Well we all like a good photograph of Narrow Boats and preferably a detailed study of loaded working boats taken in ‘the good old days’. The photo above I think fits the bill admirably and shows Fellow's Morton Boats tied up at Brentford. Obviously posed for the camera the study was used to illustrate a ‘Graphic’ magazine article on ‘Our Neglected Waterways’ published at the time of the Royal Commission’s report on our Canal transport system.

So having wetted your appetites and suitably wallowed in nostalgia  I have to disappoint you and say that the only thing that this photograph has in common with the rest of this blog’s contents is its date of publication – 1910. There is always the distinct possibility of course that you are fed up with the endless lines of moored boats,of queuing for locks and the sometimes theme park atmosphere that characterises our waterways today and you may long for a quieter time and a less frenetic age.  If so read on… this blog could be for you.

‘An Englishman in Ireland’  by  R A Scot James. First Ed. 1910.

Totally forgotten today Scott James was at the turn of the Twentieth century a very well known journalist, author and literary critic. In the 1930’s he took over the editorship of the influential literary magazine ‘The London Mercury’ from J C Squire who is today similarly forgotten but who’s name I mention only for the fact that he was the author of another early British canal cruising classic ‘Water Music’  published in 1939 – a book of reminiscences of a journey up the Oxford Canal & others. His companion on this journey was the indefatigable canal cruiser William Bliss whose own book ;The Heart of England by Waterway’  was published in 1933.

I mention these names from the past as they all had one thing in common  in that they all accomplished their voyages by canoe. Their voyages followed in a long tradition, starting in Victorian times , of middle class , university educated Victorian & Edwardian gentlemen’s explorations of this countries waterway system resulting in published accounts.

R A Scott James was different from the rest in that he chose to voyage over Irish waterways. Ireland has few accounts of canal voyages – the most notable earlier accounts are I suppose L T C Rolt's ‘ Green & Silver’  P’bd in 1949 and Hugh Malet’s ‘Voyage in a Bowler Hat’ p’bd in 1960. Apart from these one has to go back to the early 1830’s when accounts of voyages on Irish packet boats survive.

So Scott James voyage is as far as I know unique both in its timing and certainly in its choice of waterways.

The author chose to travel across Ireland from east to west via the Lagan navigation, Lough Neagh, the Ulster canal and Lough Allen to the Shannon & Limerick. This interconnected route was at the time of the authors trip the third cross country route after the Grand & Royal canal route’s. Setting out from Belfast the author & companion canoed up the Lagan canal which was at that time commercially very busy and he records interesting conversations with the working boat population. For contemporary readers probably one of the most interesting bits of the book is his account of the voyage through the Ulster canal with its 26 locks which at that time was virtually defunct (he passed only 1 boat in 3 days) and the canal was finally abandoned in 1926.

On entering the Ulster Canal they immediately found it to be narrow & weedy and eventually after a few days impassable . The next stage was accomplished by loading the boat onto a carriers cart for transport to a railway station. Again for contemporary readers the next stage provides fascinating reading as the boat was loaded onto the last of Eire’s (by this time) narrow gauge railways for onward transport to Lough Neagh, the Shannon & eventually Limerick.

‘BUT IF ONLY’…..                                                                                                                Long cherished in my collection., Scott James’s book stands out as a very readable account of a voyage that could not be made today.and unlike so many Victorian/Edwardian canal books does not  suffer from flowery verbose digressions from the subject. It voyages over long defunct waterways and joy of joys even includes travel on a long abandoned narrow gauge railway. Most canal enthusiasts seem to include these in their oeuvre so what more could you want? But if only the author had taken more pictures of the canals, structures, boats & people what a book it would have been. It was of course the convention at that time for publishers to insist on more general landscape & literary illustrations rather than the more prosaic (but to latter day eyes infinitely more interesting workaday photos).

Note…. Both the Lagan and Ulster Canal’s are today subject to joint cross border restoration  projects and part of the Cavan & Leitrim light Railway has been reopened.

