Figure 1.-- This William Morris Grundy shows three men and a boy preparing for a fishing expedition in 1855. He took quite a few photographs of boys and men fishing.

Fishing was a very differnt mtter in Englnd than in America. Virttually all boys gished in rural America. In fact the poorer a family was the more likely the boys were to fish. Fish helped feed the family.At the time peasant boys were commonly unable to fish on the lord's estate, at least since Norman times. We are not sure about earlier periods. English streans were full of Atlantic salmon, but they were commonly reserved for the lords of the estates. When aristocratic boys were sent away from home to be trained to be knights, they first became page boys. They had reading, writing, and numeracy lessons. They also had sports which trained them to use the weapons of combat. Sword fighting and charging with a lance. The reading and writing teacher was often a Monk who also taught strategy games such as chess. One lesson they taught page boys was the art of fishing. I believe right from the dawn of history fishing has been mainly male activity. However the Queen Mother (wife of Gerorge VI) was a good at this sport. There are lots of photographs of her in fishing for salmon on her Scottish estate at Balmoral. Fisdhing was not all that common in the 20th century. In part becuse England was so heavily urbanized. And even in the countryside you can not fish everywhere, but there are public waters that can be fished. Anothrr problem was pollution, an issue only seriouly addressed after World War II.

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Created: 9:55 AM 3/10/2022
Last updated: 9:55 AM 3/10/2022