M.E. R. McCausland
Marcus Emile Roderick (Bill) McCausland was born in 1894 to Henrietta (Ettie) McCausland and her accountant husband, Marcus Erskine Hillhouse McCausland and lived for much of his early life in Hawthorn. In June 1915 he enlisted in the 6th Infantry Battalion and embarked on 29 September 1915. He was attached to the Camel Training Corps in the Sinai and Palestine and his service record indicates he was wounded in action in July 1916. In 1920 he married Phyllis, the third daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Hinde of East Malvern. Their daughter, Nannette, was born in December 1925 while they were living in Malvern.
McCausland was involved with Hoyts Theatres. In the mid 1930s we find him in the position of Resident Secretary; he was eventually appointed to the board. McCausland’s community responsibilities at various times included the roles of President of the wartime Hoyts and Allied Theatres Patriotic Auxiliary and membership of the executive of the Cinematograph Exhibitors’ Association. Unsurprisingly he was involved in angling organisations. He was President of the Victorian Fly Fishers Association, a Member of the State Hatchery Committee and a Member of the Victorian Freshwater Research Committee.
McCausland’s passion for fishing began early. “I caught my first trout at twelve years of age in the Yarra,” he writes, “fishing with a thick line tied onto a stick, which I stuck in the mud near the water’s edge. … The Trout was about twelve inches long.” He progressed to fishing with a fly at seventeen, and fished trout waters in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. In 1944 he fished at the Great Lake in Tasmania with his daughter Nanette, and during an another visit in January 1946 he was reported in the Tasmanian newspapers as catching seventeen fish to four pounds over ten days.
Bill McCausland is best known in angling for his 1949 book, Fly-Fishing in Australia and New Zealand. It was the first of its kind in Australia and very well received by the angling public. A 30 September 1950 review in the West Australian noted… “Mr. McCausland has dealt with his subject in an admirably concise way, and has deliberately avoided fine writing so as to make his meaning clear.” McCausland produced his book in collaboration with some of the best-known names of the era—A. Dunbavin Butcher contributed a chapter on the future of trout acclimatisation, Reg Lyne wrote about casting, Theo Brunn described New Zealand fly fishing and J.M. Gillies produced a chapter on the Great Lake beetle. Gillies also contributed a plate of flies.
Fly-fishing in Australia and New Zealand went through three editions. The second, issued in 1958, underwent a significant revision. There was now a piece by J.M.S. Galbraith about New Zealand, with three chapters devoted to the shaky isles. The final chapter of the first edition, ‘The Future?’ was omitted. The text of the third edition (1967) was again extensively reorganized. There was a new chapter on fly-fishing in England, and three chapters—‘Calm Water Fishing’, ‘Casting’ and ‘Fishing Happenings’—by Roy B. Kirk. The sections on fishing in New Zealand were retained, but the chapters by Gillies, Lyne and Butcher had disappeared.
Bill McCausland also wrote for magazines. His articles included ‘The purple beetle’ (The Australian Shooters and Anglers News, January 1948), ‘The squirrel’s tail’ (The Australian Shooters and Anglers News, June 1948), ‘Fishing etiquette’ (The Australian Shooters and Anglers News, January 1949) and ‘It happens to us all’ (The Australian Shooters and Anglers News, January 1949).