Who invented the
split cane rod?
Rod tips made from three and four bamboo splices glued together were already known and widespread in England from 1800 onwards.
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In 1801, Charles Snart (GB) first mentioned the revolutionary construction principle in the publication "Practical Observations in Angling in the River Trent". He spoke of a four-piece rod in which (only) the tip section was spliced.
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In 1830, the London firm Ustonson & Peters offered fully spliced rods made from three splices (Calcuta-Cane, rounded). However, precise records of the year of manufacture are lacking. They were not officially recognized for this until the London Fishing Fair in 1951.
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In 1845, JD Dougall of Glasgow (Scotland) presented his triple-spliced rod at an exhibition at the "Manchester Free Trade Bazaar". He stated that he had built it between 1838 and 1840.
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In 1847, Edward Fitzgibbon, Virginia (USA), under the pseudonym Ephemera, described the hexagonal construction principle with six splices in his famous "Handbook of Angling", but only for tip pieces.
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In 1852, the Blacker company (London) delivered triangular spliced pipes to the USA.
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In 1860, Ebenezer A. Green, Newark (USA), built a 6-sided bamboo rod made entirely of spliced bamboo.
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In 1862, Charles F. Murphy of Newark (USA) began building hexagonal spliced pipes for the market.
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Around 1870, the Leonard company (USA) sold hexagonal rods.
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At the same time, hexagonal rods appeared in the fishing catalogs of the companies Allcock, Hardy and Farlow in England.
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In 1880, Jakob Wieland, Munich (Germany), built the first German hexagonal spliced ship.
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How important is the development from: triangular tip only to triangular tip and middle section, or from triangular to 4-sided, to 6-sided, to 5-, 7-, 8-, 12-, 13-, 18- and 36-fold?
The most important step is obviously the process of going from a whole bamboo tube to splitting and then rejoining and gluing it back together!
Therefore, the following applies to the USA:
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Samuel Phillippe probably built the first complete rod from 4 splices (round) in 1847.
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In 1862, Charles Murphy built the first rod with 6 splices (round).
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In 1870, Leonard built the first hexagonal rod.
And for England/Europe:
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The first fully spliced rod (triangular) was built in England around 1830.
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The story becomes more complicated when we look at countries with a long tradition of processing bamboo: China and Japan.
In China, there is a millennia-old tradition of fishing with bamboo.
As early as 950 BC, the book "Tchouang-Tse" contains instructions on how to split bamboo and rejoin the splices. A similar description can be found in the book "History of T'chou and T'au" (345 BC, in the National Museum in Paris)!
Even though these were not rods in the modern sense - the splicing and rejoining as a method of material reinforcement is the important thing - and has apparently been known for a very long time.
In his 1881 publication "Origin of the Split Bamboo Rod", Dr. James A. Henshall, Cincinnati (USA), unequivocally states that in 1847 the violin maker and gunsmith Samuel Phillippe from Easton in Pennsylvania, USA, was the first to glue four bamboo splices together to form a complete rod blank.
Was that really the case?
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Protests from England against this statement were suppressed and ignored
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There is hardly any information available about Samuel Phillippe's rod-making.
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No original rod by him exists to this day.