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:

  1. 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.’
  2. 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’.
  3. ‘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.’
  4. Hanson concludes his look at the early 18th 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.’
  5. ‘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 …’
  6. ‘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.’
  7. ‘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.’
  8. 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.’
  9. ‘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.’
  10. 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.’
  11. ‘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.’
  12. 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.’
  13. 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.’
  14. 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.’
  15. 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.’
  16. ‘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.’
  17. 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.’
  18. 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.’
  19. 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.’
  20. ‘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.’
  21. ‘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.’
  22. 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.’
  23. ‘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…’
  24. 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.’

Life in a Railway Factory: Alfred Williams, the Hammerman Poet

Born close to Brunel’s broad gauge at South Marston,
While Richard Jefferies measured the red brick growth
Of New Swindon’s terraced street advance
Towards ‘The Gamekeeper at Home’,
You studied express trains from farm and field,
Hammering on their way to Paddington,
Dreaming of forge and furnace and steam hammer:

And when you first walked through the tunnel,
Fourteen years of age, a rivet hotter,
A frame builder’s boy, a furnace boy,
A self-taught student of poetry, folklore and the classics,
Walked without any condescension,
Through a factory of ten thousand men:

Stampers, painters, watchmen, carpenters,
Carriage finishers and upholsterers,
Washers down, cushion beaters, ash wheelers,
Wagon builders, storemen, smiths, turners,
Boilermen, platers, riveters, labourers,
Fitters, firemen, drivers and cleaners,
Pattern makers, moulders, bricklayers, clerks.

You ate your snap in solitude, though,
Away from the loud quick kick-about,
Composing a poem within the piston’s din,
Wary of the foreman’s workshop power:

You saw the molten burns, the short-time working,
The union men sidelined by the piles of ingots,
The speed-up of machines in stifling smoke and steam,
The piece rates cut in the coal and the dust …

You walked out past the old iron rails and the ballast,
Past carriage and wagon, axle, wheel and tyre,
Past mountains of coal, pig, bar and cast iron,
Past the rolling mill, the block, the dies, the tar,
The gleaming steel, the shearings, clippings,
Wheelbarrows, ash pits, pinchings, drillings,
The clinker, the canal, and the clocking out;

You then walked four miles home to South Marston,
See to the garden; sit with Mary at twilight;
Compose your verse; translate the classics;
Study the stars, and the household accounts;
And the next day, before the factory hooter’s call,
You would walk four miles into ‘The Works’,

Once more composing verse,
To clock in:
T
H
E
H
A
M
M
E
R
M
A
N
P
O
E
T

Was born in 1877 in a village close to the Wilts and Berks canal. He spent his working life in a factory close to the North Wilts canal. He, and his wife Mary, built a cottage in the 1920s with stone and brick wheeled a mile from a disused lock on the Wilts and Berks.
His poetry and prose reflect the amalgam of industrial and rural life, so characteristic of the canal age of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. His rural poems are more redolent of John Clare in tone. Here are a few examples taken from his poetry, to show this. His book, Life in a Railway Factory, about working in Swindon Works before the Great War, pulls no punches in depicting the GWR ‘inside’ the factory walls: a contrast to its advertising.

Snatches of lines from his rural poems, and

two industrial ones:

‘Here the channel of the Avon, there the valley of the Horse,
North the flowing Thames arises flowery-banked and jewel-bordered,
East the shallow silvery Kennett chimes along its reedy course;
Meadows here, and blooming orchards, groves of poplar, walls of willow,
Spreading oak and elm and chestnut, arms of branches interlaced
With the honey bean and clover, and the coltsfoot sweet and yellow …’

‘Oftimes on Liddington’s peak I like to think and lie,
And muse upon the former days and ancient things gone by …
To woo Dick Jefferies from his dreams on Sorrow’s pillow tossed,
And walk with him upon the ridge and pacify his ghost.
Anon to woody Savernake or Marlborough I repair
To wander in the forest glooms and take my pleasure there,
There to inhale the morning breath, or brush away the dews,
Down the long corridor and aisles and in the avenues …
Through peaceful Uffington I steer and westward in my course,
And sally through the pleasant lanes, up the Valley of the Horse,
Musing upon the woody elms, the meadows and the streams,
Filled with all nameless, dear delights, pure flowery thoughts and dreams.
And O, how sweet, when direst grief afflicts the withering soul,
To wander in the fields unseen beside the flowery Cole,
Down the long avenues of elms, o’er many a verdant patch,
Or by the old forked willow-tree there underneath the hatch,
Or listen to the gurgling stream, the full melodious flow,
Down the long sliding pavement to the silent pool below! …
Too soon the vision steals apace, hard bitter pangs we feel,
Joy’s bubbles break and pass, Time turns his heavy wheel,
Dear quiet Cole, meandering down flowery banks and hems,
Bearing thy tributary-gift to placid-flowing Thames,
Many a bitter tear I’ve shed, and wanted many a joy
Since first I gamboled on thy banks, there when I was a boy …
Cold blows the drear autumnal blast, and chill upon my head,
Thou only, dearest Cole, remain’st, you shadowy pools and rills …’

