192 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
of Northampton, Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk and Yorkshire
followed suit. The stronghold of decoys in Britain was said to
be at Holland Fen, Spalding, Crowland and Lincoln, but to a
greater extent between Wainfleet and Boston, some of the best
being at Friskney.
The Decoymen played no unimportant part in the history of
decoys. The success of these enterprises depended in a con-
siderable measure on the skill of the man in charge and his
knowledge of construction was closely related to the prosperity
of the industry. The name of one family, Skelton, became
especially prominent. The Skeltons first became known in
Lincolnshire, where they were so successful, but later they
emigrated to other localities. One of them, George Skelton,
the most notable of his family, came from Lincolnshire to
Norfolk. At this time the Norfolk decoys had been much less
successful than those of Lincoln. The arrival of this member
of the Skelton family soon altered matters. The Norfolk decoys,
unlike those of Lincoln, which were small and compact, were
described as extensive lakes. Skelton was entrusted with the
construction of a decoy at Winterton and caused great surprise
on asking for two and a half acres of ground. The miniature
decoy, as it was when compared with the other pools of the
county, was completed, and its success occasioned a revolution
in the ideas of decoying. It is of interest to us that a descendant
of this renowned George Skelton played a part in the decoying
industry in Essex as his grandson, Richard Skelton, was decoy-
man for many years to Mr. R. Page at the Marsh House Decoy
in Essex. There were other notable Decoymen in Essex, of
whom may be mentioned the Smith family, three generations of
which had worked the Great Oakley Hall Decoy; James of this
family, alive in 1886, was described as the last of the old race
of Essex Decoymen. To the end of the eighteenth century
Lincolnshire held pride of place in decoying, but at the same
time other counties are described as having done wonderfully
well, especially Essex, the immense estuaries of which provided
feeding grounds for wildfowl. Payne-Gallwey describes the
Essex Decoys as being individually famous and rivalling in
number those of Lincolnshire, and he records the existence of
thirty-nine decoys in Lincolnshire, twenty-nine in Essex, twenty-
six in Norfolk and fourteen each in Yorkshire, Somerset and
Suffolk.
Much secrecy was maintained regarding decoys and their
operations, and this is still the position. As a result it is difficult
to get information regarding our Essex pools, and in some
instances all that we know is that they existed. We cannot
ascertain what height the industry reached and we do not know