After An Inland Navigation

After an inland navigation, reading through The Canal Boatmen, Harry Hanson, Manchester University Press, 1975, I would like to record the following points in my Waterscape Ledger:

Commentators such as Temple Thurston and LTC Rolt, thought a goodly proportion of barge families came from a Romany or gypsy background; Hanson looked at available evidence to reach the conclusion that the figure was probably no more than 10% in certain regions at most. He commented on the Romany barge people’s affinity for ‘exotic gypsy forenames’, and tells us that ‘A Benbow Jones navigated the Thames and Severn Canal Company’s barge Littleton between Brimscombe and Stourport.’
Rolt asserted that ‘the early carrying company’s boats appear to have been manned by all male crews who could afford to house their families ashore, and it was not until railway competition brought hard times … that the boatman was compelled to take his wife and family on to the boats with him’, and this was ‘the starting point of elaborate decoration’; the ‘roses and castles’ motif, for example. This led Rolt to his narrow boat ‘gypsy hypothesis’.
‘By comparison, Hadfield’s assumptions appear more sensible, if less exciting.’ ‘Many doubtless came from river and coasting craft to the canals, many had probably been navvies who took to the waterways they had built, many came from the canal-side towns and villages, places where the building and loading of boats was a familiar thing.’
Hanson concludes his look at the early 18^th century days by stating that ‘In certain areas the earliest boatmen probably had an affinity with the nearby river or sea. For the rest, and particularly in the midland counties, the evidence points more strongly towards … small local farmers, who had traditionally been involved in local transport … The odds are that most of them were tenant farmers. This is not to deny that others, such as carters and waggoners … and even navvies (local or otherwise) in some instances did likewise. The last seems to be the least likely possibility … but no common group seems as credible, given the available evidence, as does this possibility of their being small farmers.’ ‘After the very earliest days, it would be unwise to be categoric about possible recruitment, beyond assuming that many entered the occupation as boys, from all kinds of backgrounds, but some obviously being the children of existing boatmen.’
‘The early boatmen were not timid … It was inevitable that lock keepers and toll collectors should become their natural enemies … These canal guardians were exerted to save water, preserve the fabric of the canal, and to collect the just dues of the canal company on pain of dismissal. On the other hand, the boatmen, being paid by results, were eager to proceed as quickly as possible …’
‘The Committee taking into consideration the damage which has been done to the Locks and waste of water occasioned by the carelessness and negligence of the boatmen have directed me to inform you that you are expected to see to the Passage of every Boat … under your care and in case of any damage … or waste occasioned by the negligence of any of the Boatmen … that you do (on pain of dismission) … report the same … that the offenders may be dealt with according to Law.’
‘There is a great loss of water sustained by the persons not observing Turns in passing the Locks, and that though he has frequently urged … the necessity of their observing proper order in passing the Locks yet that they not only refuse to acquiesce but threaten to break open the Lock Gates.’
A hundred years later: ‘They have no shelter, and often sleep say one night on board, doing the best they can. Their fire is a huge open circular grate, such as we see at night on roads under repair … the approved mode of taking a siesta is to lie flat on the back, with boots as near the fire as may be convenient.’ ‘Others almost certainly slept at the canal-side inns which sprang up, usually built and owned by the canal company. Here the boatmen stabled their horses, and it would seem unlikely that a man with any sense would see his horse warm and snug under cover, while he stoically suffered in rain, frost and chilling mists on the canal, especially as they were a race of men whose love of animals often did not embrace their horses.’
‘It would seem that a few boats were built with cabins from the earliest days, in order to ensure the presence of a boatman at night to guard valuable cargoes. As early as 1775 steerer Robinson had a cabin on his boat. It had not, however, saved the cargoes from depredation for, on being caught stealing salt from another boat, a closer investigation of the affairs of Mt Robinson revealed that he was harbouring large amounts of stolen property in his cabin.’
The expansion of the economy, the expansion of the canal system, and the French Wars, all led to a substantial increase in canal traffic … but how to keep it moving? ‘The answer of the canal carriers to such demands was the fly-boat … The fly-boat started at fixed times, usually carried 15 tons or less, and proceeded with all speed, night and day, to its destination (averaging about 3 m.p.h.), being drawn by relays of horses, and worked by four men, two of them resting.’
‘Those from Birmingham were usually loaded with about fifteen tons of finished metal and glass goods. As they neared Braunston their numbers were swollen by boats bringing metal goods from other midland towns, cotton goods from Manchester, Cheshire cheeses, earthenware and pottery goods from Staffordshire, woollens and cutlery from Yorkshire, and lace from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.’ They had to ‘force their way’ past slow-boats laden with heavy metal goods and coal boats, ‘towards London on the Grand Junction … On their return these fly-boats would be loaded with about eight tons of colonial goods. The non-stop journey from Birmingham to London took three days and three nights.’
