Split Cane Trout Fly Rod JJS WALKER BAMPTON of ALNWICK 10' 6" 3 Piece with Spare Tip, 1 End Stopper & Bag
Vintage and used but still in very good condition. Looks to have been only lightly used and well looked after. The shaft, fittings, handle, eyes and whipping are all in very good order. The bag is in good condition and is branded J Dickson & Son of Edinburgh and this may have been the tackle shop which originally supplied the rod.
Serial Number 25412
Walker, Bampton are one of those companies that everyone seems to have heard of, but few know anything about. The company was started by the grandly named John James Selby Walker in 1907. Walker was from seafaring stock. His father and grandfather were master mariners from Nth Sunderland near to Alnwick in Northumberland. He trained as a cabinet maker and was one of the first of that trade to be recruited by the Hardy brothers to make their built cane rods. The two Hardy brothers had purchased an American Leonard rod and commissioned some cabinet makers to dismantle it in order to discover how it had been made. Many years later Laurence Robert Hardy, son of one the founders, would publicly claim to have invented the built cane rod.
When John Walker left Hardy to found his own business in 1907 he was head of their rod making department. JJS Walker & Co was set up in an outbuilding at the rear of his home in Howick Street, Alnwick and involved his wife and daughters as well as his 15 year old nephew James Alexander Walker who became his first rod building apprentice.
In October 1911 a friend and former colleague William Henry Dingley who was head of Hardy’s reel making department also left the company. Dingley had been responsible for the design of the Silex casting reel and involved in the design of the Perfect fly reel. Initially Dingley used Walker’s premises to manufacture his own reels for JJS Walker and other companies. In 1912 another Hardy head of department Charles Sewell Bampton who was in charge of the brass fittings at Hardy also left the company and threw his lot in with Walker and Dingley. Bampton was a former nautical instrument maker and was responsible for the ferrules and other metal work. JJS Walker, Bampton & Co was set up in the same year with all three former Hardy employees named as directors. One of Bampton’s workers in the brass fittings shop at Hardy was a young Scot by the name of John S Sharpe who left Hardy in 1914 to serve with distinction in the Great War. Following the war JS Sharpe set up his own business in Scotland. His company was involved with Walker, Bampton throughout.
Despite two world wars and dirty tricks preventing Walker, Bampton being able to advertise in the Fishing Gazette the company existed in the shadow of their former employer’s factory for over 50 years. Towards the end they were the only manufacturer of fully hand built cane rods. On the retirement of Lennox Walker, son of JJS the company was bought by Farlow who had retailed their rods and reels for many years. A few years later in 1968 however the company was closed down. Some of their employees had worked for Walker, Bampton for over 40 years.
James Alexander Walker had gone his own way around the time that his uncle died in 1929 and formed his own company, JA Walker (Alnwick). Dingley had also formed his own company, The Climax Reel Company to market his reels, but all remained close friends and collaborated in each other’s businesses until WW2. JA Walker supplied Dingley with rods and Dingley made reels for JA Walker and JJS Walker, Bampton as well as many top end fishing tackle retailers.
Amongst the products sold by the respective companies are rods and reels listed as The Master which I think was aimed squarely at the new young master LR Hardy who had become general manager at Hardy and who was probably the reason that Dingley and Bampton left. Dingley also named a reel The Magpie. Jim Hardy’s book on the company contains a story about the superstitious LRH driving around the Northumberland countryside looking for a second magpie after encountering one on his way to fish. Dingley made two Magpie models, white and black. Another rod was named The Lennox after John Walker’s son. Both these rods remained in the Walker, Bampton catalogues until the end.