ANTIQUITY OF WHITEBAIT. 279 



information relative to the first introduction of white- 

 bait as a general food. An ancestor of his, Kobert 

 Cannon, " invented" whitebait in 1780, and for many- 

 years had been the only fisherman in the trade. The 

 following is Mr. J. H. Cannon's account, which is now 

 historical : 



''It may be interesting to know who really was the 

 originator of the now extensive ' Whitebait Fisheries ' ; 

 I therefore, in justice^to the memory of my predecessors, 

 deem it my duty to assert, and can incontrovertibly 

 prove, that my grandfather, Mr. Eichard Cannon, Thames 

 fisherman, of Blackwall, was the first and only man 

 who, in the year 1780, brought that delicate fish (to which 

 he gave the name of whitebait), before the notice of the 

 hotel and tavern keepers at Blackwall and Greenwich, 

 at which places the first whitebait dinners were served. 



" For some years he was the only one in the trade, 

 as he had serious obstacles to overcome, from the inter- 

 ference of the Thames Conservancy, who forbade the 

 fish to be caught, under the impression that it was the 

 fry of herrings, shad, &c., until, eventually, my father, 

 Mr. Eichard Thomas Cannon, only son of the above, 

 attended before the then Lord Mayor, and proved to the 

 complete satisfaction of his Lordship ' whitebait ' to be 

 a distinct species of fish, and not the fry of any other, 

 however similar in appearance." 



* I am reminded by Dr. Day, late Inspector of Fisheries in 

 India, that Pennant in his British Zoology, 1776, mentions white- 

 bait as follows : " During the month of July there appear in the 

 Thames near Blackwall and Greenwich innumerable multitudes of 

 small fish which are known to the Londoners by the name of 

 whitebait. They are esteemed very delicious when fried with fine 

 flour, and occasion, during the season, a vast resort of the lower 

 order of epicures to the taverns contiguous to the places they are 

 taken at." 



