Hester Lark

Net-Factor of the Lower Thames, one of the working names in the daily language of the lower waters, standing between the fisheries, the cordage trade, contracts and quay-side supply.

Hester Lark is a net-factor of the lower Thames, one of the names, with the port-reeve, the harbourmasters, the brokers and the pilots, that belong to the daily language of the lower waters. Her trade sits between the fisheries, the cordage makers, the contracts that bind them and the supply of the quays. She buys and supplies net and rope, advances gear to boats against the season’s catch, and holds contracts that decide which crews go out properly equipped and which do not.

She is known for testing cordage with a brass gauge and her own gloved hands before she will sign for it, and for refusing rotten rope whoever sends it. Her tally book is reckoned more reliable than several official registers, and because every net on her books comes back to her eventually, she hears more than most about what the river has brought up.

Companies meet her when they need rope, netting or tackle that will not fail at a bad moment, or when they want to know which boats have been working a particular reach, and what came up in the nets there.

In person

Hester Lark is tall, lean and wiry, with dark auburn hair and a long, narrow, weathered face in which her sunken eyes are the first thing anyone notices. She wears a heavy dark work coat or dress, leather gloves and high boots, and carries sample cordage, a tally book, contract papers and a brass measuring gauge, with her quay keys at her belt.