‘Down by Sevenhampton’s waving fields there flows
A gentle-minded stream with steady motion,
That underneath the emerald-tinted boughs
Strives towards the drifting ocean.

Blue with forget-me-nots its bank appear,
And fragrant meadow-sweet and hawthorn bushes,
The lovely golden iris blossoms here,
And many flowering rushes.

On either side the spacious meads are spread
With luscious grasses; earth’s warm scented pillow;
The silver poplar whispers overhead
Down to the rustling willow.

The broad wide margin, rich with varied glow,
With starry daisies strewn, and golden patches,
Waves in the atmosphere and faints below
The weather-beaten hatches.

The bright marsh marigold, opening to the sun
Its large full radiance, dispelling shadows,
Passes the glorious wealth of beauty on
To the imperial meadows.

The purple cranesbill and the ox-eye bloom,
Wild ragged robin here and purple rattle;
The sweet herb-willow breathes a rich perfume
To the water’s merry prattle.

Dear winding river, companion of my thought,
Whose flowery banks have shared my exaltation,
And now my years are with some sadness fraught,
Dost pity my vexation;

Long may’st thou wander under sun and shade,
And dream thy hours away in ease and leisure!
May all thy summer flowers be re-arrayed
In full, unstinted pleasure!’

‘The friendship of a hill I know
Above the rising down,
Where the balmy souther breezes blow
But a mile or two from town;
The budded broom and heather
Are wedded on its breast,
And I love to wander thither
When the sun is in the west.’

‘Up the furnace door was lifted,
And the searching glare shot out,
Lighting up the dusty rafters,
And the alleys round about;

Shining on the workmen’s faces
In the twilight ghastly pale …

Now the heated mass of metal,
Hoisted by the creaking crane,
Slowly leaves the smoking furnace
And the door descends again;

While a molten liquid torrent,
Running from the blazing ore,
Like a fiery, hissing serpent,
Writhes along the iron floor,

As the crane swings, and the pulley,
And the chain jolts to and fro …

“Ready now?” “Aye! All is ready.”
And the blows begin to pour,
And the rushing sparks and splinters
Rain in torrents on the floor …

While the forger and his helpmates,
With a deft, mechanic skill,
Turn and shape the glowing metal
To the master’s cunning will;

To and fro, and back and forward,
Sideways, lengthwise, end to end,
Here, another inch of taper,
There, the radius and the bend;

Till the forgeman gives the signal,
In his eye a spark of pride,
And the hammer stops impulsive,
So the heavy blows subside.

Here the gauges and the trimmer,
All the sizes, one by one;
Cut away the useless porter,
There! The mighty task is done …’

‘Where’er you find a furnaceman, the first thing, when you meet …
ask about his ‘prenticeship, and from what part he hails –
He’s sure to come from Sunderland, from Sheffield, or from Wales …
“These fellows aint a lot of good that’s born about the South …
They’re good enough to plough the farm, and trample out the wheat,
But they never seen a furnace, and they can’t draw out a heat.”

