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CANALS

postie

postie

The buck stops here
Staff member
Birmingham has been called, among other things, “The Venice of England”.
This conjures up all manner of picturesque and tranquil scenes in people’s minds. This is a very misleading picture, as canals can also be scenes of terrifying acts of violent and tragic deeds, more so in the past than at the present time.
Canals are now being transformed into venues of peaceful pursuits like fishing, boating, jogging or just taking a leisurely stroll along the towpaths enjoying the wide variety of wildlife and flora and fauna that abounds along these waterways.
Specialist eating establishments are springing up, to entice even more people to indulge their pleasure.
Gas Street Basin and Brindley Place are prime examples of how fashion trends have changed. Once the meeting places for canal boat families to gather and share information about various loads that needed shifting over great distances by barges, sometimes coupled together with a “Butty Boat” so they could haul twice as much cargo and earn slightly more money. Every member of the family had his/ her own role to play. The Women would be expected to do the same amount of heavy, arduous work as the men. Children too would put in a full day, operating locks, tending and leading horses where needed and generally carrying out tasks well beyond their years.
The men tended to be hard working, hard drinking and hard hitting, which was a vital requirement if you lived and worked the canals.
The Women were equally as hard as the men and could give as good as they got in a set to with either a man or a woman. They were mostly considered as “Baby Factories “by their husbands and were constantly in a state of pregnancy.
Some babies were stillborn and the canal again came in useful to dispose of the body, it would be only too easy for us to condemn this practice but it must be remembered that there just wasn’t enough money to give the child a decent burial.
Canals were also a useful place to get rid of someone who had crossed another person and in fact there are many recorded instances of this happening.
If things got too much to bear then the canal offered anther way out and again there are many recorded instances of suicides.
How many sackfulls of kittens and puppies have been disposed of? How many varied instruments of crime have been consigned to the murky depths? How many assaults and murders have been carried out along towpaths and tunnels?
Next time you see a nice peaceful canal scene on a glorious sunny day, think on!.
 
Sorry Chris, but I can't tell you because I sent this story to a friend and he sent it back with the picture added, all I know is that it is near the city centre. :-\
 
It's Brindley PLace, Chris, with the new very expensive flats on the extreme right. Not far from Gas Street Basin.

The Pub on Dennis's photo, in the left background is where they took Bill clinton when he visited our city.
 
Sorry to be difficult again, but I don't think Postie lovely picture is Brindley Place or Gas Street basin, because it shows a flight of locks looking down, with the weirs on the right to conserve water and possibly to park the odd boat.
If I were a gambler I would put my shirt on the canal looking from a point on the NE side of Summer Row down towards Newhall Street. You can see the Newhall Street bridge in the middle distance. I think I've written before about an experience I had working for the council surveying the then Museum of Science and Industry (formerly Elkington's factory) which fronted the street and spanned over the canal, when we got marooned on one of those islands between thelock and the weir pond. All 50 years ago now.
Peter
 
We had a great holiday in England last year,  and during the 3 days we were in Birmingham City Centre we spent many hours walking along by the canals.  How they have changed since we worked in the city over 40 years ago.  Where my husband did his apprenticship is no longer there. I have attached the pub I think you are talking about, it is very nice.  I can honestly say we thought Birmingham was great and would go back when we are in England again. We have a number of canal photos if anyone is interested.

