History of Thames Smelt Fishers_Williams

8/18/2019 History of Thames Smelt Fishers_Williams

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The community of Waterside, Wandsworth

1801(...with William Peters, aged 10, apprentice sherman)

Painting of Wandsworth’s Waterside by John William North, aged 10 (1852), from Wandsworth’s Lost Fishing Village , by Dorian Gerhold


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Stanford’s Library Map Of London And Its Suburbs 1872, showing the location of the shing village ofWaterside. By this time its population had almost halved to around 180 and some houses stood empty.


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1841 Census (Heads of household)

• 27 homes occupied by 325 people• 54 heads of household: (indented names are sub-tennants or lodgers)• 10 were shermen

• 16 were lightermen or watermen.• Four shermen were aged 50: John Wanslow, Thomas Brill, Samuel Perkins and William Peters They would have been aged 10 or 11 in 1801 (Research by Dorian Gerhold)

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No 21. was one of three Waterside houses built by Fulham brickmaker John Best in 1677.It was bought by a sherman, John Savery,

and three generations of his family lived there until 1779.

Plan of No. 21

Waterside.In 1815, at theage of 25,William Petersbought thecopyhold of theproperty.

By the time of the1841 Census, when

he was 50, he wasliving there with hiswife Sarah andtheir 4 childrenaged 12–25.

Also in thehouse were2 labourers andtheir families, andan 85-year-oldwoman, making a

total of 12.

The drawing wasmade in 1848, forDaniel Watney whobought the propertyfrom Peters

Below:1851 plan ofNo 19, alsobought byWatney, oneof the breweryfamily. Of the

13 who livedthere, 2 headsof household

were registeredas ‘paupers’.

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Only one person bythe name of Petersremains on the 1861Census. WilliamPeters, aged 40,

was a lightermanliving in the Lock-keepers Cottage inThe Cut, a dock onthe mouth of theWandle that hadbeen built to serve

the Surrey Iron Rail-way running fromCroydon, in businessfrom 1803 to 1846 (Plans and information taken from Wandsworth’s Lost Fishing Village by Dorian Gerhold)


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Letter from Philip Allwood,Curate of Wandsworth,

to the Rev Daniel Lysonsat the Inner Temple.

(British Library)

.... 4715 Number of inhabitants,

exclusive of about 100...shermen, and theirapprentices, who wereat this time down the

river far below [London]Bridge, and perhaps donot return home aboveonce in a month or sixweeks.

...in March 1801, I made,myself, a particular survey

of the Population of thisParish...

'

(

The Rev Allwood notesthat there are two poorschools in the parish

in 1801, one for boys(60 pupils) and one forgirls (80 pupils), so ourapprentice shermenshould have beenlearning their letters.

Waterside was separatefrom the centre ofWandsworth, whichgrew up around the High

Street

Easter fell on April 1 in1801, by which time theshermen would havereturned home. Therewas no shing allowed

on Sundays or religiousholidays.

Lent coincided with thesmelt shing season andmight have provided amarket,

WANDSWORTHIN 1801


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FISHING IN THE THAMES AROUND 1801

“There were then 400 shermen, each having a boat and a boy, shing above and below London Bridge, from Richmond to Deptford.” – John Goldham, clerk of Billingsgate Market

“Formerly, the Thames from Wandsworth to Putney-bridge, and from thence upwards to the situation of the present suspension bridgeat Hammersmith, produced abundance of smelts, and from thirty to forty boats might then be seen working together” – William Yarrell, 1836

“ Smelts have been so plentiful in the river lately, that on Wednesday the shermen disposed of them on the banks of theThames at the rate of 2d. a basket full, containing nearly one hundred; and on Monday, in Deptford Creek,

the draught was so great that they were sold in the manner of sprats , by coal measure.”– Robert Gregory, MP for Rochester, recorded in 4 April 1797.

“Smelts ...being now in the Thames in large quantities, several person deputed by the main body of Fishermen, applied to the LordMayor..to allow them to begin shing for smelts immediately.” – newspaper report, Feb 24 1798

“Around 1810 as many as 3,000 smelts were taken upriver towards Wandsworth in one haul and50,000 smelts brought daily to Billingsgate,”

H. Ormsby (London on the Thames, 1924)

Flounder shing atBattersea Bridge.

In 1801 there werebridges at etc, andthey Billingsgate

Flounder shing atBattersea Bridge.In 1801 there werebridges at etc, andthey Billingsgate


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Smelt from Online Baits UK, Humphreys Farm, Chelmsford (£3.10 for pack of a minimum of 16, plus £7 postage)

Documents

History of Thames Smelt Fishers_Williams