Multiwavelength operation of a linear cavity erbium-doped fibre laser (EDFL) is proposed and demonstrated. A 3-dB fibre loop mirror and a high birefringence (HiBi) fibre loop mirror are utilized as the cavity reflectors. By utilizing the wavelength-dependent polarization rotation induced by the HiBi fibre loop mirror and by using a fibre polarizer to control the intracavity polarization state, the polarization states of different wavelengths are diversified. Therefore, the polarization hole burning (PHB) effect has been greatly enhanced and the homogeneous broadening of erbium-doped fibre is suppressed to a large extent. By simply tuning a polarization controller, we experimentally obtained simultaneous lasing of four and five wavelengths with wavelength spacing of ~1.8 nm and less than 2 nm at room temperature, respectively. The repeated scans show that all of these lasers have good stability.