Maureen
 
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Super pic's of canals. Sakura if you have more please post. This folder is of interest to me at the moment. I have been thinking about the canals a lot lately. The part they played in the history of Britain and the world in fact. In the old days before the railways came into being the only method of transporting goods was by dirt road and horse and cart. If you think about it this must have been difficult and fraught with hazards. Loads that could be carried were probably restricted to three tons or so I have read. Enterprising industrialists started to build canals to move larger amounts of materiel to and from their factories in a more reliable and voluminous manner. I don’t know how many crew were required on a narrow boat but I have seen 70 ft. narrow boats being handled by one man and a horse. The boats could carry 30 tons. The horse would walk along the towpath on it's own towing the boat, it's occupant and the load behind. At least that was the case with the ones I saw in the 50s. Maybe when they came to a lock more help was required. The horses were very smart and seemed to know exactly what to do. Somewhere on this site you can read about a horse, whose driver had died in the cart, waiting for the traffic lights to change before moving off and turning into it's destination. Once you have the boat moving, the work required to keep it going was much reduced. What happened when you wanted to stop it I am not sure. Probably the horse would have known. Anyway I think the introduction of the canals onto the transportation scene was a key feature in the history of Britain in the world. (A nation of shop keepers) Would Birmingham have become the manufacturing powerhouse that it was without them. Indeed would Britain have become the world power that it was without them. Transportation of product to market is just as important as the manufacture of it. The canals were a big improvement in this department than what existed at the time.
In their heyday the canals in Britain were over 3000 miles in length and connected the key manufacturing areas of the midlands to ports such as London, Hull, Liverpool etc. Some of the network was on rivers but the larger length was constructed. Can you imagine moving 6ft ? deep x 20ft? wide x 3000 miles long of dirt. Ouch! Much of this was in the days prior to steam power. How did they do it? What equipment would have been used? If anyone has some insight on this I would be very interested. The bottoms of the canals were lined with clay to keep the water in. I suppose that the canals were key for about a hundred years until the railways took over and probably the horse drawn boats that I saw in the 50s were the last of the breed. I am just thinking that these canals were more important in the history of the world than many of the, so-called, wonders that are frequently referred to. They did the job and next to these the Great Wall of China kept no one out, the Pyramids were a make work project that did not work and so on. Architectural and other works of art are not included.
So that to take former President Clinton to enjoy a pint alongside one of these wonderful ditches is quite appropriate. I wonder if it is the case that without them he may not have had an English speaking USA to have been president of. I like Bill he seems to be one of the more human politicians.
It seems that the canals are now a venue for pleasure boating and as such are busier than ever. I would really like to hire a narrow boat for a week and travel this masterpiece of the industrial revolution. Maybe I will yet. But in the meantime I will end with the famous words that most children will have read…”there is nothing, positively nothing, quite as pleasant as messing about in boats”. Hope I got the passage right.

Regards.
 
Sorry,
There is nothing... absolutely nothing...
half so much worth doing
as simply messing about in boats.
 
The canals certainly changed the way of life.  On the 6th November 1769 the first coal boats arrived in Birmingham and the price of coal fell from 13 shillings a ton to 7 shillings a ton a saving of nearly 50%. O0
 
Rupert. Loved your post on the canals. I have always loved the canals and could not believe my eyes when we visited Birmingham last year. Our first sight of them was after some friends had taken us to the Symphony Hall and we walked along after the concert. We were only in the city for four days and we went each day, one day walking all along the tow path. The barges were being used for everything from permanent homes a restaurant and there was a film crew doing a polical broadcast on a barge. The election were on while we were there.

My husband did his apprecticeship on Berkley Street, those buildings are now all lofts or apartments, look very nice. Where the canals went under the factories they are all open and have little gardens. If for no other reason the canals made our visit to Birmingham worth it.

I do have other photos, I can send them to your email address if you want me to.

Hope you like these.
 
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You are so right, Sakura. The canals in the Brindley place area are great. I love to sit in a cafe by the side of the'cut' and drink a cup of coffe. I meet my sister there from time to time, and she talks of her days working in the city, and of walking by the canals and hardly realilsing they were there.

When you get out of the city they are restored to their natural state. The bicycles and supermarket trolleys have been cleared from the water,the trees and wild plants are thriving in a little green oasis. I can't thinnk of a nicer place to walk, or boat Rupert :)
 
How I would like my grandparents who lived on William Street off Crockets Road to see the area today.

They had such hard lives, my grandmother lived over 30 years longer than her husband. I wish we had visited where she lived last year but I don't think, William Street exists now. I think there are canals that went past the gas works that brought in the coal, does anyone know whether they are still there?

Here is are my grandparents, my mother must have been taking the photo as she is not there. I thinnk this must be by the back door, it looked a lot nicer when I was a child.
 
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Sakura,lovely pic they had it so hard in those days,but they always looked happy :smitten:
 
Thanks Sakura please send what you can. I don't think that the ancient canals of Britain and the men and women who worked on them and built them have recieved anywhere near their due. I will keep your pictures in confidence.

