• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Horses on the canals

ElaineWalker

ElaineWalker

New Member
I have just joined this forum to help me research a book on horses on the inland waterways - I am using archive records from various sources, but I'm also especially interested in family history, stories, old photos and memories, no matter how vague.

I'd be really interested in anything members have to share or even questions they feel need following up - my background as a writer is horses, rather than canals, though it was my husband's long-term interest in narrowboats that brought me to the subject, so I have some experience now, as we have a tiny narrowboat on the Shropshire Union near Chester.

I do have a flier about my project but I'm not sure if it's allowed to upload it here - maybe an admin will tell me.

I'd be happy to send it to anyone who wanted to see it - or, indeed, to send hard copies for local face-to-face history groups etc.
 
ElaineWalker said:
I have just joined this forum to help me research a book on horses on the inland waterways - I am using archive records from various sources, but I'm also especially interested in family history, stories, old photos and memories, no matter how vague.

I'd be really interested in anything members have to share or even questions they feel need following up - my background as a writer is horses, rather than canals, though it was my husband's long-term interest in narrowboats that brought me to the subject, so I have some experience now, as we have a tiny narrowboat on the Shropshire Union near Chester.

I do have a flier about my project but I'm not sure if it's allowed to upload it here - maybe an admin will tell me.

I'd be happy to send it to anyone who wanted to see it - or, indeed, to send hard copies for local face-to-face history groups etc.
Click to expand...
You may find "Birmingham working horses" useful.
ISBN 0906160081 Brian Holden.
 
I can see no reason why you should not upload your flyer. The forum is really meant as a conduit for historical knowledge of the region, and Birmingham is a central point of the inland waterways. We hope our members can help you and would be interested in anything you feel you can share with us
 
Welcome to the Forum, Elaine. Obviously the main Canals of Birmingham thread is a good starting point - https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/canals-of-birmingham.4054/ - but there are several other threads with canals in the title and umpteen other threads with canals or horses somewhere or other in the thread. As usual the Search engine (top right on every page) is your friend. A number of members trees have canal people in them, and some ancestors of my late wife were the lockkeepers at Cheston Street. Good luck with your searches. :cool:

Maurice
 
Looking forward to the book. If you haven't already found out about the demise of the canal museum at
Llanfrynach on the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal and the sad loss of most of the material there on horse drawn boats, send me a message with your email address, and I'll send you a potted summary of my 2015 findings.
 
Horse drawn boats is a complex subject and it still possible to find the odd stable around the network. That some boats were horse drawn in this area may be recollected by some visitors to this site.

Coal and rubbish boats were the last to use horse power on local waterways. For coal boats, with colliery closures, the choice of loading places became limited.
 
lovely photo pedro...dont think i have seen it before in fact i did not realise that horse drawn was still being used in 1970...thanks

lyn
 
When Spaghetti Junction was being built above the Birmingham & Fazeley canal around 1970, they had to allow horse traffic along the tow path while it was being built. There is a documetary and the chief engineer/architect mentions it in amazement.
 
There is the same picture, but of poor quality, in the Post of August 1966. In the background there is a mast with a few dishes on it. No write up but caption says the last two horse drawn narrow boats left on the English canals.

I presume this would not include Barges!
 
From the Coventry Evening Telegraph of August 1968, we learn that Jim the dapple grey had 3 years previously worked around the Birmingham canals with the Corporation's Salvage Dept.

674B5DBA-8DE0-411C-A36A-792FF91801ED.jpeg
 
Elaine has read other canal threads on BHF as she knew about the horses belonging to one of my grandfathers. She sent me a PM and I replied with the answer she asked for.
Horses had a very long canal association; from their beginning until the working boats virtually ceased. There are still some working boats and some of them and tourist boats are horse powered. Those on the Grand Western in Devon are still horse drawn.

Horse Drawn Barge History - About - Tiverton Canal Co: The last Horse-Drawn Barge in Devon

The history of the Grand Western Canal's Traditional horse drawn barge
www.tivertoncanal.co.uk www.tivertoncanal.co.uk
 
Certainly a mammoth job to rescue the horse.
I have been at horse rescues but always on land, They were difficult enough at times and nine hours is a long time for any one or animal to be in water. t will be seen that horses were quite valuable to those on the cut and not only that. were essential to earning one's livelihood.
I was told, on good authority, that it horse and wife went in the cut the horse was first to be pulled out. The claim was that you could always get a wife, but a horse had to be bought!! :eek:

"the details here are not necessarily the views of the writer" :D .
 