Front cover of the Special Canals number of  ‘The Architectural Review’  1949.

Eric de Mare was one of a small group of artists, designers & photographers who after the 2nd World war started to record the architecture,  indigenous art, and the way of life on the English canal system.

In 1948 having purchased an ex army pontoon he set out on a 600 mile journey through the waterways of the midlands and the South East. The resulting photographs were published in a special issue of the ‘Architectural Review in 1949 to be followed a year later in book form as ‘The Canals of England’.

De Mare’s pontoon on the Welsh Canal.

It is generally agreed that De Mare’s black & white photographs were some of the finest ever taken, showing in particular an appreciation of the form,  pattern & design to be found in the architecture and functional engineering artefacts of a canal. Viewed 60 years later they are a nostalgic and beautiful record of a way of life now sadly long gone but still just existing in 1948.

So it was with great interest that five of his original photographs taken on his 1948 journey came up for auction earlier this summer. The photos all have the authentic studio stamp on the reverse together with hand written remarks and notes regarding reproduction and sizes for use in his forthcoming book.

T & S Element boat at Bratch on The Staff’s & Worcs canal with coal for Stourport Electric station.

Shrewley tunnel.

Of the greatest interest - the collection includes one photograph that does not appear to have been used in the book. A superb study of a pair of Joshers descending Hatton.

Incidentally ‘The Canals of England’    has been through many editions over the years and is still in print today I think and well worth a look if you have never seen it.

First Edition 1950.

Sonia Rolt one of the last surviving members of the group of wartime young women recruits to the Grand Union Canal Carrying Co’s fleet has passed on at the ripe old age of 95.

She will be remembered not only as the wife of Tom Rolt the author of the landmark book ‘Narrow Boat’ but as a pioneering campaigner for working boaters conditions and for the English canal system in her own right.

As the author of ‘A Canal People’ published in 1997 she has left us with what are generally agreed to be some of the best photographs ever taken of the working boat community. From her time on the boats just after  the war she remembered Robert Longden’s quiet  presence on the canal side always with his Leica camera in hand. The boat people became familiar with his appearances on the cut side in the late 1940’s & early 1950’s and the results were some delightfully informal pictures of a normally shy and unassuming community.

Twenty Five years later Sonia Rolt went in search of Longden who had by that time died and discovered that his camera and photographs had been destroyed on his death. Fortunately however a box in a garden shed was discovered containing glass plate negatives. From these Sonia published the book ;A Canal People’' If you have not read it then beg ,borrow or buy a copy – you wont be sorry.

I wonder if any of my readers can help in identifying the location of these early photographs. They come from a collection of views taken I think in the 1880 – 90 period in the Oxfordshire area. They are almost certainly of the Oxford Canal and show three boats in the above picture waiting to enter a lock which I think  is probably Cropredy bottom lock.

I think we can be fairly sure that both photographs were taken on the same day as the same lady onlooker appears in the scenes. I rather think that the Cropredy? view was perhaps taken first and as the boats are working uphill that the second view was taken somewhere on the Claydon flight. However the puzzle is – the lockhouse  cottage - as I cannot think of a single story lock cottage anywhere on this canal. The only other building on this flight is the maintenance yard at the top of Claydon whose buildings bear no resemblance to the one shown here.

Of course my placing of the scene in the Cropredy/Claydon area is pure conjecture and  it could be anywhere on the canal. As far as I can remember all the surviving lock cottages on the canal are double story and so the building in the photo could have been demolished. There was for example a cottage at Shipton Weir lock which was demolished within living memory.

The photographer & lady friend may have walked up the towpath from Cropredy following the boats to the next lock Broadmoor – was there a now long vanished single story cottage here???  Please leave a comment or conjecture if you have any ideas as I am totally puzzled.

Rarer Measham (Bargeware) always achieves a good price amongst the dedicated collectors out there. This 1884 Chamber Pot  with the usual inscription ‘ Pick me up and use me well and what I see I will not tell’   inscribed around the rim and with entwined lizards inside the bowl  -  sold for £700. It has the owners name & ‘Swadlincote ‘on the usual cartouche. Nice canal connection there.!!