When I was a youngster Di, I used to go to the old science museum ocasionally to look at the Spitfire, Railton Special and other relics of the Industrial Revolution. Oh and the old tram car with sound effects, remember that. Anyway, there were some windows in the building that you walked by from one exhibit to the next and looking through, there down below was this canal and tow-path that I never knew existed. I did not think about it at the time it was just a canal. You are right, we passed them all the time and never knew anything about it. Oh incidentally there is a non-profit organisation dedicated to revitalisation of the canals. I don't have the web site at hand but you can Google it. They have been cleaning up and re-opening parts of the network. It seems that this gem is being recognised for what it is.

Yes Postie supply and demand in the business sense. Being able to move raw materials to the ports in volume reliably and materiel from manufacturing plants to go with the men to outposts around the world must have been important at that critical juncture. Many sailing ships. You don't need a lot if you are not getting enough stuff to put in them. I have often said to my wife "how did that small island manage to have so much influence". I wonder if we have just been talking about the key feature that made the difference.
Regards.
 
Rupert, you can use my photos if you wish.

The only reason I was not going to send them to the forum was I'm not sure how many canal photos they want on here. I'm like you they fascinate me, I like looking at the photos although they all tend to be much the same.

When we went down to the States a few years ago, we stayed at a place called Hancock. The river and canal ran close by each other and they were cleaning their canals and hoping to get them back into working order. :)
 
Message for Sakura, or indeed anyone else who can help!
I would love to see any canal photos you have, especially any of the Longboat Pub, when they had a floating bar on a boat called Squirrel. I beleive it could have been there anytime between 1964 and 1988. I have one, but it is'nt very clear...
Thanks!
 
Can i just ask if anyone knows what a waterman was, found an ancester who was one and i assume it was connected to the Canals but i'm not sure, so if anyone can clear it up for me i'd be grateful :)
 
hi all, i just love to be on or around the canal system.
when you think back of how the people that dug them out,
and all by hand so to speak.
i was in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago and had to have a mooch,
as i don,t live or get there often,scary place now, with roads here there and everywhere,nice and peaceful by the canal though.
happy days regards dereklcg.
 
Claire-brum 71,
I first thought that watermen would be people who worked on the canals, but I am fairly sure sure now that they were the people who delivered water by cart to the many, many properties that had no piped water before the late 19th century. Having been through quite a few census returns, I have never seen any other name that could cover this important job.
On a less attractive note, night men had a horrible job, shovelling out excrement and loading it into carts to take it to farmers who would accept it as a fertiliser component. Both jobs were originally done by private traders, but the Streets Commissioners, and later the Corporation took them over.
Peter
 
Peter Walker said:
Claire-brum 71,
I first thought that watermen would be people who worked on the canals, but I am fairly sure sure now that they were the people who delivered water by cart to the many, many properties that had no piped water before the late 19th century. Having been through quite a few census returns, I have never seen any other name that could cover this important job.
On a less attractive note, night men had a horrible job, shovelling out excrement and loading it into carts to take it to farmers who would accept it as a fertiliser component. Both jobs were originally done by private traders, but the Streets Commissioners, and later the Corporation took them over.
Peter
Click to expand...

I have never heard the term Waterman in relation to canals but it is a common term used for larger rivers and in particular the Thames .So if the context has a Birmingham connection then Peter's explanation would be quite feasible.
 
messing about on the water,i always had a boat,god willing alway's will. the severn, up the cut, now the sea.fantastic,but the weather this year din't only shiverd me timbers it shiverd me old bones:D,maties
 
Peter Walker said:
Claire-brum 71,
I first thought that watermen would be people who worked on the canals, but I am fairly sure sure now that they were the people who delivered water by cart to the many, many properties that had no piped water before the late 19th century. Having been through quite a few census returns, I have never seen any other name that could cover this important job/quote]


Found the following on The 1891 London Census Transcription site https://www.census1891.com

Carman...deliverer of mineral water.

Water Leader, Leder or Loder..... one who transports and sells fresh drinking water.

It is a very interesting list with some very strange entries. Rambling Sid Rumpole ( Kenneth Williams. bless him) would have found a lot of new characters to sing about here. Often one job will have different names which can make it a slow job tracking the name or occupation down. Its well worth a look......arkrite
Click to expand...
 
My ancestors were all boatmen in Birmingham and London and the term 'Waterman' is connected to occupations on the canals and waterways.

There is a Company of Watermen and Lightermen and an Amalgamated Society of Watermen,Lightermen and barges.

This is the link to the info and databases


https://www.parishregister.com/aboutstp.html
 
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