Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring

aka The Herripedia

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Rigby's Encyclopaedia of the Herring

AND NOW THE BOOK!

Rigby’s Encyclopaedia of the Herring

Adventures with the King of Fishes

Out September 25th 2025, hardback, published by Hurst, 450pp + 32 colour, a snip at £25. Preorder online or your local independent bookshop. Based on the blog entries here and plenty more besides, rewritten, corrected and developed, it’s the book you know you’ve always wanted!

ONLINE ENCYCLOPAEDIA

Accessible alphabetically and by theme – history, science, culture, fishing and food.

Suggestions and corrections always welcome.

PODCASTS

Drawing on the encyclopaedia and exploring beginnings, sovereignty and sardines, fasting and fisher lasses.

All Podcasts…

Recently Added

A-Z Entries

SWIFT, JONATHAN

Jonathan Swift' reply to Francis Grant, on a proposed Anglo-Irish herring fishery scheme (There is not virtue enough left among mankind)

TAXONOMY

On the biological classification of the herring and the taxonomic can of worms it opens up at species level and below

TOURISM: MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

On AC Hardy's proposal for a herring research centre and William Hodgson's brief vision of what might have been a formidable tourist attraction

TRAWLING

On the development of beam trawling which doesn't target herring (but destroys their spawning grounds) and pelagic trawling which does

ULLAPOOL

The story of a herring port, built with what seemed the best of intentions, but without consideration for the fish's noted unreliability

VENTJAGER

How they got the good new herring from somewhere off the coast of Scotland to wealthy Dutch burghers fresh from a hard day of being painted by Rembrandt

WEDGWOOD

In which we lust after that object of desire, the Wedgwood Queen's Ware herring dish (c 1780)

WHITE HERRING

On the nature of white herring, its international markets and its historical underachievement with the Great British public

WITCHCRAFT

The role of herrings in England's penultimate witch trial and the subsequent part the narrative played in shaping the hysteria in Salem

X, CRUX OR KRUIS BRAND

An entry that possibly should have been filed under C, but which spuriously allows alphabetic completism
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