Who was catching fish in Hertfordshire 200 years ago?

My attention has been drawn to the above news item that appeared in the Courier (presumably the London Courier) in 1816 and was later recorded in Kirby's Wonderful and Scientific Museum (Volume 6, 1820 - available as Google ebook) and later the story was repeated in the Guinness Book of Records (19th edition) in 1972. The current world record is just over 40lbs.

This immediately raised two questions which some of you might be able to help answer.

• The first is who actually caught this magnificent fish - and where one might find the evidence, as the above tantalizing news story, with no name mentioned, is typical of the snippets of news in the slim papers that were being published in the early 19th century.
• The other is a more general question - are there any records of other interesting sized fish caught in Hertfordshire in the early 19th century, and who was involved. Clearly there was a significant interest in fishing as the following 1815 advert for Rickmansworth Park Manor points out it has an excellent Trout fishery and while the advert does not name the river it would have been the Colne, a few miles downstream from Watford.

Behind the Scenes Activity (Early May 2014)

In addition to the changes announced in the Newsletter there is always a lot going on behind the scenes. The following refer to the first two weeks in May.

Post Cards

New or improved images

unless otherwise stated a high resolution image is provided

• St Leonards, Bengeo: New coloured Picture of church - (separate page set up for church)
• Tallow Works Fire, Bernards Heath:  Greatly improved image added and linked to publisher
• Street View, Buckland: New picture including school children
• River Colne: Coloured picture of Five Arches Railway Bridge replaces monochrome version
• James Dickson, St Albans:  2014 photograph of his memorial vault in St Peter's Churchyard
• Hill End Hospital, St Albans: 1905 picture of Nurses taken by Montiville Evans from St Albans museum collection.
• Grimston Grave, Tewin: Another image (no larger image available) of the collection of different views of this interesting grave.

Places

Minor Place Page updates

• Bayford House, Bayford: additional information on occupiers.
• Bedwell Park, Essendon: additional information on occupiers.
• Rye House, Hoddesdon: Link to history of the Rye House Tavern
• Hill End Hospital, St Albans: New dating information on post card

New Publisher Link Pages:

• John Bishop of Royston (Father & Son) John senior's father was an artist in a travelling theatre)
• Knight Brothers
• Mitchell & Watkins
• Montiville Evans of St Albans - including extensive biography

Help Desk

Minor Queries and other emails

• Advised Carol about the start of civil registration and suggested she would find details of the 1837 birth/baptism on familysearch.org.
• Advised Julie about a possible home for some old school magazines and a family bible
• The census (especially if mis-transcribed) can cause problems and I suggested reasons why Kathy was confused.
• Ev, a distant cousin, contacted me about an exchange of information about common ancestors. Unfortunately I did the research over 30 years ago on a computer which no longer exists. Part of the information is somewhere in boxes of computer listings buried in boxes at the back of the garage. ... ...
• I don't have time to give a full answer to every enquiry and where appropriate I give preference to people who live a long way from Hertfordshire. As Lesley lived only a few miles from an excellent Hertfordshire Library with more relevant resources than I have, I suggested that a visit to the library would be more appropriate.
• Contacted Dianne about the exhibition 'Bushey during the Great War' in August [Full details will be posted later]
• Ian has provided a new link to the online account The Railway comes to Tring

A number of the above involve new or updated links to/from related pages. In addition there are some other "draft updates" already online which will be notified later this month.

The Rivers of Hertfordshire

On the River Lea at Ware

Rivers

This web site contains a lot of photographs of river scenes, and in some cases more information on the rivers of Hertfordshire, but up until now there was no easy way to access this information directly. To correct this situation I have set up a "dummy" home page for rivers and linked to pictures and pages which describe the rivers. 

The rivers initially covered are the Beane, Chess, Colne, Gade, Hiz, Ivel, Lea, Mimram, Quin, Stort and Ver, with additional links to Elstree Reservoir, the Grand Union Canal and Wilstone Reservoir. As time allows the coverage  will be increased, and a map and text added to the home page.