SOCIETIES OF LONDON AND THE PROVINCES. 9 



therefore, an imperfect history of the growth of the angling 

 clubs, due credit should be given to the leading Preservation 

 body, which exercises such an important control over the 

 interests of the great home river. It may therefore, at 

 this point, be a fair opportunity for a short description of 

 establishment and progress up to the present time. 



The Thames Angling Preservation Society was, I believe, 

 first established in the year 1838. Somewhere about that 

 time, a report was certainly promulgated to the effect 

 that "the Fisheries of the River Thames had of late 

 afforded so little sport, owing to incessant poaching and 

 the destruction of the young brood and spawn during the 

 fence seasons, that it was almost useless to attempt angling 

 in certain districts at all." Fortunately, that report found 

 its way to a sympathetic quarter, and it occurred to those 

 into whose hands it fell that if a proper representation of 

 the facts were made to the Lord Mayor of London (then 

 Sir John Cowan) he might probably be induced, in his 

 official capacity as Conservator of the River Thames, to 

 help those early pioneers of fish preservation in the course 

 they were endeavouring to take for the good alike of anglers 

 and the river itself Acting upon this view, a meeting was 

 convened on the 17th of March, 1838, and was afterwards 

 held at the " Bell Inn," Hampton. It was attended by the 

 following good anglers, most of whom, I am afraid, have 

 gone to that shadowy bourne, from which no angler, 

 however good he may have been, ever returns — Mr. Henry 

 Jephson, Mr. C. C. Clarke, Mr. Henry Perkins, Mr. W. H. 

 Whitebread, Mr. Edward Jesse, Mr. Richard Kerry, and Mr. 

 David Crole. These gentlemen having met, fully discussed 

 the important issues brought before them, and that meeting 

 was the groundwork upon which the present important work 

 of the Thames Angling Preservation Society was founded. 