Long, lank, and lean as any post, with skinny arms and hands –
Six feet of grimy flesh and blood, the knowing fireman stands;
Large-nosed, fair-featured, curling locks, small ears, and rounded chin,
A narrow forehead, lantern jaws, with hollow cheeks and thin,
Mouth sensitive, with shapely lips stained with the weed and dyed,
Long neck, a brown and withered face, deep-wrinkled, artful-eyed,
Blackened and blistered with the heat, and grimy with the soil –
The very feature of his trade, a sturdy son of toil.
Day after day he’s in his place, and every hour the same,
Bare-headed, naked to the waist, before the furnace flame,
His wiper at this middle hung, with little art or pride,
Or, serpent-like, about his wrist, or dangling at his side,
To brush the perspiration off that, like a river, flows
Out of the hollows of his cheeks, or trickles down his nose.
He’s always busy with the rake, the shovel, or the bar;
He’ll work the flaming furnace up as radiant as a star;
He likes to feel the twingeing heat strike through the open door,
And watch the yellow mass expand, and hear the furnace roar;
His merry eyes will cast about and twinkle with delight,
For then he knows the heat is safe, that everything is right.
First by the rattling, clinking crane the heavy ingot’s brought,
The iron door is hoisted up as quick as any thought,
A dozen ready hands are near the ponderous mass to guide,
And shove it through the open rift to the hollow place inside;
Down goes the heavy door again, and shuts the ingot in,
The curling flames have wrapped it round, the steady toils begin.
Forthwith the black and gleaming dust is gathered from the floor,
To stop each little gaping clink, and lay along the door,
That no cold draught may enter in and strike a sudden chill
Into the centre of the mass – the iron or the steel.
Now by the fireman’s ready hand the furnace bar is plied,
Careful he thrusts the pointer in and stirs the coals inside,
Now, with the ravel’s useful aid, levels the fuel down,
A little sloping to the rear, and well below the crown;
Raises the heavy damper up, a couple of points, or so,
And breaks the solid clinker in the fire-box down below;
Admits the vapour underneath straight through the hollow pile,
And fires the yellow furnace up in true Vulcanic style.
From time to time the forger’s mates invoke the rattling crane,
And turn the livid metal round, and lower it again,
Till, by-and-by, the solid mass is heated through and through,
And dazzling as the noon-day sun, and fit to take the blow.
Down goes the damper overhead, the heat’s allowed to soak,
To somewhat chill the outer part, and fit it for the stroke;
Now presently the door is raised, the creaking crane’s applied,
Out comes the spluttering, hissing mass, and lightens far and wide,
The ponderous hammer gathers strength and travels to and fro,
Until the deep foundations quake and shiver with the blow;
Another and another heat’s supplied; day after day
The fireman’s steady toil proceeds – he sweats his life away.’

‘Tis but a step to midnight; one stroke more,
One fleeting space for sorrows and farewells,
One last look backward where high Memory dwells,
Then in the untrodden path that lies before
We must push onward, ever to the shore
Toward which our utmost fate draws and compels.
Hark! From the stralit tower the merry bells
Peal as they’ve pealed a thousand times of yore.
All is banished, whether good or ill;
Our joys and sufferings, our toils and pains,
Diminish, our life’s star waxes and wanes.
Ere the dark wave closes o’er us, deep and still,
Let us fo forth fearless in mind and will,
And grapple with the future that remains.’

‘See how the tributary Cole, that flows
The summer through, mid narrow, flowery banks,
To whose impulsive stream the mill-wheel clanks,
Shaded and sweetened by the clustering rose,
Now swollen with December’s rains and snows,
Marshalling in bold array his watery ranks,
Swills through the willows, playing merry pranks,
See how the silver-crested torrent goes!
So that where late we stood beneath the hatch,
Plucking the crimson berries from the tree,
Where ripening grasses wave above the knee,
With reed, and drifting bow, and floating thatch,
The river shows in many a shining patch,
And after, widens like an inland sea.’
‘From where the rising Cotswolds rear their gentle-sloping crowns,
To where high-hearted Liddington o’ertops the rolling downs,
O give me leave to wander still, I hold the world to scorn
In the valley of my childhood, in the land where I was born.
There’s Faringdon, and Folly Hill, and Stanford-in-the-Vale,
And Uffington, and Inglesham, and Highworth hoar and hale,
And many a pleasant-seated grove, and ancient old retreat,
The humble dwelling of the poor, the palace of the great.
True, no tremendous torrent roars through hollow, cleft ravine
Or cloudy mountain-pillar over-tops the rising scene,
But there are terraces and slopes, and woody walls and bowers,
And gentle winding rivulets through purple banks of flowers.
Here burn the scented clover tops, and there the lily blows,
The crimson-hearted sorrel and the heavy-breathing rose,
As far as eye can penetrate, as long as sight can reach,
Behold! the glory of the elm, the acorn, and the beech.
Here, sitting on the high hill-side, I feel the breezes blow
A wave of summer incense from the jewelled depths below,
And sweeter than the cooling breath that’s winnowed from the sea
The gentle breathing of the vale comes floating up to me.
I see the morning sun arise, and watch the star go down,
And though my soul’s to sorrow now, it hopes to hold the crown;
I crave no other recompense, no other honour hail,
But first to walk upon the hill and slumber in the vale.
There’s something whispers in mine ear – I would not reason why –
“As long as woods and valleys live, thou hast no need to die;”
And now I recognise the voice, and tell the accent clear –
The vocal Spirit of the Vale, the mover of the sphere.
Long may I walk beside the stream, and woo the solemn burn,
Here weave the pliant willow and there pluck the folded fern,
While slender-footed Isis draws his silver-fountained force,
And winds his growing torrent down the Valley of White Horse.’

