Fishkeeping and Water Life continued its mix of articles each month to the end with an emphasis on keeping fish in aquaria. There was less attention paid to water life in the wild and to animals other than fish, amphibians and reptiles than in the original Water Life. There was less to enthuse the young about the biological sciences. However, writers on reptiles and amphibians included Alfred Leutscher, Robert Bustard and Mary White. John Clegg (author of the Observer’s Book of Pond Life) wrote a few articles on pond life. Included in the writers on fishkeeping were Professor C.W. Emmens and Laurence E. Perkins who became editor of The Aquarist.
The final issue in December 1958 contained the following announcement:
The editor, Leslie W Ashdown, followed up this statement:
Past and future. In the last issue of “FISHKEEPING AND WATER LIFE” we should like to thank our many thousands of readers who have given this journal their support over the last 13 years [since it was resurrected under this name after the war].
We believe the hobby to be worthy of a high-class production and have attempted to provide this but costs have outstripped revenue.
We feel this paper has played a significant part in fostering the hobby and we hope to continue our association through the fish-keeping features which will appear weekly in “Cage Birds”, commencing with the December 11 issue.—L.W.A.
The fishkeeping articles in Cage Birds were very small and soon disappeared. I do not know what happened to the editor. The only clue is that a Leslie W Ashdown died in Essex in 1961 aged 34. Could that have been the last editor of the magazine?
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