Loan MS 127/1

Title in gold blocking to front board: 'Houghton Fishing Club'.

The Houghton Club (of Stockbridge, Hampshire) is a private fishing club founded in 1822. The first entry (by Edward Barnard, 16 July 1827) begins: 'The Houghton Fishing Club has now been established five years, and although the Book hitherto kept for registering the names of Members, the Regulations of the Club and the number and weight of Fish killed by each Individual is still continued, yet it is conceived that another volume may be added, not inappropriately, to our Piscatorial Records, for those voluntary contributions which either Pen or Pencil of our Members and Friends many enable them to add to our general stock.'

Thus, the volume comprises occasional entries in the form of drawings, verse, observations and anecdotes. Some material (including letters and photographs) has been adhered to album pages. In addition to a number of portraits (most in pencil) of Club members by Sir Francis Chantrey throughout the volume, there are several other drawings and sketches, including contributions by J. M. W. Turner (p. 52), Sir Edwin Landseer (pp. 96, 104, 116), George Jones (p. 114), Sir Francis Grant (pp. 117, 118), T. Tooke (p. 186), Frederick R. Lee (pp. 136, 168), Robert Seymour (p. 151), and Arthur Rackham (p. 208).

The two entries of most recent date are an illustrated letter (17 July 1913) from Arthur Rackham (adhered to p. 208), and a printed poem (also 1913) entitled 'The Plague of Flies' by Horace G Hutchinson (a cutting from Country Life adhered to p. 210).

There is a pocket on the inside back board containing the following unbound material:

• letter (7 June 1865) from Canon F. Beadon to Martin T. Smith, describing the founding of the Club - the first portion of the letter is published in Maxwell (1908), pp. 1-2;
• an undated note on James Harris, former Keeper of the Club, recording his memory of 'the arrival of the grayling';
• remarks (in typescript and fairhand copy) by Philip Norman regarding the edition of extracts by Maxwell (1908);
• a note (29 September 1866) from the Earl of Ducie with a cutting (adhered) from the Gloucester Chronicle regarding Canon Beadon as Canon in Residence at Wells Cathedral;
• 'Literal Translation from a French Newspaper of King George Salmon Fishing' (typescript, without date);
• portrait (lithograph) of Sir Francis Chantrey, by Thomas Fairland (after Henry Weekes), published by Marseille Middleton Holloway (1839).

For the facsimile copy (surrogate) see Loan MS 127/2.