The Carving at Wallbridge

It was The Times’ obituary of Benjamin Disraeli
Where the phrase ‘angels in marble’ appeared:
Disraeli was credited with discerning the outline
Of the working class Tory voter,
As yet unformed and inchoate,
But one that could be fashioned
Through ‘One Nation’ Conservatism,
Emphasising tradition, Empire and social reform;

I was reminded of that today down at Wallbridge,
Talking to Natasha about her carving by the canal,
It reminded me of a First Nation totem pole,
And the trading of Stroud Scarlet with the Iroquois;
And without wanting to dip my toes in the waters
Of semiology, structuralism, post-structuralism,
Deconstructionism, post-modernism and inter-textuality,
I plucked up the courage to ask her what it all meant.

She generously allowed my interpretation as valid,
But drew my attention to the kingfisher on the side,
How the top section depicted the canal builders,
The area below, the canal restorers,
The sinuous lines denoted the canal itself,
Whilst at the bottom was the entrance to Sapperton tunnel.

And that opened my eyes.
Sometimes, Mr. Gove,
You have to ask the experts.

Severn and Slavery

Oyve troyed ter live a Christian loyfe but me path ay bin rowsy. Oyve ad foyve mowths ter fade at ome an an usband on the riva who wantid is dinna on  the taybul when he cum ome, or corld.

E wuz a steersmun on them botes gewin to Bristol down that Riva Sevurn.  Normally e ad ironware on bord – yeno pots and pans an that, for the ships gewin from Bristol to Africa for them puwer negrows Sumtoymes e ad scarlet cloth. At ferst ar wore bothered abowt the kitchenware and cloth but when me usband spowke of chayns un rings un manniculs un shackuls un brayces that id carrid for them plantayshuns, then mar conshuns cud’nt tayk it. Ar sed to me usband that yowd gorra stopit, but e sed howm ar gonner fayd un clowthe yow un giv yer a ruf ova yereds? Tipical o me bin a quayka, ar kept qwyet wen e sed this, even wen he sed hid bate me, wen hid ad a few.

So oy asked im if e cud do withowt slayv guds for imself, loyke ar did with shugger. oy asked im to do withowt it in is tay, an is poype, an is rum. E sed if a totter rum wer gud enuff for them jolly jack tars in the King’s Nayvy, then it wer gud enuff fer im.  Ar daynt say anythin else but ar thort iyde troy agen wen e wor in is cups.

The next toyme we spowke bowt this oy asked im if e cudnt du complaytly withowt is drink, cud e just gew withowt wen e wuz at om – loyke a sorta “domestic boycott” – he cud loke tek is shugger an rum an is poype just on is bote.

Ar prayd evry noyte as them days got shorta that id say tha loyte, an ear the werd a god in is eer.

Prayz God, at chrismus e agrayd ter joyne us in ower  domestic boycott.

This is won way ow arv troyde to liv a christyan loyfe accordin ter me conshuns an limits o me power within me own howse

I’ve tried to live a Christian life, but my path has not been a primrose one. I’ve had five mouths to feed at home and a husband on the river who wanted his dinner on the table when he came home, or called.

He was a steersman on boats bound for Bristol down the River Severn. His usual cargo was ironware: pots and pans and kettles and suchlike for the ships out of Bristol sailing to Africa for the poor Negroes. And sometimes Scarlet cloth.

The kitchenware and the cloth caused me little sleeplessness at first.  But when my husband talked of Chains and Rings and Manacles and Shackles and Braces that he had carried for the Plantations, then that sore tested my Conscience.

I asked my Husband to desist from this trade and cargo, but he said how else could he feed and cloth us and give us a roof over our heads. Quaker like, I kept my peace and counsel when he said this, even when he threatened to beat me, when he was away with the drink.

I thus asked him if he could desist from taking slave goods for his own consumption, as I did with Sugar. I asked him if he could do without that in his tea, as well as his pipe and his rum. He said if a tot of rum was good enough for our jolly jack tars in the King’s navy, then it was good enough for him. I kept my Counsel but thought I would try again, when he was not in his cups.

The next time we conversed on this, I asked that if he could not practise full abstinence, could he perhaps practise a domestic Boycott? He should take his sugar and his rum and his pipe sole on the boat.

I prayed each night through the shortening days that he would see the light and hear the word of God in his ear.