An ordinary ‘cottage single spout’ teapot is one of the commonest Measham items to appear at auction and can be bought for a lot less than £100. The pot shown above (apologies for picture quality) however is a rare example commemorating Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and is inscribed ‘ Jubilee 1887 & God Save the Queen’  - this fetched £320.

Henry Dawson (1811-78) is one of the better known artists with canals as a favourite subject for study. This early view is entitled ‘Trent Bridge from the Grantham Canal’  . Unfortunately the Trent Bridge can hardly be seen in the background and instead, and  of the greatest interest for modern viewers, the junction lock of the Grantham Canal with the Trent is shown with some detail. An estimated guide price of £200 - £300 was given for this lot . There are very keen collectors of early canal/waterway subjects around.

This  was one of the more unusual canal shares to be sold recently – It dates from 1847 and fetched £90.

Another collecting area where deep pockets are required are early Canal view Post Cards. Good early cards rarely appear now and this view (sorry about my reproduction)  shows a close up of canal boatwoman and horse on the Leeds & Liverpool C . Superb but plenty of interest and a final price of £96 .

On the other hand this view of two Edwardians standing in the sternend of an unidentified butty didn’t attract much interest selling for a fiver.

Canal & waterway tokens,badges & medals appear regularly in the salerooms and the rarer items excite some interest. Such was the case with this Cove token of the early 19th C.

Augustus Cove was a London dealer in china and glass who had a lease on a canal side wharf in Paddington Basin. He seems to have fallen out with the Grand Junction Canal Co and perceived himself to have been the victim of a great injustice. The chip on Cove’s shoulder weighed so heavily that he published a booklet of 185 pages (and in at least 2 editions) To publicize his booklet Cove also issued this token which bears the legend ‘ Beware of the Grand Junction Canal Comp.y some of whose fraud, oppression, perjury, forgery & robbery & Ca, are set forth in … and on the tokens reverse…’ Augustus Cove’s publications entitled ‘The Tocsin Sounded or The Bull taken by the Horns &c to be had of the booksellers’. This rare token had a guide price of £150.

In the same sale a Basingstoke Canal token of 1789  showing a navvy’s tools and a barge  had a guide price of £500 - £600.

This leather bound  copy of ‘Descriptions des Cataractes et du Canal Trollhatta’  in French was published in Sweden in 1804. A rare book containing 11 aquatints and a map of the locks at Trollhattan  was a bargain at £90.

Another recent bargain was an 1831 first edition copy of Priestley in original boards which fetched £70.

All collectors of Children’s canal books will know of the incredible scarcity of Garry Hoggs book. A First Edition copy(1940) with only a photocopied Dust Wrapper recently sold for £125.  It is an important & pivotal book which I dealt with in my first ever post in 2010 see ‘Oodles of Ice Cream & Fizzy Pop’ . Why it should be so rare is a mystery but I suspect that it may have to do with the outbreak of war and printing restrictions although a second edition in 1952 is equally elusive. If you are lucky enough to stumble across it then you can count your lucky day!!!

Finally you may have seen my recent post on John Knill’s book but in case you didn’t I can report that it sold for £35 which is a tidy sum for a paperback printed only a few short years ago.Try and find one now!!!

Last but not least some early photographs on Ebay at the present time may find some interest.

Eleven photographs taken around the junction of the Erewash canal with the River Trent circa early 1920’s.

Four photographs of the Grand Junction canal around the 3 locks (Stoke Hammond area) circa 1930’s.

Canal and River Books at Auction in 2015.

The Bob Date Collection - Auctioned July 2015.

The Mark Baldwin Collection - Auctioned 4th November 2015.

 

Of  Buckby Cans and badges.

 THE VICTORIAN 'YELLOWBACK'.

