made off with a yard of gut collar, greatly to my chagrin and disgust.
'1 tried again at the same spot on the 11th with an Alder Fly, but 1 had no success. 1 then tried spinning a small "brass kill-devil" but to no avail. A final throw and the fish was on. I played him for a quarter of an hour before he rolled on his side and was netted. When landed 1 found the spinning triangles had caught hold of the gut collar and twisted the gut round the spinner. The fly was still in the jaws of the fish.'
Apart from being the only first hand account of a trout caught on the Fishery, it is also the earliest mention of flies. Interestingly, the Black Palmer ribbed with silver is mentioned by Izaak Walton and the Alder Fly is also one of our oldest patterns.
HENRY P. DUPREY. SECRELARY 1874 TO 1882
THUS, under the guidance of Henry Wix. the Fishery had by the 1870s acquired a reputation as the best kept water on the Lea. With the resignation of Wix in 1874, there entered the scene a colourful, energetic, dominating and forceful personality whose ambitions were destined to produce one of the most turbulent events in the Fishery's history.
Henry Perry Duprey lived at Fort House, Green Lanes, Stoke Newington. He was a cotton merchant with a premise at 60, Aldersgate, London and joined the Club around 1869.
At the AGM of 1874 he was elected Secretary. He was the only Secretary to keep a kind of diary together with Minutes of meetings and accounts, and this gives some fascinating glimpses into the conduct of the Fishery.
Duprey organised the annual general meeting which at that time were held at the Albion Tavern and prefaced the annual dinner. For this, he always ordered the keepers to send up to town a consignment of eels caught in the eel traps which were placed along the river. The bill for twenty-four diners in 1877 was £1 10s 4d (£152.58) each! At the first recorded AGM of1852 it was stipulated that any member failing to attend be fined 10s (50p). The equivalent fine would be £60. Perry Duprey always wrote to defaulters the day after the meeting, and they in turn scrupulously paid up.
He spent a considerable amount of time on and around the river or in correspondence. He presumably came to St Margaret's by train and used the right of way along the millstream from Stanstead to the Fishery. Much of his business was probably done on foot. One of his first tasks was to rent the island garden near Ware Tumbling Bay to John Wells, one of the Club's river watchers, for 4 guineas a year. The island, now part of the banks, provided a useful income for the club for many years. In 1876 he was in prolonged and stubborn dispute with the Ware Union Assessment Committee over a rate assessment of £60 enforced under the new Rating Act of 1874. The Assessment Committee reduced it to £30, but Duprey persuaded the Club at a special meeting to appeal to the Quarter Sessions. The Assessment Committee asked to settle out of court and agreed to accept Duprey's offer of a mere £6 per annum!
In 1876, the Secretary had a prolonged dispute with the New River Company over the need to repair a footbridge across Ware Mill. Duprey said it had nothing to do with the Fishery. A year later the New River Company wrote to say the footbridge was so dangerous it would have to be removed and proposed to replace it with a plank footbridge for use of the miller and the club members. Again Perry Duprey refused to accept responsibility. In the end, the bridge was not replaced and in 1880 Mr French, the tenant, agreed that members could enter through the front of the mill.
Henry Duprey was indefatigable in the pursuit of poachers, human and animal. Two men found netting the New River in October 1877 were charged. One was fined £2 plus 14s 6d (73p) costs plus 2s 6d (l2!p) for the fish or two months' imprisonment; the other £1 plus 14s 6d (73p) or one month. Both paid their fines. Duprey paid P. C. Stewart £1 and a railway porter l0s (50p) for gaining the information. Most of the poaching took place at the Ware End of the river. Duprey paid Mr Kemp, a Ware butcher, £1 a year to prevent people fishing from his field at Timber Mead. In August, 1880, Mr Ingram, the stationmaster at Ware, was given permission to fish the New River in return for keeping off poachers while in November Henry Duprey visited a Mrs Gobsill at Ware and arranged for her to stop people fishing her field in return for being allowed to fish the river herself. The lock keeper at Ware, John Sewell, was promised £1 every July if he would do his best to keep trespassers off the field and
water.
All this supported the river keepers and river watchers. Like most Secretaries, Perry Duprey placed faith in warning notices. On 4 August 1876 he ordered fifty placards: 'Any person found netting this water will be prosecuted'. Later he was to report disgustedly that some of these had been pulled down. A hundred years later, the Club still puts up warning notices, recognising the foibles of human nature by entwining the notices with barbed wire!