What did the crew eat and drink on these journeys? Hollingshead records how once ‘they arrive with their boats in London, and unload them; then re-load, obtain what drink they can, lay in their stock of meat and peck loaves and off … shipping a sack of potatoes, a quantity of inferior tea, and about fifty pounds of meat … large loaves of bread; weighing upwards of eight pounds, got at certain places on the line of canal.’
‘It is generally such Boys, as those who have run away from their Parents, or committed some improper Act, and they come to the Banks of the Canal, and there they are sure of getting Employment; and frequently these Boys have robbed their Masters and then run away from them.’
‘I spent my time … lurking in the fields where game lay, sometimes in beer-shops, public houses, and bawdy houses. When not in honest employ [on a fly-boat] I was maintained by poaching and stealing.’
‘A good deal of petty Pilfering; cutting Grass, stealing Turnips poaching and breaking into Hen Roosts and Things of that Kind … they are generally provided with a Scythe; they can get into a Field, and mow Clover enough for a Horse for two or three Days which is all done in a few minutes.’
‘Charged with entering a field by the canal side … and cutting a quantity of vetches with a hook … was secured with some difficulty, the officer losing his hat in the scuffle.’
‘Many a time milked farmers’ cows in the night’; another ‘had kild and carried away several Geese’; ‘Some men on one line who in the night time got into some gentleman’s fishery and took his fish.’
‘Yesterday charged … with having stolen a quantity of china etc., the property of their employers … shipped on board the barge for Messrs. Spode, from their manufactory, and on being landed it was discovered to have been opened, and divers articles were missing. The property was found concealed in the cabin of the barge.’
‘If a cargo of ironmongery, or Sheffield goods, is robbed, we cannot discover it, not even by weighing it; they may put in a brick or a stone to make up the weight. We could not discover it until the parties to whom the goods belonged unpacked them, and compared them with the invoice.’
‘When we took wine or spirits, we knocked a hoop aside and made a hole on one side for letting out the liquor, and on the other for letting in the air; when we had taken what we wanted, we put water in to make it up, and pegged up the hole and replaced the hoop.’
‘COMBINATION AMONG BOATMEN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY’ – (a.) ‘On 7 December 1860 the Shropshire Union Company received ‘A memorial from the Canal Boatmen as to their wages’. (b.) ‘In 1864 steerers refused to go up light from Ellesmere Port to Wolverhampton’ (won), (c.) ‘A strike of the Staffordshire boatmen in 1871’ was successful. (d.) And again successful after a nine day strike the next year. (e.) ’In 1873 some slow-boat steerers threatened to strike, and others actually did so in 1876.’ Result of this one unknown. (f.) Nor do we know ‘whether the steerers in the fluxingstone trade submitted quietly to the reductions of 1882 and 1885’, (g.) ‘but their application for an advance, in May 1890, met with success.’ (h.) Steerers were in demand in the 1890s, and they were able to use this bargaining position in Shropshire to demand higher wages – or leave for another company. Success. (i.) Conclusion: ‘It is clear, from the experience of the Shropshire Union Company, that boatmen were neither docile nor powerless when it came to combining to resist pay cuts and demanding pay rises. Such action was not restricted to the employees of this company, nor the late nineteenth century.’
Canal-side pub: ‘The choruses are frequent and tremendous … often relieved by a little step dancing, in which, strange to say, the boatman is an adept; the big burly men are wonderfully light of foot and keep time accurately.’
‘THE MISERY OF CANAL-BOAT CHILDREN’ – ‘The youngest of these little ones, dirty, ragged, and stunted in growth, are confined in the close recesses of the cabin … stuck around the bed, like images upon a shelf; sitting upon the cabin-seat; standing in pans and tubs; rolling helplessly upon the floor, within a few inches of a fierce fire, and a steaming kettle; leaning over the edge of the boat … with their bodies nearly in the water; lying upon the poop with no barrier… fretful for want of room, air and amusement; always beneath the feet of the mother … cuffed and scolded …; sickly … waiting wearily for the time when their little limbs will be strong enough to trot long the towing-path; or dropping suddenly over the gaudy sides of the boat … Not a week passes but one of these canal-children is drowned…’
The boatwoman was ‘dressed in a short-waisted, short-skirted blue cotton frock, a pair of laced-up heavy boots … and her bonnet was a quilted cowl that hung in flaps upon her shoulder; and formed a tunnel in front, at the dark end of which was her half-hidden face.’ ‘The boatman lavishes all his taste; all his rude, uncultivated love for fine arts, upon the external and internal ornaments of his floating home. His chosen colours are red, yellow, and blue.’ ‘were severally asked how they came to have nicknames, in addition to their real names and they said that those employed on the canal had two names and were known by their bye-names rather than by their real names.’