Praise God, at Christmastide, he agreed to join us in our domestic boycott.

This is one example of how I have tried to live a Christian life according to my Conscience, and the limits of my power within my House, Kitchen and Hearthside.

I have others.

Locks and Crime

In the reign of good King George the Third it was enacted

‘That any Person who shall wilfully or maliciously damage the works of this Canal, shall be deemed guilty of Felony, and be punishable by Transportation, or otherwise, as the Court shall adjudge.’

So be careful, good citizens, as ye stroll along and past the following locks:

Wallbridge Lower, Wallbridge Upper, Bowbridge, Griffin’s, Ham Mill,

Ridler’s or Hope Mill, Gough’s Orchard or Dallaway’s or Lewis’s;

Bourn or Harris’s, Beale’s, St Mary’s or Clark’s, Grist Mill or Ile’s Mill or Wallbank’s,

Ballinger’s, Chalford Chapel, Bell, Innell’s or Clowe’s or Red Lion,

Golden Valley, Baker’s Mill or Twizzel’s Mill Lower, later Bolting,

Baker’s Mill or Twizzel’s Mill Upper or just Baker’s Mill,

Puck Mill Lower, Puck Mill Upper, Whitehall Lower, Whitehall Upper,

Bathurst’s Meadow or Bathurst’s Meadow Lower,

Bathurst’s Meadow Upper or Sickeridge Wood Lower,

Sickeridge Wood Middle, Sickeridge Wood Upper,

Daneway Basin or Daneway Lower,

Daneway Bridge or Daneway Upper,

Siddington Upper, Siddington Second, Siddington Third, Siddington Fourth or Lowest,

South Cerney Upper, South Cerney Middle, South Cerney Lowest,

Boxwell Spring or Shallow or Little Lock,

Wilmoreway or Wildmoorway Upper or Humpback,

Wilmoreway Lower or just Wilmoreway,

Cerney Wick, Latton, Eisey,

Dudgrove Double Lock upper chamber, Dudgrove Double Lock lower chamber,

Inglesham.

 

Reflections Derived From a Reading on A Train

Reflections derived from a reading on the train of The Thames and Severn Canal History and Guide by David Viner

Richard Musto earned four guineas on payday in March 1795, for his previous year’s assiduous mole catching along the canal length; welcome money in that year of notoriously high bread prices (‘Them moles was worth their weight in quarter loaves, sir.’) Simon Hamer earned four times that in 1784 for ‘day work’ and walling at Griffin’s Lock (‘Much better pay than being on the farm, sir.’).

The first Earl Bathurst was an early supporter of the canal idea, imagining the union of the two great rivers on his estate; Cirencester Park would see a ‘Marriage … which would be the Admiration of Posterity’, wrote Alexander Pope. (The Bathursts, btw, did very well out of slavery; Benjamin Bathurst had been Deputy-Governor of the Leeward Islands, and most prominent within the Royal African Company.)

‘The prosperity of the Stroud woollen industry between 1690 and 1760’ also stimulated proposals for the canal. (This also coincided with the Bristol boom-time for slaving profits with the triangular trade – how much of that cloth that was bartered for slaves in Sierra Leone and beyond came from Stroudwater, I wonder.)

The placid waters of the Stroudwater Navigation and the Thames and Severn Canal, the rustic banks of the Severn, and the meads by the Thames, all deceive the senses. Our senses should be alarmed, like Scrooge with Marley, with apparitions of coats of arms, purses, chains, links, cash boxes, keys, ledgers, deeds and padlocks. And spectral sharks might appear to leap from the bloodied inland waters. Think of that at Bathurst Meadow Lock.

When the closure of the canal was announced in 1893, employees were given a summary ‘fortnight’s notice’.

Some of us have walked the Frome from springs-source to Severn confluence, and Jim Pentney has paddled and carried his kayak from Severn to Thames, but I didn’t know about the Gloucester water poet’s 1641 trip with boat and ‘hatchett’ up the Thames, overland to the Frome, and thence to the Severn …

He reached ‘Lechlad’ and ‘Creeklad’: ‘This town of Creeklad is five miles distant by land from Ciciter, but it is easier to row sixtie miles by water on the River of Thames, then it is to passe betweene those two townes, for there are so many milles, fords and shallowes with stops, and other impediments … to Ciciter … I hired a Waine, wherein I put my Boate … this Waine did in lesse than five houres draw me from the River Isis neere Ciciter, to a brooke called Stroud, which brooke hath it’s head or Spring in Bessley Hundred neere Misserden …