But human poachers were not the only danger to the fish. On 7 February 1882 Gathercole, one of the river watchers who lived in a cottage at New River Head sent
Duprey a fine heron weighing 3ilb caught in a trap on the New River. 'HPD sent him a reward of 5s (25p) for trap- ping this poaching fellow.' There are records of heron
caught fairly regularly, and four otters between 1892 and 1901 when rewards of one guinea were paid. This is not surprising as readers of Walton's Compleat Angler will
recollect Venator telling Piscator that he was to hunt the Otter 'tomorrow morning [where] we shall meet a pack of Otter dogs of noble Mr Sadler's upon Amwell Hill'.
Among other minute of river maintenance we read:
'Brown to be paid to whitewash his cottage ceiling and paint woodwork. Also to repair roach stand.'
'A stand for fishing to be put up at Tumbling Bay, Ware.'
'Arranged to purchase a boat and its fittings from Dr Tibbets for the use of the members on the Upper Water above Brown's Cottage for the sum of £15.'
'Asked Sanitary Surveyor to remove the nuisance of Mr Hitch's privy at Tumbling Bay.'
'Paid for 60 Willow Sets to plant at water side to form long lies for fish.' An early and enterprising example of conservation!
'HPD bought new Fishing Record Book, 1881.' We still have it!
Such was Henry Duprey's influence that at the AGM of 1881 he proposed and had carried that straight-laced aspect of Victorian times: 'no fishing to be permitted on
Sundays.' This was not revoked for the Lea until the 1930s and not for the New River until 1946. Even allowing for the fact that Henry Duprey himself is the source of most of this information, it is still clear that he was running the Fishery almost single-handed. The management committee provided for in the rules was apparently not
in existence at this time. About now Duprey's thoughts must have turned from being servant of the Fishery to being master.
When Thomas Howse, the Treasurer, died at Bourne- mouth at the end of 1875, Perry Duprey was made joint leaseholder with Henry Wix. Then, in March 1881, Wix
died leaving Duprey as the sole lessee of the water with the New River Company. On 27 August 1881, without consulting anyone, Duprey wrote to the New River
Company: '1 am agreeable to taking a new lease on the same terms as usually granted. 1 should prefer as I have no other name to offer as a co-lessee, that it be in my
name only.' On 9 September, the New River Company replied that they were agreeable to his becoming sole lessee. The stage was now set for an ill-fated takeover bid.
On 29 October, Henry Duprey sent a letter to all subscribers 'of my future intention to make changes in the future administration of the Fishery'. The exact contents of this letter are not known but in an interview with Frederick Jennings, a member, on 4 November, Duprey quotes him as saying he 'quite approved of my power to make any alterations and thought 1 was right in making myself proprietor of the Fishery'. Jennings must have been just about the only member who did approve, and the reaction of subscribers was prompt and vigorous.
Correspondence with Rivington, the Club's solicitor, reveals that Duprey based his claim 'upon the fact that 1 am solely responsible to the New River Company for the fulfilment of all the obligations of the lease, the sub- scribers having no liability, are not even known, or any club mentioned in that document or in any other fishing lease the writer has seen or read'. Duprey had already made his ground safe with the New River Company whose Secretary, Durham; saw no need for him to explain to the Board 'as it was evident to him that sole responsibility of the lease rested on me'.
The subscribers thought otherwise. Tibbets replied the same day, stating that 'Duprey only stood legally as a trustee on behalf of the members, that he had no legal power to dissolve without the consent of members duly convened, that the lessee had no right to continue the lease on his own account'. On 4 November, Phipps Cooper called on Duprey and told him he had no legal power to carry out his intentions. John Schott Cousens, a senior member of the Club, had an interview with Duprey in the City three days later. He told him 'it was an insane letter' and he 'should get several members with him to find some guineas to get an injunction from the Court of Chancery to restrain him from proceeding in the matter as he (Duprey) was only the Secretary and representative of the subscribers in the lease'. The same day, Duprey made an underhand and transparent attempt to win over subscribers by advising them that the subscription should have been 6 and not 8 guineas as resolved at the AGM in 1881.
The subscribers now organised themselves and met on 14 November. Eight of the fifteen subscribers attended, led by John Schott Cousens. The only information of this
meeting comes incredibly from Duprey himself who quotes one of the subscribers as saying that his letter was an 'attempt to filch the Fishing out of their hands'.
By now it had become apparent that his cause was a losing one and on the last day of 1881 he wrote to subscribers withdrawing his circular of 28 October. He was now in an impossible situation, and early in 1882 resigned as Secretary and Treasurer. He sent to Rivington all his documents including an 1855 map of the fishery and his account and memorandum book which the Club still have. Unfortunately there was no mention of Robert Brown's Fishery Memoranda books from 1831 to 1881, or any previous Minute books. His last entry in his Log Book said, 'March, 1882. There are no vacancies at the present time. Five names are down for member- ship'.
