Wye Minnows
The Hatton Family
The Early Years
The Hatton Brothers had premises at 14/15 St Peters’ St, East St. Commercial St in Herford and and also in Ross from the 1870’s. The athletic store continued business in St Peters’ St when Herbert Charles Hatton took the fishing side of the business down to St Owen St. Herbert bought the property in 1927 when it was still numbered no. 12 and at that time the house was probably called “Cliftonia”.
Because the building could not be changed there was no shop window and only a modest sign on the outside, which did not even give a hint of the thriving rod-building and tackle manufacturing industry inside.
After the death of Herbert in 1955 John Hatton, his son, took over the business and he and Norman Owen went on to be the only fishing-tackle members of the Guild of Master Craftsmen. They hand-built greenheart and laterly cane rods until the introduction of more popular fibre-glass rods.
Amongst Hatton’s customers over the years were Edward VIII when he was Prince of Wales and George VI when he was Duke of York. In the 1960s the shop repaired more than 3,000 rods every year and orders for new ones came from Australia, USA, Canada ad Africa.
Norman Owen took over in 1974, followed by John Waters, who ran the shop until 1985.