I being uncarted (with my boate) at a place called Stonehouse, in the Afforesaid brooke called Stroud, with passing and wading, with haling over high bankes at fulling Milles (where there are many) with plucking over sunke trees, over and under strange Bridges, of wood and stone, and in some places the brooke was scarce as broad as my Boate, I being oftentimes impeached with the boughs and branches of willows and Alder Trees, which grew so thicke, hanging over and into the brooke, so that the day light or Sunne could scarce peepe through the branches, that in many places all passages were stop’d; so that I was sometimes forced to cut and hew out my way with a hatchet; with this miserable toyle all the day I gat at night to a Mill called Froombridge Mill …’

The rain beats down, the wind howls, branches creak and drip; the pub has long gone and disappeared from the map and landscape: no more smoke from a chimney to cheer the approaching crew; no more fire to warm wet limbs; no more shouts and cheers and laughter; no more clinking of glasses and tankards; no more solitary pipes in the corner; no more sing songs on festive winter nights; just an elegy of memory drifting on the wind.

A 1786 ‘Account of the Great Tunnel’:

‘At the Saperton end they have penetrated about 400 yards, at the other half a mile; but there are pits dug the whole length … where are … eight gangs working … The labourers work by the yard, an rent it of the grand contractor at the rate of £4 14s 6d to £5 10s a yard; out of which they find candles, gunpowder, and labour, both for arching and clearing the passage. The bricks are burnt on the spot, and the brick-work carried on as they go …

The soil is a blue marle, very hard, and worked with gunpowder …

As they pass the pits they have a funnel in each to admit air. The number of men who can work at the same time are:

3 miners

2 fillers of waggons

2 drivers, and

1 person to empty the waggon …

The damp is such that it must subject the people to agues …

The different gangs working in the tunnel have sometimes two and sometimes three reliefs, and they work eight hours at a time, day and night, Sunday not excepted … ‘

A legacy of slavery?

‘In deference to the wishes (implied if not expressed) of the landowner Earl Bathurst, the canal proprietors arranged for these spoil heaps to be planted with beech trees and they now form a very distinct and attractive feature of the local landscape. This was and remains a sensitive landscape; the Broad Ride which is a principal feature of the grade-one listed Cirencester Park crosses just here. This straight tree-lined avenue extends some five miles through the Park from Sapperton Common all the way to Cirencester … ‘

A legacy of Slavery?

The cult of the sublime, the profits of slavery, the interest in commerce, the cult of the Spa, and the consequent rise of Cheltenham Spa, all conspired to make the tunnel construction a point of interest for the upper classes inn Cheltenham. The climax being, of course, the visit of King George the Third in 1788. The year in which he first lost his mind, and started talking to the trees.

Novels and The Thames and Severn Canals

Novelists, Poets and the Thames and Severn Canal and the River Thames
(Referenced by David Viner)

Crotchet Castle by Thomas Peacock 1831
‘Leaving Lechlade, they entered the canal that connects the Thames with the Severn; ascended by many locks; passed by a tunnel, three miles long, through the bowels of Sapperton Hill; agreed unanimously that the greatest pleasure derivable from visiting any cavern of any sort was that of getting out of it; descended by many locks again through the valley of Stroud into the Severn … ‘

A few local lines taken from The Genius of the Thames by Thomas Peacock

Where Kemble’s wood-embosomed spire
Adorns the solitary glade,
And ancient trees, in green attire,
Diffuse a deep and pleasant shade,
Thy bounteous urn, light-murmuring, flings
The treasures of its infant springs,
And fast, beneath its native hill,
Impels the silver-sparkling rill,
With flag-flowers fringed and whispering reeds,
Along the many-colored meads.
Thames! when, beside thy secret source
Remembrance points the mighty course
Thy defluent waters keep;
Advancing, with perpetual flow,
Through banks still widening as they go,
To mingle with the deep …

Flow proudly, Thames! the emblem bright
And witness of succeeding years!
Flow on, in freedom’s sacred light,
Nor stained with blood, nor swelled with tears.
Sweet is thy course, and clear, and still,
By Ewan’s old neglected mill:
Green shores thy narrow stream confine,
Where blooms the modest eglantine,
And hawthorn-boughs o’ershadowing spread,
To canopy thy infant bed.
Now peaceful hamlets wandering through,
And fields in beauty ever new,
Where Lechlade sees thy current strong
First waft the unlaboring bark along;
Thy copious waters hold their way
Tow’rds Radcote’s arches, old and grey,

Hornblower and the Atropos C.S.Forester 1953

Forester’s 1953 book opens with a description of first class travel on a ‘queer craft, fully seventy feet long … hardly five feet in beam … draught less than a foot’ through the Golden Valley: ‘The rhythmic sound of the hoofs of the cantering horses … the boat itself made hardly a sound … the reeds at the banks bowing and straightening again long after they had gone by … The cantering horses maintained their nine miles an hour, being changed every half an hour.’