It was now the turn of the subscribers to take the offensive. At a Special General Meeting on 9 March 1882 Duprey's resignation was accepted. John Schott Cousen was appointed Secretary/Treasurer and a new lease was to be applied for with three lessees. At the AGM on July 1882, Perry Duprey was invited to tender his resignation as a member of the Fishery. Duprey did not reply to the resulting letter. On 18 July the new Secretary wrote to Duprey stating he was calling a meeting to consider whether they should accept his cheque. At the meeting at the Wool Exchange on 27 July they decided to accept it, though they asked dark questions of their solicitor regarding poachers (Duprey") and resolved to summon a meeting for creating a new rule for expelling members (Duprey?).
At the Special General Meeting of 17 August, two resolutions were unanimously carried:
'1. That the members have power by a majority of votes of those present at any general meeting to exclude any member from the Fishery, and that the member so
excluded shall from the date of that meeting cease to be a member.
'2. In clear cases of poaching, prosecution of offenders should be resorted to.'
At the AGM of 5 July 1883 a resolution was carried “That in accordance with Rule 15, Mr Duprey be now balloted for. This was done and by a majority of votes Mr Duprey was declared to be no longer a member of the Fishery.” Duprey may have been ambitious and misguided, but he was made of stern stuff. He now took his expulsion to court in an action, Duprey v Cousens and Others. The members decided not to defend it, and in compliance with the order of the Court he was reinstated as a member at the AGM of July 1884. He then appeared at the 1885 AGM, not quietly and humbly, but 'commenced to read out a statement as to an alleged irregularity in the admission of new members and other matters. He was, however, ruled out of order by the Chairman.'
The Duprey epic had a happy ending. At the AGM of 1889 it was recorded: “A cordial vote of thanks to Mr Henry P. Duprey for his handsome gift of cases of preserved fish to be placed in the Fishery House at St Margaret's was passed.”
This generous gesture paved the way for his final rehabilitation when in 1890 at the AGM he was elected to the Management Committee. He was a prolific fisherman. Two of his best catches were seven jack and thirty brace of roach, weight 341b in the New River in August 1869 and 321b of roach in Chadwell Spring in November
the same year. He also had 171b of roach from Six Gates Pool on each of two successive days in March 1884. Like his predecessor, Henry Wix, he was predominantly a coarse fisherman, particularly keen on pike fishing. He caught only one recorded trout (a three pounder!), and that on his penultimate visit to the water. On his last outing in 1892 he caught a jack of 21b and 1 brace of
Perch.
He resigned as a member in 1894 and was to die in retirement in Southampton in 1921. Independent to the end Henry was to deface his 1911 household census return by bolding scribbling across the form “I believe this inquisition is to be used to further Socialism.”
THE FISHERY HOUSE
JOHN Schott Cousens continued as Secretary for five years. He and his brother, Arthur, were redoubtable fishermen. John landed the biggest chub ever caught
on the Fishery waters – 4 1/2lb - whilst his brother is presumably destined to hold the trout record forever - a monster of l2 3/4lb! The White House or Hut where he
caught the fish on the New River still exists at the very top of the stretch above the New River Head, and can be seen on the east side of the. Hertford-Ware motor viaduct as one travels towards London. Cousens was succeeded by Francis Howse whose father, Thomas, had previously been Treasurer and Lessee of Amwell Magna.
Apart from recording everything in an immaculate copperplate hand, Francis Howse did the Club an invaluable service not only by a history of the fishing rights but also producing a fascinating record of notable fish taken by Club members from 1851 to 1871 based on the diary - now lost - of keeper Robert Brown. His outstanding achievement, however, was the building of the new Fishery House.
Brown's Cottage had been built by the New River Company in 1839 for the use of Frances Chantrey’s keeper, the Fishery House was to become an extension. The only picture we have of the cottage before this is the one by Emerson in The Compleat Angler entitled 'Keeper's Cottage, Amwell Magna Fishery'. Although Robert Brown was not the first keeper the cottage has always been synonymous with his name and was, of course, described in the 1866 Field article. By 1887, the members were thinking of having some accommodation of their own and this was originally conceived as alterations and additions to the cottage. On 24 August, the New River Company agreed to grant Francis Howse a repairing lease of the property for twenty-one years at a rental of £30 a year provided a sum of £250 was expended. It was decided to increase the subscription to 8 guineas and to authorise the Secretary to raise the monies and furnish the new buildings. The accommodation consisted of the clubroom on the lower floor with fireplace, and lockers for members. Upstairs were two bedrooms which were used by anglers staying overnight. An old iron bedstead remains in one of the bedrooms, a forlorn reminder of those more spacious days.
