Keelmen’s aquatic sports have been held on the canal at Thorne since the 1890s, always in June, except during the wars. Sports include swimming, greasy pole walking, sculling races, propelling a boat by hand with a crew of two or four men in the boat, and other interesting events. It was impossible to learn the keelman's trade at a Nautical school. Only the hard, rough school of experience, and the knowledge and skill of the old skippers could produce a trained keelman. Used to work on the juneville in the summer holidays with Jim Taylor, i remember going under the Humber bridge a few times when they were building it. loved every minute of it. a b Russell, Ronald. (1983) Lost Canals & Waterways of Britain, Sphere Books Ltd, ISBN 0-7221-7562-0

Rolt, L.T.C. (1950). The Inland waterways of England. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. ISBN 0-04-386003-6. Each keel, of course, had a name and what a collection they were. When I first went on board they ranged from Adamto Togo, the victorious When Trent Carriers wrapped up Dad went to work for British Waterways on the BACCAT until his retirement. Mum had many trips up and down the canal, but did not venture to Hull many times. She had to stay at home however, because on June 1st 1891, George, my eldest brother, was born. After a few months she was on board again, but Dad said that she was still afraid of the Humber and as soon as George could toddle, she had a rope tied around his waist so that he could not reach the rail and fall overboard. In September 1893, another son was born, my second eldest brother, Arthur. Then again in September two years later a daughter was born. She was called Elsie, and it so happened that she was seven years old before I came on the scene. By the 1850s the railway system had become well established, and the amount of cargo carried on the canals had fallen by nearly two-thirds, lost mostly to railway competition. In many cases struggling canal companies were bought out by railway companies. Sometimes this was a tactical move by railway companies to gain ground in their competitors' territory, but sometimes canal companies were bought out either to close them down and remove competition, or to build a railway on the line of the canal. A notable example of this is the Croydon Canal. Some larger canal companies survived independently and continued to make profits. The canals survived through the 19th century largely by occupying the niches in the transport market that the railways had missed, or by supplying local markets such as the coal-hungry factories and mills of the big cities.

Contributors

Next morning we started about 4.30, the horse pulling us up the shallow and narrow canal. It was as dark as a grave, except where lit by the glare of glass-houses and forges built on the canal banks. As we approached the glass-houses of Mexborough and Swinton we could hear the workmen singing like a choir. We glided by and a large red glow suddenly appeared; I could see men with long tubes in their mouths blowing bottles and other glassware-a strange sight for a lad so early on a winter’s morning. His father before him Edward Hudson Webster was also on the barges after serving in the navy after the first world war. Nothing more was heard of it for many, many years. Then it was brought up again, and talked of for many months. Eventually an idea was proposed to build a bridge of one single span, reaching across the Humber from the Yorkshire side to the Lincolnshire side. This was to be the largest single span bridge in the world, which when completed, would carry traffic of every description. The bridge was completed and actually opened on the 17th of July 1981. It was marvellous for me to be able to travel across the bridge. I could see for miles both up and down the Humber. Same with narrowboat painting. Dutton quotes Rolt, (who had similarly over-romanticised views) who was convinced that the progenitor of narrowboat art was gypsy caravans. But if one bothers to read Flowers Afloat: Folk Artists of the Canals Hardcover – by Tony Lewery - then it's clear that there were many influences on narrowboat painting, including popular Victorian mass produced pictures, pottery designs, painted tea trays, etc. Dad could not trust him, and now that George was growing up, he kept Tom on for a while so that George would not have to do too much as it was a great responsibility being Mate, although he was quite used to looking after the boat. When George was just turned 14, a new bridge was being put across the River Don near the Cake Mill our boat traded to. I remember Dad telling us about the old ferry that carried people across the river from Fishlake and Sykehouse. Now he had the chance to help in bringing the bridge in sections on the Hannah and Harriet. The bridge was to be named Jubilee Bridge. My brother and Tom had to heave a part of it with a wire attached to the main stay roller. Tom let go of his handle, George could not hold his handle now carrying the full weight, and as a result, the handle reversed at terrific speed hitting George on the nose and cheek, cutting a great gash on his face and breaking his nose. He carried that scar always.