I used a similar picture to the rubbish boat in my Birmingham Canals book. Jeff Bennet was with the horse and both boat and horse belonged to Caggy Stevens.

That is the one that Radio Rails used a couple of posts ago. But this image is Farmer's Bridge locks with Saturday Bridge in the Background.

This is the one from the Railway & Canal Society Weaver Collection, which shows Camp Hill Locks:

45633.jpg

The horse is passing under the Great Western Railway bridge. In those days the locks were in a straight line, unlike today where there has been a diversion through a new section.
 
Last edited:
ElaineWalker said:
I have just joined this forum to help me research a book on horses on the inland waterways - I am using archive records from various sources, but I'm also especially interested in family history, stories, old photos and memories, no matter how vague.

I'd be really interested in anything members have to share or even questions they feel need following up - my background as a writer is horses, rather than canals, though it was my husband's long-term interest in narrowboats that brought me to the subject, so I have some experience now, as we have a tiny narrowboat on the Shropshire Union near Chester.

I do have a flier about my project but I'm not sure if it's allowed to upload it here - maybe an admin will tell me.

I'd be happy to send it to anyone who wanted to see it - or, indeed, to send hard copies for local face-to-face history groups etc.
Click to expand...

Hello Elaine welcome to the forum , in 1969 my Mother and I moved from William St(off Broad St) to Cambridge Tower behind The Hall of Memory , living on the 14th floor we had quite a good view of the city centre and more . Looking out of the kitchen window I regularly saw barges drawn by horses on an irregular basis they came from under the bridge beneath Summer Row heading toward Gas St basin
 
In the Thesis, Canal Boat People (1840-1870), by Wendy Jane Freer there are just a few mentions of horses...

At its height in 1838, Pickford fleet consisted of 116 boats and 398 horses.

Fly boats... were crewed by a team of four men who worked day and night in shifts. To speed their passage the horse was changed every 35 miles or less, and they were given priority over other boats while underway.

A small carrier.... he is unlikely to have owned any horses. Boatmen in the slow trade were often required to provide their own horse and in 1906 horses could be hired for about a pound a week.

NSPCC published a report on carnal children in 1910 in which it is reported that a special inspector had seen boys as young as 6 and girls of 8 years old driving the horse and steering the boat...Boys of 7 and girls of 12 operating looks.

Horses often caused injuries either by kicking, trampling or accidentally dragging people into the canal.
 
Wendy became a University lecturer and is a former President of the Railway & Canal Historical Society.

The reference to Pickford's has to be taken in consideration with other facts. They certainly were, until 1847, the most extensive carrier by inland waterways in England. Yet they had an equally extensive road operation which included stage waggons and fly vans.

More generally Pickford's were merchandise and general carriers and the fly boat system was part of that trade. There were a host of other canal users who brought coal by boat, moved road stone, limestone, salt, ironstone, bricks and many other commodities, where horses, mules or donkeys played a part.

Much of the traffic in the Birmingham area was of the short haul type. For coal this often meant a trip to the nearest coal mine and back. As local pits closed the journey became more lengthy travelling to Cannock Chase or the North Warwickshire mines. The nearest coal mines to Birmingham that operated through to the twentieth century included Sandwell Park & Jubilee collieries where their coal wharf was at Smethwick on the Old Main Line. The other was Hamstead Colliery where there was a basin alongside the Tame Valley Canal.
 
A view of a rubbish boat. again I suppose A Stevens, but this boat is passing a working boat pair- motor and butty-but for 1970 most working boats had ceased operating, it would be of use to determine what their names were.
 
Thanks for so many positive responses - I have a copy of Wendy Freer's thesis - and I've come across some of these photos before but others are new to me. I gave a talk on interpreting images of horses at Ellesmere Port for the Horses at Work day last month so always glad to see any that crop up.

Here is my flier - thanks for permission to upload it.
 

Attachments

  • boat horse flyers.pdf
    183.1 KB · Views: 22
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top