The question of just who could stay at the cottage caused some controversy in 1909 when William Crusha asked for an 'exception to the Rule against ladies sleeping
at the Fishery cottage in favour of his wife'. It was unanimously resolved 'That the Committee regret that they cannot see their way to grant Mr Crusha's request feeling
that to do so would be to establish a precedent which might easily cause considerable trouble and unpleasantness in the future besides being possibly an inconvenience to members generally.' The Fishery House no doubt continued to be used extensively as long as the cottage was occupied by the keeper. Certainly between 1953 and 1959 members could obtain refreshments. A pot of tea in 1955 cost the equivalent of 3p and poached egg on toast 4p! Michael Hordern refers to this in his Preface.
The future of the Cottage became a problem from 1971 when the keeper left and the Lea Conservancy made the weir automatic. From then on the old river was to be maintained as an amenity and not for drainage. Efforts to let the house failed and a year later the club trophies and records were removed for safety. The keeper's cottage
was boarded up (against vandals) and though the Fishery House was still available its days of glory were at an end. The cottage began to deteriorate and a keeper and his
family had gazed out for the last time from the bedroom window across the verdant meadows to Amwell church.
THE RIVER KEEPERS
Keepers’ Cottage was continuously occupied by a succession of keepers from when it was first built in 1839, the first of whom was Thomas Litchfield. In 1852 Thomas was being paid sixteen weeks at £1:Is (£1.05) and thirty-six weeks at 15s (75p). He also had things like water boots provided - £3 14s 4d (£3.72p), a considerable sum of money. The keeper Morton accompanied The Field correspondent in 1866 on his tour of the Fishery.
Robert Brown from whom the cottage eventually took its name was to become keeper in 1853 when at the AGM the club resolved to 'appoint a Keeper to protect the Fishery'. Brown received a guinea a week and a £5 gratuity every July. His main duties, as can be seen from the Rules for the Guidance of the Keeper drawn up by Henry Duprey, were to check both members and their visitors and to ensure that correct baits were used. He was paid extra for jobs such as repairing roach stands and eel traps and decorating the cottage. The Fishery memorandum books started in 1841 continued to be kept by him until his death in 1880, Henry Duprey attending the funeral. An unfortunate incident occurred when Hankins who rented the field locked the gates against the funeral cortege. Henry Duprey was furious and wrote to the landowner and Club member, Mr Mylne. The regard that the Club had for Robert Brown is shown among other things by the payment of his doctor's bills during his last illness. His family still have a pewter tankard in their possession inscribed HCW (Henry Wix).
Brown was succeeded by his son, Arthur, who must have been well acquainted with his duties. He had already achieved one distinction when a boy by catching a Tench of 2lb 60z, the first Tench ever known to be taken at the Fishery. Like his father, he was allowed to rent the 'Cutting Field' - two acres at £1 15s (£1.75) per acre. Perry Duprey presented him with a new Keeper's Book which he religiously kept from 1881 to 1902. Apart from recording members' catches, he kept a yearly summary of eels caught and a list of the club members to whom they were sent. As many as 150 eels were taken in a year and the largest recorded weighed 41b. His wages remained at a
guinea a week for the whole of his twenty-one years. He was paid extra for weed cutting, clearing the Overshott, etc, his total income for 1895-96 being £67 19s IOd
(£67.99p). A bill for £2 15s (£2.75) in 1896-7 was for 'Brown's Uniform'. By 1885 he was assisted by a second keeper, Rock, who was the lock keeper at Ware Tumbling Bay. In 1900-01 clothing costing £4 IOs (£4.50) for him is recorded as 'Rock's Livery'. Rock's wages were 12s (60p) a week.
A small army of river watchers rewarded with gratuities of a guinea supported the keepers. One has to remember that around 1900, as the map on page 2 shows,
the Club's New River waters alone stretched from New River Head at Hertford to Hoddesdon, and even further to Cheshunt by 1910. Gatherco1e, whose cottage was at
New River Head, was adroit at catching herons. Poor John Wells of Ware Tumbling Bay fell in the river in a fit and was drowned.
Arthur Brown retired in 1902 and was succeeded by Ernest Gaunt. Gaunt and Rock kept a separate record of trout caught for the year, Gaunt's beautifully written in copperplate and Rock's barely literate.