Once found in their millions- the 'yellowback' novel was one of the first attempts at popular cheap literature for the masses and with the advent of railway travel and the railway bookstall they could be found everywhere. They really were a follow on from the early Victorian 'Penny Dreadful' with their heyday in the 1870 - 90 period. Usually featuring a sensational and lurid coloured cover they were quite often reprints of existing novels but non fiction and educational subjects are occasionally found.

Cheapness was of paramount importance and so the colour printed (Often with a yellow background - hence the name)  and glazed strawboard  cover protected the contents which were printed on cheap thin paper. This has of course meant they have worn badly over the years and to find a survivor in a reasonable and collectable state is a rarity!

  The First Canal Novel.

 

'Life in the Cut' by Amos Reade.1889.

This book can claim to be the first 'canal novel' where the cut  plays the main part in a story

which otherwise includes country houses and drunken boatmen. First published in 1888 this cheap yellowback edition appeared in the following year - 1889. It is, in either edition, a very rare book ,so much so, that a copy of the above yellowback which was the first to appear at auction for many years  fetched £504 recently.                                                                                                                                                     

                                                                      

'All Along the River'  a typical yellowback from 1893 with a waterway theme.

  With an increasing use of the Thames - pleasure boating guides began to be published in the 1850's. This cheap yellowback style guide dates from the 1880's.

 

A late Victorian guide to the Broads.

  

John Macgregor an industrious Victorian individual started the craze for canoe touring canals,rivers and waterways in the 1860's and published this book which was to remain in print for 30 or 40 years. This cheap yellowback edition dates from 1880.

And Finally another rare item - Quite Unique in that it was published in Yorkshire Dialect - Hartley's novel first appeared in 1885.

  

Olga Kevelos was one of the handful of women workers on the Grand Union Canal  during the 2nd World War. One of the so called ‘Idle Women’ from the inland waterways badge that they wore, they often showed tough, independent and adventurous traits. Olga’s particular claim to fame was that she twice won  gold in the motorcycling 6 day trials in the later 1940’s -  1950’s.

An extraordinary lady, she is alas no longer with us but during a recent renovation of her family home in Birmingham her family found a relic from her wartime boating days - the badge shown  above, Recently auctioned, it attracted many bids , selling for £80.

Mr 'Self Sufficiency'

After an active and adventurous youth and war service he worked on a Thames Barge for a time before marrying and buying a Dutch Hoogaerse barge on which he lived and travelled before publishing his first waterway book  'Sailing through England'in 1956.

Seymour & his wife Sally sailed their 34 ton barge round the coast and into the Great Ouse and the Nene before travelling to the Humber from where they voyaged over all the wide beam waterways of the Northeast including a traverse of the Leeds & Liverpool canal.

For the next few years Seymour was involved in buying and establishing a smallholding in Pembrokeshire before in 1966 publishing 'Voyage into England' - a record of a 4 month voyage

around the Narrow canals of a still just working system.

We are fortunate that John Seymour's natural love of people & places combined with an 
 inquisitive nature has left for today's reader a treasure trove of anecdotes and interviews with the working population of a now vanished waterways world. Both books are a recommended good read. You can wallow in nostalgia with 'Sailing through England' for less than £15 and for less than £10 Voyage into England ' is available on the second hand market. Both books were recently republished by Faber & Faber.

John Seymour 1914 - 2004.

John Seymour's self sufficiency work is still carried on by his family at their Pembrokeshire smallholding where John lies buried in an orchard of his own planting.

Mark Baldwin’s bibliography has been an indispensible guide to many collectors of English waterway literature ever since its publication in 1984. It is I think the most comprehensive survey of English waterway books published from the earliest times up until the start of ‘the new canal age’ in 1950.

It was contained within the book ‘ Canals A New Look’  and as far as I know has never been published elswhere. Also and as a bonus it contains a separate Bibliography ofEuropean Cruising 1833-1939  as well as a ‘Bibliography of Charles Hadfield’s published work’. So there you have it -  all the reference sources you need as well as other interesting articles in one volume. No excuses for not owning one either,as it is easily available on the secondhand market for as little as £3 or £4.