Hornblower takes the boat through the locks to the summit of the Thames and Severn Canal, and so to ‘the marvel of the age’: Sapperton Tunnel. And here they found ‘the strangest sort of mesmeric nightmare, suspended in utter blackness, utterly silent’, until Hornblower became ‘aware of a slight noise in the distance’, a ‘low muttering sound, at first so feeble’, but it ‘gradually increased in volume as the boat crept along, until it was a loud roaring … An underground spring here broke through the roof and tumbled roaring into the canal … in deafening cataracts. It thundered upon the roofs of the cabins …Then the torrent eased, fell away to trickles, and then they were past it.’

Their progress continued until, ‘in that massive darkness … a minute something, the size apparently of a grain of sand …The tunnel opening grew in size, from a grain of sand to a pea … assumed the crescent size expected … grew larger still, and with its growth the light increased … by infinitesimal gradations, until Hornblower could see the dark surface of the water, the irregularities of the tunnel roof … brick-lined again …’

I Love Walking The Canal Towpath at Winter Twillight

I love walking the canal towpath at winter twilight

When evening lights are reflected in the waters,

Or walking in a winter wind,

Watching the rain drops on the stippled surface,

Glancing up at beech trees etched against the sky

Or feeling darkness shroud the old man’s beard.

And I love walking past the red brick walls

And old stone mill buildings,

That line the cobbled pock-marked path

On my way to work in Paganhill,

In the darkness of a winter’s morning,

Feeling myself slip though time to boyhood,

Seeing myself once more by Swindon’s railway walls and factory,

Or then slipping further back two hundred years and more,

When crossing the canal bridge,

Seeing the morning mist lift above the town,

But still muffling Rodborough Common and Selsley.

This is the gift of Stroud:

Watercourses, rivers, streams, canals,

Towpaths, basins, lock-gates, sluices,

Mills, railway lines, bridges, level crossings,

Viaducts, suburban streets, commons, hills, valleys,

And, always, when you walk the canal,

That level arrow through our hill sloped town,

The ghosts of trows and barges making their quiet way

From the Severn to the Thames,

As companions and company,

In living industrial archaeology.

 

Minchinhampton and Transportation

I came across this reference to a local transportation when re-reading The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes:

‘Mrs. Lycot, wife of “a gentleman of considerable landed property,” wrote in May 1819 to the local magistrate in Minchin Hampton, Sir George Paul, begging clemency for Thomas Barker, an itinerant vendor of rabbit skins who had been sentenced to transportation for buying some silverware that a servant had stolen from her house. She had asked for the sentence to be withdrawn, “in consequence of [Barker’s] age which is 57, and the improbability that he and his wife would ever meet again which being in poor circumstances would render her situation one of great distress.” In forwarding her letter to Lord Sidmouth, the magistrate noted that “the man is already in the Hulk, it will not do to send him back to our Penitentiary, in which there are already three prisoners confined where there should be one.” Revealingly, he added: “These are times when the current of public opinion seems to disarm the law of all its terrors!” And so Barker left for the Fatal Shore, leaving his wife to fend for herself.’

And this led to this re-creation:

I pen these words from distant Southern Lands ‘as a WARNING to all miscreants back on England’s fair shores, and those of Wales and Scotland and Ireland too.’ These are not my words; I merely pen them, as I listen to the melancholy voice of Thomas Barker. The use of italics is from my own habit. The choice of punctuation and paragraph is mine. The capitalisation is at the request of Thomas Barker.

‘I was born in the county of Gloucester early in the reign of King George the Third. My parents lived FRUGAL and INDUSTRIOUS lives, spinning and weaving, and I thrived with my brothers and sisters. All was well with us until hard times near the end of the American war. The hearth was cold and smokeless. I STOLE an axe to help.

I learned my lesson: THIEVES don’t prosper and CRIME don’t pay. I sought employment on the farm; then found work brick laying on the new canal, and walling in the new fields.

But the money went to my head. DRINK got the better of me and I had a base born child. THRIFTLESS young man that I was. This caused much ill feeling in the parish.

Take HEED.

Young men grow up:

My MARRIAGE gave me much JOY, and now my present WOE. My WIFE and I soon had other mouths to feed – but the French wars meant more uniforms. So I went back to the weaving. Money was plentiful and we had no need for stolen axes. Or anything purloined back then.