With two uniformed keepers and at least fourteen river watchers this was the peak as far as looking after the water was concerned. The reason is not difficult to find. The cost of living certainly up to 1914 was lower than in 1831. Labour charges were minimal in a way it is difficult for us to understand today. In 1914, however, in view of ' the poor sport obtained of recent years in the Old River, the Committee had decided to terminate the tenancy of the Weir Cottage, Ware', and terminate Rock's services but 'in as much as he is an old servant of the Fishery, he be granted an allowance to be such as will not debar him from claiming the full pension under the
Government's new Old Age Pension Scheme'.
Keeper Gaunt had instituted and run the Fishery's own trout hatcheries and now he had responsibility for all the Club's waters. He was a keen fisherman himself and the photograph (page 21) owned by his grandson, and kindly lent to us, shows him fishing the Club waters probably about 1914. Bill Brown whose father was a
member before the First World War speaks of how 'Gaunt, the bailiff, taught me to cast at the age of twelve and we often stayed in the cottage which was all quite delightful, and I well remember Mrs Gaunt's cooking'. By 1923 his wages had increased to £115s (£1.75). He was still keeper in 1930, but the records are meagre and by 1938 he had been replaced by one Salter. During the war the days of the full-time keeper came to an end, and the last to live in the cottage until 1971 was Fox.
INTO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
THOUGH from the beginning members had fly fished and caught trout, chief sport in the nineteenth century revolved around the jack fishing. Indeed, from the earliest Fishery documents between 1855 and 1869 only the annual catches of jack are recorded. The peak year was the 1860-61 season when 951/2 brace were caught. In 187.7 E. W. Roberts asked if the Fishery could be improved as he wished to catch fish and failed to do so! He suggested that all jack be destroyed and replaced with trout. Mr Tyler, an old member, said trout had been put in years ago with little success. Perry Duprey thought members preferred jack fishing and little could be done as the water was too low in the summer for trout to thrive well.
Although some fishermen caught big trout in May and June, they also happily landed mixed bags of roach, perch, dace and chub and, earlier, gudgeon. Many roach were caught up to 1900 but, surprisingly, the largest re- corded was only 11/2lb. A few bream made their appearance in the 1890s. Undoubtedly jack, chub, roach, perch
and dace continued to be caught in some quantities but by 1900 the whole emphasis of the Fishery was changing.
Even as early as 1855 some sort of experiment in rearing trout at the Fishery seems to have taken place. The Club has two 5-inch trout in a case captioned Trout artificially Spawned. It states 'The trout from which these fish were spawned were caught on 18 January 1855 when the spawn was deposited in the boxes. On the fiftieth day
the young fry appeared. Some of the trout thus spawned which found their way to the ditches arrived at greater size; but these fish when taken from the boxes were put in
a small place in the keeper's garden and are preserved to show the size in exactly six months from their first sign of vitality.'
Then, in 1882, Dr Tibbets was suggesting that the practicality or otherwise of trout cultivation be investigated. In March, 1885, for the first time 200 trout were put in
Four Gates Pool (Cottage Pool). In that year, twenty-nine trout were caught. In the same year it was agreed that no worms be used in any part of the Fishery from I April to 30 June. The first step towards fly fishing only had been taken. In 1887 1,300 yearling trout were purchased. From then on trout were regularly ordered from the Lauderdale Fish Hatchery, the Norton and Harrietsham Fisheries and, in 1919, from Berkshire Trout Farm, an association destined to last over fifty years. 650 trout in 1907 cost £45 15s (£45.75) and were delivered to St Margaret's railway
station in twenty-four cans. The charge for the man to deliver the cans from Harrietsham was 10s (50p)!
Despite this stocking, jack caught far outnumbered trout up to 1899 as can be seen from the Annual Records in Appendix I. By 1896 it was clear that the strategy was
to stock the New River with trout and the Lea with coarse fish. Three years later, 300 trout were placed in the New River whilst 760 jack and perch were introduced into the Lea. In 1901 rainbow trout were put in the New River for the first time; 100 were introduced together with 300 farios (brown) trout. R. L. Escombe was the first member to catch a rainbow, a fish 5lb, in May 1901 in the New River. He killed a jack of71b on the same day.
From now on the interest in jack fishing declined and trout fishing became pre-eminent. The years up to the Great War were golden ones for Amwell Magna. In
1906-07 and 1908-09, 124 and 112 fish respectively were caught. Weights were remarkable; In 1906-07 the 124 trout weighed 3471b, an average of almost 31b. The best fish were 9~lb, 711b, 71b, 61/21b, 61b, 53/4lb, two of 51/21b and
five of 51b. In 1910 John Allen caught a 101/2 pounder in Amwell Tank on the New River.
