The Adcock Stanton started life around 70 years ago as the Reynolds Reel. They were originally designed as what we in the UK call "trotting" reels. The idea was that the reel would automatically pay out line with the force of the current. When the float dipped, the reel was checked by a finger on the face. Many Stantons were made without handles or checks, and the line was retrieved by "palming" the rim, or wound by a finger in one of the larger holes.

Harry Reynolds was an engineer at Stanton Iron Works in Nottingham, he made his first fishing reels sometime around 1938, local anglers referred to it as 'The Reynolds Reel'.
It was made from three pieces of cast aluminium - the reel back, the spool backplate and the spool front. It was finished on his lathe and it ran on two ball bearings around a central shaft, rather than a 'centre pin' like the Aerial or Young's reel. This made it spin very freely - ideal for trotting on the local river Trent.

Harry Reynolds made the reels in his workshop - a shed behind his house at Queens Avenue, Ilkeston. He bought the sand and aluminium, needed for casting, from the Stanton Iron Works.

The brass for the drum core pillars came from a local shop and the bearings from Ransome and Marr of Newark. The fact that so many of the materials needed to make the reel came from the Stanton Iron Works, has led to the theory that the Works management influenced Harry to re-name his reel 'The Stanton' - as collectors know it today.

During the Second World War the green, or virgin sand, needed for casting his reels was now in short supply, so Harry was unable to make any more reels until around 1942.

Harry made the reels in two sizes, a large 4 3/4" and small 4", with the options of handles and a check. Derek Reynolds remembers his dad charging two pound ten shillings for the reels around 1955. He later offered the option of a black anodised finish to dull the shine of the aluminium of a newly finished reel.

He would make around half a dozen reels, then on a Saturday morning, would get on the train to Sheffield, and sell the reels around the pubs, only returning once all of them were sold. At this time Sheffield had one of the largest population of anglers anywhere in the country, so Harry had little problem selling his reels.
Harry carried on making his reels until his tragic death in a motor accident in 1968.

Ray Hyland

As an angler with forty five years of experience of years of river and lake fishing I have developed a passion for centrepin reels.

In January 2008 I contacted Cliff Adcock to ask him to make an alteration to my Adcock reel that I have owned for twenty two years.
I met with him and we both enthusiastically talked about centrepin reels. Cliff had retired and had not made any reels over the last three years, I felt it was a shame to loose such a brilliant reel that I offered to relaunch the Adcock Stanton along with some improvements  approved by Cliff.

So here we are several months later ready to show the fishing world this masterpiece of engineering.