The Angler, The Artist and The Alcedo Atthis...
...that's Kingfisher to you and me.
Peter Duncan Malloch is a name that needs little introduction in the world of vintage fishing tackle. Some time around 1870, at the age of 18 with his brother as his assistant, Malloch began trading in fishing tackle and taxidermy from a room off the High Street in Perth. Malloch was good at what he did, in fact he was probably a genius and his business grew. Soon he had a location on the High Street and it was at some point in these early days that he made the acquaintance of another budding naturalist, also born in the Perth area. John Guille Millais, 12 years younger than Malloch, was the fourth son of the eminent Pre-Raphaelite painter, Sir John Millais. J.G. Millais tells us that "with congenial tastes we soon became fast friends". The friendship was to last for the rest of Malloch's lifetime and Millais recalls the many times they fished, hunted or examined the wildlife of Scotland together. Indeed it was Millais' appreciation of the life of his friend, published in The Scotsman on Malloch's death in 1921, that started me into researching this little article. You can read Millais' entire appreciation on Colin Innes' site, "Feathers, Flies and Phantoms" HERE. Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Millais became one of the leading writers and natural history illustrators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, publishing many books, some of which remain valuable references on the subject, his 1902 book on British Surface Feeding Ducks, for example, but his first paid commission for a painting came from his friend, Peter Malloch. Malloch paid 3s 6d, about £16 by today's values, for a painting of a kingfisher.
Millais became one of the leading writers and natural history illustrators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, publishing many books, some of which remain valuable references on the subject, his 1902 book on British Surface Feeding Ducks, for example, but his first paid commission for a painting came from his friend, Peter Malloch. Malloch paid 3s 6d, about £16 by today's values, for a painting of a kingfisher.
Malloch's arrangement with Millais was a very good one indeed, because the image of the little kingfisher became the trademark for his Perth shop. The whereabouts of Millais painting, probably a small watercolour, are not known, but we can get an idea of what it was like from Malloch's trademark which continued in use for many years and, as we shall see, was to become quite significant in the story of fly fishing.
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The little kingfisher wasn't to be Millais only artistic contribution to Malloch's pursuits. There are at least two catalogue covers decorated with Millais' work. These covers seem to have been used repeatedly over a number of years, even after Malloch's death.
One of Malloch's earliest contributions to fishing was a design for a reel that would not "spin" as a fish took line. By using a simple pairing of gears he effected a "de-coupling" between the winding plate and the spool. On retrieve, the reel behaved normally as the winding plate was tuned, but if a fish took line, the winding plate would remain still and only the reel handle would rotate. Millais greatly admired the reel and tells us it was the subject of much discussion between the two of them, Millais even contributing some of the drawings. He was very proud to receive the first production reel to come out of the workshop.
The "Sun and Planet" reel was the first of many improvements made to fishing tackle by Peter Malloch but one of his last and most enduring inventions is still with us today. The details of this story remain hard to pin down, at least in terms of the sources I have access to, but they all seem to agree that in about 1908 P D Malloch began negotiations with a silk manufacturer with a view to producing a range of braided, or plaited, silk fly lines. Historically, fly lines had been made of horsehair, or a combination of horsehair, silk or some other fibres. The taper, reducing the diameter of the line to meet the (silkworm gut) leader was effected by reducing the number of fibres. Any "weight" needed to load the rod was added as an additional coating on the line. Malloch proposed that the taper and the necessary rod-loading weight (we would think of it today as an AFTM rating) could be integrated into the line itself. The resulting silk lines formed the foundation of the current practice in fly line design. But where does the little Kingfisher fit in this part of the story?
Haven't you guessed yet?
Haven't you guessed yet?