In 1902 the suggestion made by Dr Tibbets for the Fishery to breed its own fish was finally adopted. Keeper Gaunt was furnished with the necessary troughs and tanks to enable him to hatch out trout ova. The following year no fish were purchased, but Keeper Gaunt was given enough equipment to hatch out 10,000 ova. By 1907 fish
were again being purchased because the Club had nine miles of the New River to stock apart from the Lea. The Fishery continued to breed its own trout at least until
1930.
Many trout were still being caught on live minnow or by spinning, but a growing body of members began to fly fish. They were led by John Hammond who invariably
fished fly only and who, incidentally, gave the Fishery thousands of trout over the years. 1902-03 found Hammond, Pechey and Harrington catching twelve trout
on fly including eight on Mayfly. In 1904-05 ten were caught on Mayfly. Harrington had a 21/4lb trout at Amwell Marsh which took his Yellow Dun, a fly dating
back to Dame Juliana Berner's Treatise of Fishing with an Angle (1496). (The author tied some up from Ronald's dressing, yellow dun hackle and light starling wing. The
descendants of Harrington's trout at Amwell Marsh failed to recognise the fly and thus spoiled the romantic fisherman's tale he had planned to tell!
By 1912 thirty-four out of eighty-eight trout were caught on fly, one on a Silver Sedge. The previous year John Hammond had proposed that from 14 April to 14
September trout fishing should be fly only. A motion was carried with the qualification that live minnow could still be used. In 1922 the Lea was fly only between I May and 30 June. Finally, by 1937, apart from a few stretches at
the river extremities, the Lea and the New River became fly only in the trout season. Mention has been made of members catching fish on the Mayfly. Bill Brown again,
reminiscing of the pre-World War I period: 'In those days the Mayfly hatch was something to be wondered at, and I an assure you there was no lack offish and very sizeable at that.' Today, there is still a hatch of Mayfly but not of those proportions.
In 1906 Francis Howse resigned as Secretary after nineteen years. He was associated with the Fishery for thirty-three years and his father before him. His father caught
the biggest jack ever, 15lb, and he the largest dace of 1lb. How well they must have
known the water! Francis Howse had seen the complete transformation of the Fishery from jack to trout during his time in office. His administration was meticulous, and it is due to him and Perry Duprey that we know so much about Amwell Magna.
He was replaced by Frederick Laurie, a local, who lived at Stanstead Hall, Stanstead Abbots and continued in the tradition of his predecessors until 1914.
WORLD WAR I AND AFTER
THE Fishery had only two Secretaries between the wars: W. F. Parker from 1918-24, and G. Rogers from 1924-41. Unfortunately, the Fishery minutes and fishing records are missing for the whole of their tenure of office. The Fishery ceased to be stocked during the Great War and membership declined for obvious reasons. In 1916, the Club introduced differential subscriptions whereby the Old River alone could be fished for 3 guineas. The flat rate subscription of 10 guineas was resumed in 1919. The Fishery recommenced breeding its own fish, regularly ordering 6,000 trout ova a year. By 1938 the Club still fished the whole of the New River from Hertford to Cheshunt as well as the Lea from Ware to Stan stead Abbots. At least nineteen members still lived in London with such prestigious addresses as the Junior Carlton Club, Wimpole Street, Grosvenor Gardens, Kew and South Kensington. The last stocking before the outbreak of World War II was 300 fish of 13 inches and 750 of 6 inches. When the war began, the Metropolitan Water Board terminated the Fishery's lease of the New River on security grounds, but the Club retained the Lea. In 1941, during the grimmest days of the war, the Club was irrepressibly trying to regain the fishing rights of the New River. At that time, the danger of Fifth Columnists was very much in the public mind, and the Club wrote to the MWB naming an Admiral, two
Lieutenant-Colonels and a Major as members, arguing that officers of such senior rank not only deserved some recreational fishing but would protect the river against
Fifth Columnists! This was refused as was a further request in 1944.
AFTER WORLD WAR II
THE efforts of Walter Grounds, who had succeeded Rogers as Secretary, to regain the New River were partially successful in 1946 when the MWB offered the Fishery the stretch between Marble Gauge, Chadwell to Rye Common Pumping Station including Chadwell Spring, for £140 a year, but the Club was warned that additional chlorination might be necessary in the future. After some demur concerning the high rent and the shortness of the stretch - 3! miles - the Club accepted. The New River was accordingly stocked with 500 yearlings and 500 two-year-olds and fishing recommenced. A great debate now arose over whether the New River fishing should be retained because of the high rent, the insecurity of tenure and the MWB's reserved right to chlorinate. Despite the resistance of some members, and the membership was only fourteen at that time, the fateful decision was taken to cease negotiations with the
Board and the l lti-year-old connection with the New River was severed. It was a bad decision. One can only conclude that few members had any idea that from before the turn of the century most of the best trout fishing had come from the New River.
