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Malloch,  Peter Duncan  (1852-1921), fishing tackle maker and naturalist, was born in Almondbank in Methven parish, Perthshire, on 15 July 1852, the second son in the family of at least four sons and one daughter of Joseph Malloch (1820-1890), a beetler (bleach worker) in the bleachfields serving the linen industry for which Almondbank, Luncarty, and Perth were well known, and his wife, Margaret, nee Duncan (b. 1826/7). He was raised for the first twelve years of his life in a cottage at Almondbank until the family moved about a mile upstream to a cottage even closer to the banks of the River Almond, a small but productive tributary of the River Tay. There he learned to fish for brown trout, sea trout, and salmon. By the age of ten he was making his own fishing tackle, an ability that was well served by his apprenticeship as a millwright at Huntingtower bleaching works. Such was his mechanical acumen that he was granted a journeyman's wages while still an apprentice. During this period his local reputation as an enthusiastic and resourceful angler, naturalist, and taxidermist became established.

In 1872 Malloch and his younger brother James left the bleachworks and established a small taxidermy and fishing rod and tackle shop in Perth, where business grew so rapidly that he had to work day and night to satisfy demand. After only two years the business moved to larger premises on Perth's High Street and took on staff. On 24 December 1879 he married Jane Donaldson (b. 1855), a dressmaker and milliner, daughter of William Donaldson, general merchant. They had four sons and a daughter.

By 1885 Malloch's achievements had been recognized in many fields. His fishing tackle business was flourishing, he had begun what was to become an unrivalled series of triumphs in the Loch Leven angling championships, and the large collection of Fisheries Exhibition medals that adorned his company stationery began in Norwich in 1881 and was repeated in Edinburgh, London, Bolton, and Paris. His knowledge and experience were applied not only to such items of tackle as fishing reels, rods, and lines (his patent spinning reel and Kingfisher lines were two of the most notable inventions) but also to larger freshwater engineering projects. In his extensive travels throughout Scotland he contributed to improvements like salmon ladders to enhance or create access to spawning grounds, and the construction and design of dams and weirs to create new lochs or improve river flow. Such was his authority that details of his innovations and statistics of his catches were regularly cited in the annual reports of the Fishery Board for Scotland, and he gave evidence as an expert witness in 1899 to the royal commission on Irish inland fisheries and in 1900 to the royal commission on salmon fisheries. He regretted the slow pace of legislation to protect salmon stocks.

In 1898 Malloch expanded the firm into what became its best-known premises, at 24-28 Scott Street, Perth. At 7000 square feet it was the largest sporting establishment in the UK, boasting its own brass foundry and extensive workshops. The business benefited from an annual pilgrimage of sportsmen, their families, and their entourages, who followed the example of the royal family and took to the Scottish hills, rivers, and lochs in pursuit of fish and game. At the gateway of the railway network serving the Scottish highlands Perth made an ideal junction for breaking the journey and stocking up on all manner of sporting supplies-a market that Malloch was to cater for in almost every respect. Malloch fishing tackle was also used to capture mahseer in India, trout in New Zealand, and ounaniche in Canada. Not only did he make and sell tackle and guns, but he also became a sporting agent through whom suitable fishing beats and sporting estates could be leased.

In 1899 Malloch significantly extended his fishing and financial enterprises by becoming a founder and first managing director of the Tay Salmon Fisheries Company. This dynamic salmon netting concern very quickly bought out and rationalized the substantial and diverse netting interests on the River Tay and created a virtual monopoly. From the outset its avowed intention was not purely commercial, and it aimed to improve salmon stocks and assist rod fishing by managing and reducing the total net fishing effort. Although there were immediate successes in this regard, the Tay Salmon Fisheries Company's own commercial prowess brought it into longer-term conflict with the proprietors of rod fishing on the upper river. It took almost a century for the company to fully realize the founder's ambition of transforming the Tay into a river exclusively for anglers.

Malloch's major contribution as a scientific naturalist was in understanding the habits of Salmonidae. His finely produced and richly photographically illustrated Life-History and Habits of the Salmon, Sea-Trout, Trout and other Freshwater Fish (1910) was impressive when it appeared and remained a respected and sought-after work. It was one of the first generally available publications to properly describe the life cycle of salmon and was also the first widely available text to provide a detailed explanation of the significance of scale readings to the scientific study of fish. Its detailed and thorough exploration of the subject displays the author's rigour, combined with wide reading (he drew on Italian research of 1906 respecting the spawning grounds of the eel). He was able to refute many common fallacies, and firmly and correctly stated that 'bull trout' were none other than sea trout and in his second edition of 1912 that 'salmon bull trout' were in truth simply spawned salmon. Other areas of his expertise were natural flies and their better-known angling imitations. He was one of the first anglers known to have consistently linked his observations of natural insects on one day to the flies he tied for use on the next. His admired Fishing Gazette articles on salmon fly dressing were based on his extensive studies (and were later published as a book in 1994).

Highlights of Malloch's own angling career were the capture of twelve salmon on the River Earn that weighed an impressive 198 lb. His largest Tay salmon was an exceptional 45 lb fish from the Stobhall water. A day's fishing on Loch More in Sutherland with his son Gilbert saw them land a staggering 212 lb of trout. Over his lifetime he had claimed first prize in over 150 fishing and casting championships.

Malloch was known for his quiet, forceful charm that gained him wide respect, while also being noted as 'a very clever and successful man of business'  (Fishing Gazette, 4 June 1921, 392). Photographic portraits suggest a handsome, well-groomed, bearded figure with an unmistakably intelligent and attractive countenance. He died at his home, Almond Villa, 81 Glasgow Road, Perth, on 22 May 1921, survived by his wife and five children. His legacy as perhaps Scotland's most accomplished and knowledgeable 'sportsman' from the period when the Victorian passion for Scotland and its field sports reached its pre-First World War zenith survives in the name of the firm he founded. His fishing tackle continues to be avidly collected, while his casts of large salmon display a beauty and craftsmanship that may never be rivalled.

Richard Ian Hunter 

Sources  The Times (30 May 1921) + The Scotsman (30 May 1921) + Fishing Gazette (28 May 1921), 373; (4 June 1921), 391-2 + I. A. Robertson, The Tay salmon fisheries since the eighteenth century (1996) + m. cert. + d. cert. + census returns, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901
Likenesses  photograph, repro. in Fishing Gazette (4 June 1921), 392 · photograph, Perth Museum and Art Gallery; repro. in www.pdmalloch.com/history [see illus.]
Wealth at death  £40,402 16s. 6d.: confirmation, 14 Sept 1921, CCI