ROBERT BLAKEY 



ANGLER, AUTHOR, PROFESSOR 



So recently as the Diamond Jubilee Year of Her 

 Majesty Queen Victoria, a query appeared in the 

 Field, inviting some obliging correspondent to furnish 

 a few leading facts respecting the career of Robert 

 Blakey. If any reply was made, it was never published. 

 This did not surprise me, for he is one of our angling 

 authors whom you seldom hear mentioned as a per- 

 sonality. Blakey's Angling has always been known 

 and read, and will yet be read, for its strong common 

 sense, practical knowledge of the sport, and distinct 

 literary style. Yet singularly little is known of the 

 man. It is my pleasure, therefore, to preface this new 

 edition of a familiar work with a sketch of its (in a 

 measure) unfamiliar author, so that the man himself 

 may be known to the generation which has matured 

 since he rested from his labours. 



And, in truth, the story is well worth the telling. 

 The life of Robert Blakey is most interesting ; I know 

 of no more sterling example of the self-educated man, 

 of a laborious and industrious life, of an onward and 

 upward career from a start most humble, and of triumph 

 over difficulties. He was the son of a mechanic, born 

 on 18th May 1795, at Morpeth, and his father died at 

 the all too premature age of twenty-two, when the child 

 was just nine months old. Some of his intelligence he 

 must have inherited, for Robert Blakey phre invented 

 a water clock, which was a public curiosity in his native 