Thus the Club moved into the post-war era with the task of turning the old Lea into a good trout fishery. The new secretary, Derek Tipping, devised a five-year plan which envisaged extensive stocking, a griddled stop below Six Gates to contain the fish and the planting of 500,000 Mayfly ova upstream of the Cottage and above Six Gates. The grid was built by W. H. Marley who later became Secretary of the Club. Subsequently it was partly destroyed by floods. Various attempts made to repair it had limited success. In 1970, Colonel Neville Blair, the then Secretary, investigated an ingenious project for an electrical barrier to be installed near the old grid to confine the trout, but the idea was reluctantly abandoned as too costly and because the Lea Conservancy would not agree on safety grounds. The Mayfly ova were duly planted but the results were never recorded.
In the five-year period to 1952, 2,200 trout had been introduced to the water and 880 recorded as caught. This was a good percentage (40 per cent). However, after an
incredible season in 1948 when 349 were caught, members were disappointed by three meagre years from 1950 to 1952 when only 60, 50 and 71 respectively were taken. An attempt was made in 1957 to prolong the fly fishing season by stocking with 185 grayling. Regrettably, this did not appear to be successful although Peter Hodgson caught a very fine fish of 2lb 2oz in April 1963.
Previously, in 1957, the Fishery changed its policy of a single stocking before the season began to two stockings in April and May and, subsequently, in 1969, three stockings became the rule. On average, about 450 to 500 browns and rainbows were introduced to most parts of the river, decreasingly at Ware because of poaching.
Much discussion was generated about their respective merits. The result of this stocking was that in the ten year period from 1954 to 1963 2,255 trout were caught, an average of 225! fish a year. 1962, with 358, has never been surpassed. The days of the big fish may have been over but more trout were caught in those ten years than from 1883 to 1914 and from 1947 to 19-3. It is fair to say that the old days when a few fishermen caught a few big trout had been replaced by more fishermen a catching
many more trout albeit not so large.
In September 1965, a factory at Hertford allowed 60 gallons of concentrated cyanide solution to enter the foul sewer and the river was polluted from Ware downwards.
Over 2,500 fish died, mainly minnows, and the club was concerned that its trout still in the river at Ware at the end of the season would have died. Amazingly. in fishermen's eyes, there was no prosecution. The incident prompted the Fishery to rejoin the Anglers Co-operative Association. The Club had previously been a member of the Central Association of Anglers as early as 1887. The offending firm ultimately identified itself and gave the Fishery a grant of £100 in 1969 towards restocking.
The next decade was probably the most critical in Amwell Magna's long history, but fortunately two good Secretaries, Douglas Smith and Neville Blair under the wise chairmanship of Charles Newcomb saw the Club through the crises. There were problems with keepering. stocking, fishing rights, gravel winning, flood alleviation
schemes and plans for the Lea Valley National Park.
Labour costs meant that the Fishery had to rely on the weir keepers at Ware and Amwell Marsh on a casual basis to do the kind of duties that two full-time keepers
and fourteen river watchers had carried out in 1914. At least one keeper at Ware was so unreliable that simultaneously with giving evidence in a poaching prosecution
for the Club he was selling fishing tickets to the general public on the side and supplying local hostelries with out-of season trout! Even this source of labour dried up. The new weir keeper at Ware employed by British Waterways wanted nothing to do with the Club and denied access to the river through his garden. The Flood
Alleviation Scheme of 1974 resulted in a fixed crest weir at the cottage which did not require a weir keeper. In anticipation Fox, then weir keeper, left the job in March
1971, and the old cottage had had its last tenant after 140 years. The emergency weir and the sluice along the mill- stream into the old river were blocked up and a new fixed crest weir built at Six Gates to drop the water back into the river. Thus the character of the Fishery was altered. The Fishery's very roots seemed under siege at this time. In 1970 the Berkshire Trout Farm which had supplied the Club with stock fish for fifty-one years was unable to offer any more brown trout because of the out-
break of UDN. Then, a year later, the Fishery held its AGM at the Great Eastern Hotel, Liverpool Street, for the last time after sixty-four years. It was a practical
recognition that the power base of the Club membership had shifted from London to the local area. Henceforth, the meetings were to be at the Hertford Constitutional
Club.
As early as 1945 the meadowland known as Sheepcote Farm on the west side of the river from below Six Gates up to the Buntingford Railway Bridge had been sold to
Thames Grit and Aggregates, and in the mid-60s gravel winning operations began. The Club had to fight even to maintain a fifty feet margin of land along the main river.