But the war’s end brought no end of hardship. So I turned my hand to catching moles for farmers. And for the canal company along the towpath, too. But a moleskin won’t buy a quarter loaf.

I then turned to walking from village to village and farm to farm, catching rabbits. It was all LAWFUL, the GAMEKEEPERS all knew me; but I did fall in with POACHERS on occasions. If I’m honest with myself, I could have been caught and HANGED or transported before I was up in court in 1819.

Listen to my ADVICE, young poachers: ye will be caught. Put away thy guns and snares.

TIME does not heal. It BETRAYS.

It was the year of 1819, the last full year of the reign of the old King George that BETRAYED me, when TEMPTATION again proved too much. Oh, AVARICE and temptation! How I loathe thee!

Follow not my path, young men and women, no matter how poor thee be. Ye might have a dearth of coin, but the love of thy FAMILY is worth its weight in golden sovereigns. Poverty of the HEART far outweighs poverty of the purse.

Take notice.

I happened to be in Minchinhampton, near Stroud, selling my coney skins – there’s a good deal to be had up around there on the hills – or rather, there was. I called at the grand house of Mr. Lycot. I knew a servant there and thought the kitchen might have need. The girl knew of my past poaching, and asked if I would like to make some extra coin. It would be as easy as baking a pie.

Would I care to buy some silverware from her if she happened to pick some up from the house? The House had so much, they wouldn’t miss a few candlesticks and such-forth.

I was betwixt and between – I’d sold a good few skins and had coin enough, but there’s only so many skins you can sell. It was the merry month of May, but the spring of my youth was long past. Winters get harder with the passing of the years. Why steal an axe again?

So, I fell for the new game and met her the next night to exchange silver for coppers.

But when I went to sell, the game was up. How could a ragged seller of coney skins acquire such a hoard, if not by DISHONESTY? I was apprehended and sentenced before the may blossom was even in full bloom.

The wife of the House was a woman of CHRISTIAN virtue. Mrs. Lycot requested that my sentence be rescinded on account of my advanced age, my union with my wife, and her worsening privation.

Alas! It was all too late. I was already incarcerated in the prison HULK at Portsmouth. In CHAINS in the day in the docks; fettered in IRONS at night.

I have no more to say. Narratives of convict voyages are known to all. You do not require my own EXAMPLE any longer. I talk only of avoiding mishap before it is too late.

Oh homely village, bathed in light,
My wife and children gone from sight,
A convict now in southern lands,
Surrounded by the quarrelling bands,
Young hands please heed my warning,
Spend not your lives in endless mourning!’

William Barker

And this research:

Now, onto William Barker.  I did a bit of rooting around Ancestry and found a few things and I’ve attached images of them for you. 

Firstly I couldn’t find any reference to a William Barker being transported from Gloucestershire (he does not appear in ‘Transportees from Gloucestershire to Australia 1783-1842’ by I Wyatt, which is the main source for the names of people being transported in Gloucestershire). 

I did find two other persons by the name of ‘William Barker’ of roughly the right age being transported in 1819, but one was sentenced in Hampshire and the other in Staffordshire – it’s impossible to tell whether this is the right man or just another man with the same name as the gaol calendars do not record his age or place of birth.  However if he was an ‘itinerant hawker’ then it is possible he was meandering around the county.  Does ‘The Fatal Shore’ give any references that may help track William Barker down?

 Secondly, he does appear in the Gaol calendars in Gloucestershire; once in 1774 for stealing an axe and twice in 1782, as the defendant in a case brought against him by the Churchwardens and Overseers of Minchinhampton for ‘begetting one Hester Higgins with child’.  With the latter case, it looks like he was granted bail both times and released to await trial.  The reason he was taken into custody in the first place was that he’d failed to provide sureties for the case.  Unfortunately the Minchinhampton parish overseers of the poor records regarding bastardy do not commence until 1822, so there’s not much information to be had.  The case may be mentioned in the Vestry accounts and the overseers accounts for the period, but if so, it’s highly unlikely there’d be much information in them about the man himself (I can check for you though).

 I did find his baptism at Minchinhampton in 1760 and but nothing other than that.  I wasn’t able to find the baptism of his alleged child in the period 1780-1783 either.

Hope that helps – look forward to the leaflet!!

 Regards

 John

 John Putley

Hub Facilities Manager

* : Gloucestershire Archives, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL1 3DW

(: 01452 427591 or 425295

8: john.putley@gloucestershire.gov.uk

Web: http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/archives