Burton, Anthony (1983). The Waterways of Britain: A Guide to the Canals and Rivers of England, Scotland and Wales. London: Willow Books, William Collins and Sons & Co Ltd. ISBN 0-00-218047-2.Tony Latham, 52, grew up in Hull and has spent most of his life living on boats travelling across Europe. He returned to the city five years ago on his work boat Castille and says things have certainly changed over the years. Mrs Trimingham still went on her rounds with clothing, and called in to see us regularly. On one of her visits, she asked Elsie to help her remove from the shop house to one on Bottom Street. The business was doing so well that the rooms in the shop were needed for storage. Elsie helped to clean, paper and paint the new house between her trips to Hull with Dad. At that time there were dozens of keels laid alongside in tiers six or seven abreast, waiting their turn to discharge to the different owners. I recollect my father, on one of these trips, pointing out to me the place where the sloop Masterman capsized and sank with the skipper's wife and two children in the cabin, after striking Witton Sand end on the previous spring tide. The Masterman and her ill-fated passengers were never seen again. But once through the Jubilee Bridge, we were all right for reaching the Mill. Sometimes we did not have briggage and had to drop anchor in a hurry, then wait for the tide to turn and lower, until we could get under the bridge. If the cargo was needed urgently, we had to take a line ashore, fasten it securely to a tree and then wind the other end to the sheet roller and heave our way under the bridge. This was a very slow process, as we had to take one line along, while the other held the boat. I was pleased this did not happen very often. Sometimes the mil men would come and help to pull, and that made it easier. Inland boatmen were British travellers who made a living by transporting goods along England’s canal networks, which began to emerge in the late 18th century. These individuals were almost exclusively male and their fortunes were tied to the commerce they engaged in. Until the mid-century, their commercial platform was regional and their commerce was limited to the transportation of coal, timber, aggregate and building material to the new centres of industry where cities were swiftly forming. Following the mechanisation and industrialisation of local manufacture, their trade platform expanded to include the products of the factories they helped build. The dissemination of local British goods regionally and eventually internationally, was made possible by this efficient use of Britain’s water-highways as throughout the nineteenth century local trade to global markets depended on these men and their boats. However, with overcrowding in urban areas following the repeal of the Corn Laws and mass internal diaspora, the late 19th century saw these men accompanied by, first their female partners, and then their families.

Lament for the Keel (2) The second of three articles describing life on board the sail-carrying keels in the rural and industrial hinterlands of Hull and Goole and other Humber ports. Once, looking around Thorne, Dad heard of a little house in Cobby's Yard. Today it would have been called a cul-de-sac as there were about four houses on each side with no outlet at the far end. It was in the centre of the town, quite near the shops. I think I have heard Dad say that the house was owned by a Miss Harrison, to whom they paid a rent of One Shilling and Sixpence per week. Miss Harrison lived in the first house in Cobby's Yard, the front door being in Bottom Street. Elsie and I were also the stokers-up, keeping the oven hot. We pared apples, cleaned berries and did odd jobs in between. Mum used to get a large piece of ham, and a very large joint of meat, sometimes pork. We had to see that the pan with the ham did not boil dry, and after the baking was done, to keep an eye on the joint in the oven. It was like cooking for hundreds and thousands.British Waterways began to see the economic and social potential of canalside development, and moved from hostility towards restoration, through neutrality, towards a supportive stance. While British Waterways was broadly supportive of restoration, its official policy was that it would not take on the support of newly restored navigations unless they came with a sufficient dowry to pay for their ongoing upkeep. In effect, this meant either reclassifying the Remainder Waterway as a Cruising Waterway or entering into an agreement for another body to maintain the waterway. [17] Today the great majority of canals in England and Wales are managed by the Canal & River Trust which, unlike its predecessor British Waterways, tries to have a more positive view of canal restoration and in some cases actively supports ongoing restoration projects such as the restoration projects on the Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal and the Grantham Canal. In the post-medieval period, some rivers were canalised for boat traffic. The Exeter Ship Canal was completed in 1567. The Sankey Canal was the first British canal of the Industrial Revolution, opening in 1757. The Bridgewater Canal followed in 1761 and proved to be highly profitable. The majority of the network was built in the "Golden Age" of canals, between the 1770s and the 1830s. From 1840 the canals began to decline, because the growing railway network was a more efficient means of transporting goods. From the beginning of the 20th century the road network became progressively more important; canals became uneconomic and were abandoned. In 1948, much of the network was nationalised. Since then, canals have been increasingly used for recreation and tourism.

Well written, exciting and a brilliant historical / period novel which evokes a wonderful spirit of a time past.He lived in Hammersmith Terrace, an eighteenth century street close to the river where every house now bears a blue plaque. So he set the greater part of the novel literally on his doorstep. The Hammersmith of the novel is pretty much the real place, between King Street and the river (as it must have been about 1930), although the magnificent picture-house described in chapter five does not seem to correspond to an actual Hammersmith cinema. It is not the famous Hammersmith Odeon, which opened in 1932 as the Gaumont Palace; it’s probably based on one of the several opulent cinemas that were beginning to appear in London at that time. As a working people, the commerce of Britain was transported – all or in part – on the same vessels in which they lived and the Victorian imagination fixed them in the frame of this co-dependency. By 1900, the image of the Water Gypsy was a mainstay on England’s waterways and was a great source of touristic pride to observers. However, the boundary between land and the canal was a one-dimensional one in which the voyeur gazed on the ‘romantic’ image of a travelling boat-family ignorant of their life-style and without truly engaging with their culture. This paper examines the connecting stories of the Water Gypsies. At issue is how their migratory and nomadic lives shaped their culture, their crafts, and their way of life; how British culture conceptualised these peoples in the same way it romanticised and exoticised the Rominchal; and how fixed frames circumscribed their culture as artefact. Names of the gear which he had to help work, and the nautical phrases were strange to him and of course there was one taskmaster -the skipper – who had the boy as his sole scholar. The lad looked around to see if there was anyone else to blame if things went wrong, but, alas, there was only himself. The guy obviously has a grudge against the marina," she said. "It creates a bad name to people living on boats and I think a few years ago it was a cheap option, but it is certainly not now. Read More Related Articles The Anderton Boat Lift, the world's first commercially successful boat lift and the only boat lift in the United Kingdom.