In 1967 the Club was dismayed to find the gravel workings extended to east of the river above the Ash. The whole landscape was altered and the peaceful meadow
replaced by lakes of water and the metallic clamour of the insatiable gravel winning machinery. The feeder stream in which trout had bred was obliterated. About this time
the Club's thoughts turned nostalgically to its old New River fishing, but on discovering that it was Amwell Magna and not the Board which had terminated negotiations in 1947 it decided not to proceed.
Previous efforts to obtain a stretch of the River Ver and a gravel pit had been abortive. The shadow of a takeover by the Lea Valley National Park, the insecurity of a
yearly lease and miserable catches from 1973 to 1975 brought the Fishery to its nadir. The 46 fish caught in 1975 was the lowest total since 1947. Neville Blair who
had worked prodigiously through the difficult years had to resign and his successor lasted nine months!
The advent of Roy Collins in 1975 saw the Fishery' prospects improve tremendously. The Ware stretch had been troublesome for many years because of poaching and disputes over fishing rights. A new arrangement with the landowner relinquished the Club's rights from the Railway Bridge to Ware. In return the Club were to have
exclusive use of the east bank of the Lea from the Railway Bridge to the confluence of Ash and Lea and. additionally, the north bank of the Ash from its mouth to
the road bridge. The east bank of the Millstream was also made available. This was in addition to the usual right on the Lea from the Railway Bridge to the Navigation.
The work on the weirs was at last completed and 19r saw a stocking of 500 rainbows, browns not being available because of the drought in 1976. Three thousand
coarse fish were cleared from the river by the Thames Water Authority.
THE 21ST CENTUARY.
And so it remained until 2005 when everything was to change.
Established in 1999 English Partnerships was a government agency setup to stimulate regeneration throughout England. To achieve this one of its primary objectives was to selloff surplus land or property belonging to other government departments and agencies. In March of 2005 a surprising entry found it way on English Partnerships property disposal list, it read “Hertfordshire, the Amwell Magna Fishery.” The fishery was to be sold.
After hurried discussions with our landlord, the Environment Agency it soon became clear that following numerous changes of ownership, from private estates to private companies, from one government agency to another, after acts of parliament and over a century and a half of time one important document was missing, the original Deed of 1837 selling the fishery to the New River Company, ownership might be difficult to prove.
It was at that point that we began to appreciate just how invaluable Francis Howes’ history was to become. Months of research by the author followed, sifting through seemly endless historical archives, hundreds of feet of files and a complete legal chain of ownership was uncovered and established, including the missing Deed.
What followed was almost five years of heroic effort by fellow committee members and the Club’s solicitor Brain Bennett who was having to grapple with the legal complexities of proving and registering over one thousand years of ownership.
And yet it was with great pride, at the Club’s AGM of 2010 that our chairman Huw Williams was able to announce to the members, who until that point had been unaware of what was taking place; that just a few days earlier, on January 8th we had purchased the fishery, we were now the owners of both the riparian and the fishing rights in 2.5 miles of the River Lea. It had only taken 169 years.
Like a lot of rivers throughout southern England the post war years have brought about a great deal of pressure and the river has suffered badly, through a lack of water environmental damage had become widespread and the river had begun to suffer from eutrophication. With the help and support of the Environment Agency that situation is now in reverse and flows are returning to traditional levels. Our long-term brown trout breeding programme continues and the 2015 season saw more young, wild juvenile brown trout begin caught in the river than at any point in living memory. The last one of the season was on September 27th 2015, a vibrant 12” brownie caught by out Treasure Simon Surtees just minutes before the start of a committee meeting. Some it would appear have their priorities in the right order.
The future of the fishery would seem assured, the river is returning to health and we have plans to extend our brown trout breading programme to an area of the river who’s natural population has been extinct for many years. Membership is strong, active and engaged and on June 24th 2016 we will host dinner in the glorious surroundings of the FlyFishers’ Club dinning room celebrating 175 years of the Amwell Magna Fishery.
And yet none of this would have been possible without the effort, passion and commitment of so many generations of people over so many year, from Bob Dear and Ken Ward in the 21st century to William Shackell, Henry Wix and Henry Duprey in the 19th their dedication and loyalty and has made all of this possible.
In his foreword to the original edition of this book Michael Horden the actor reflected upon his time as a member of the Amwell Magna Fishery during the 1950s and asked “Can one, I wonder, still cast to a rising trout in running water (none of your reservoirs) nearer to London than at Amwell Magna?” I am pleased to say Michael one still can, one still can.
Feargal Sharkey. 2016.