The Flyfishers' Club is a gentlemen's club in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

which was founded in 1884 for enthusiasts of

flyfishing Fly fishing is an angling method that uses a light-weight lure—called an artificial fly—to catch fish. The fly is cast using a fly rod, reel, and specialized weighted line. The light weight requires casting techniques significantly diffe ...

. In 1894, the club had more than three hundred members, while in 1984 this had risen to between eight and nine hundred.

History

The club's library has been described as one of the finest of its kind in

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; it has a collection of around three thousand works on the subject of fishing, including works such as the successful ''

Floating Flies and How to Dress Them ''Floating Flies and How to Dress Them'' - ''A Treatise on the Most Modern Methods of Dressing Artificial Flies for Trout and Grayling with Full Illustrated Directions and Containing Ninety Hand-Coloured Engravings of the Most Killing Patterns Tog ...

'' and ''Dry Fly Fishing in Theory and Practice'' by F.M. Halford, one of the club's co-founders. Many well-known anglers are club members, and have contributed signed copies of their publications to the library. According to Basil Field, the founding president, the original prospectus described the club's purposes as follows: :"To bring together gentlemen devoted to fly-fishing generally. :"To afford a ready means of communication between those interested in this delightful art. :"To provide in the reading-room, in addition to all the usual newspapers, periodicals, &c., catalogues, and books, foreign as well as English, having reference to fishing, particularly to fly-fishing so as to render the club a means of obtaining knowledge about new fishing places and vacancies for rods, and making it a general medium of information on all points relating to the art." The club publishes a long-standing magazine, the ''Flyfishers' Journal''; writers included G. E. M. Skues, who has been described as "one of the greatest

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', '' Salmo'' and '' Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salm ...

fishermen that ever lived." Skues dedicated his 1921 book, '' The Way of a Trout with the Fly'' to The Flyfishers' Club "in gratitude for many happy hours and some priceless friends". In 1938, a debate was held at the club on Skues's controversial theories about the use of

nymphs A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

in fly-fishing, which led him to publish ''Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout''. The club also has a museum of fishing

memorabilia A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

which holds a rod used by David Garrick and a case of

flies Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced m ...

reputed to have belonged to Izaak Walton. Other items include a rod box originally exhibited in

The Great Exhibition The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took p ...

The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around th ...

in 1851 and a pirn (used as an alternative to a

fishing reel A fishing reel is a hand- cranked reel used in angling to wind and stow fishing line, typical mounted onto a fishing rod, but may also be used to retrieve a tethered arrow when bowfishing. Modern recreational fishing reels usually have fitting ...

) which belonged to the "Ettrick Sheppherd"

James Hogg James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a friend of many ...

Premises

The Flyfishers’ has had a number of homes. It had no permanent home of its own for the first four years of its existence, but opened its first rooms of its own in the Arundel Hotel in 1888, then moved to No. 8 Haymarket in 1889 and remained there until 1907, when it moved to

Swallow Street Swallow Street is a small street in the West End of London, running north from Piccadilly. It is about long. History The street was previously much longer and stretched as far north as Oxford Street. The first section of the street was built ...

, Piccadilly. It stayed there until destroyed in

The Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

in 1941. Since then it has leased premises in several other London clubs. Today, the Club leases rooms in the

Savile Club The Savile Club is a traditional London gentlemen's club founded in 1868. Located in fashionable and historically significant Mayfair, its membership, past and present, include many prominent names. Changing premises Initially calling itself t ...

, 69 Brook Street in central London.

Notable members

Basil Field Basil (, ; ''Ocimum basilicum'' , also called great basil, is a culinary herb of the family Lamiaceae (mints). It is a tender plant, and is used in cuisines worldwide. In Western cuisine, the generic term "basil" refers to the variety also kn ...

* R. B. Marston * Frederic M. Halford * Henry Batten Huddleston * Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon * G. E. M. Skues * Francis Francis * Arthur Ransome *

Eric Taverner The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* ain ...

Hugh Falkus Hugh Falkus (15 May 1917 – 30 March 1996) was a British writer, filmmaker and presenter, World War II pilot and angler. In an extremely varied career, he is perhaps best known for his seminal books on angling, particularly salmon and sea trout ...

* Donald Overfield * Charles Sinclair, chairman of Associated British Foods. *

Richard Walker Richard Walker, Rick, Ricky, or Dick Walker may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Richard Walker (baritone) (1897–1989), English singer and actor Law and politics * Richard Walker (MP) (1784–1855), British Member of Parliament for Bury, 1832 ...

* William Daniel Its current patron is

Charles, Prince of Wales Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to a ...

Notes

References

*Anonymous, ''The Book of the Flyfishers' Club, 1884-1934'' (Croydon: Croydon Advertiser Printing Works, 1934) *Jack Chance and Julian Paget (ed.), ''The Flyfishers’: An Anthology to mark the Centenary of The Flyfishers’ Club 1884–1984'' (1984) *Ken Robson (ed.), ''Flyfishers’ Progress''

External links