Fishing for contentment: the Bainbridge archive

The angling diaries of Robert Bainbridge offer a glimpse into fishing history and show how a life spent by the river can offer lessons for the future

- Written by Chris McCully • Photography by Richard Faulks

ROBERT BAINBRIDGE (1839-1914) was a typical sportsman of his period.

Based in York, he fished the Rye upstream of Helmsley during the trout season and shot or fished for pike around the flat- lands of Pocklington through the winter.

He maintained a meticulous angling diary together with a gamebook. Bainbridge’s archive materials also include his fly wallet, newspaper cuttings from angling journalists of the period such as Francis Walbran, and miscellaneous notebooks in which he detailed wild and garden flowers along with fly patterns he intended to acquire or tie. Con- temporary photographs, rare for that time, were kept in two albums, one of which is dedicated to his dog, Pedro.

Anyone who fished, shot, tied flies, had an interest in wildflowers and who loved their dogs would warrant respect but Bainbridge’s angling diary, in particular, is comprehensive. It spans the years 1880 to 1912; the entries from 1894 onwards are notably detailed. Bainbridge recorded his catches as so many brace, so that a figure such as 200 (his total catch in 1895) represents 400 fish.

Along with his catches, weather and water conditions are recorded in addition to successful fly patterns. With a nat- uralist’s eye, Bainbridge also noted the arrival of certain birds of passage — the whitethroat was a favourite — and the first appearance on the water of the mayfly (