HISTORY OF DECOYS. Sg 



Mr. James Smith, now living at Harwich, who states that his father and 

 grandfather before him were Decoymen at Great Oakley Hall. Mr. Smith 

 says that he has killed 36 dozen in one day, 100 dozen in one week, and 

 in one season 700 dozen wildfowl off this pool, though only an acre 

 in extent. It is said that the Decoy, while in working order, was very 

 lucrative to the owner, bringing in several hundred pounds a year. Its 

 pro-ximity, however, to the rival Decoy at Old Mose Hall, situated close 

 by, led to so much dispute between the Decoymen (each trying to decoy 

 the other's birds) that both pools were eventually given up. 



Mr. James Smith, above referred to, is the last remaining of the old 

 race of Essex Decoymen, and he not only worked the Great Oakley Hall 

 Decoy with much success, but in his youth the Marshhouse Decoy 

 (Mr. R. Page's) as well. 



Mr. Smith, though now eighty years of age, is a fine specimen of 

 an old Decoyman, and his recollections of Decoys and Decoying are 

 both accurate and interesting. He is, however, very poor, and has to 

 work hard for his living as a shoemaker ; although, when adorned with 

 the Corporation cocked hat, gold lace petticoats, and bearing the mace of 

 his Worship the Mayor of Harwich, he is very imposing, for he is still 

 upright as in his youth, and well over 6 ft. high. 



The following letter from Colonel Leathes (see Fritton Decoy), in 

 regard to old Mr. Smith and the Oakley Hall Decoy, is so good that 

 I cannot refrain from giving it in full, besides which it contains no little 

 information : — 



Great Oakley Hall Decoy. 



Letter from Colonel Leathes describing an interview with old Mr. Smitil 



" I have had a long conversation with old Mr. Smith, who was 

 the celebrated Decoyman on the Oakley Hall estate upwards of fifty 

 years ago. Smith appears, though now a man of eighty, to remember 

 everything in connection with the working of the Decoy very clearly. 

 He tells me his father began to employ him at the age of fourteen, 

 and that at that period the take of ducks was enormous, considering 

 the size of the Decoy pond. Oakley Decoy consisted of one acre only of 

 water ; it was circular, and fenced all round with a high wooden palisade, 



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