Porcelain and Pots

My series on Jane Austen and the Industrial Revolution is still ongoing, although I haven't had time to update this blog! 

My feature in the March/April issue looked at 'canal mania', and 'Our Wedgwood Ware' is in the current issue of Jane Austen's Regency World. 

'The Prettiest English China' is coming up in the July/August issue, and looks at the manufacture of English porcelain in places like Worcester, Bristol and London. 

Image: Etruria. Engraving by Henry Warren, G. Greatbach, Staffordshire and Warwickshire Past and Present, Vol. III, William Mackenzie, London, c.1870. 

All Aboard The Shroppie Fly!

Saturn.

We took advantage of a nice sunny day recently to enjoy a visit to our unique local attraction, the Anderton Boat Lift.

Anderton Boat Lift.

 It is always a treat to see this amazing feat of engineering, but this time we had a special surprise - the historic Shropshire Union flyboat, Saturn, was moored on the Weaver at the bottom of the boat lift.

Saturn, which has recently been restored, has had a chequered history.
 



She originally carried cheese from Cheshire to Manchester. Flyboats usually had four-man crews - two on duty, two off.
They were the fastest vessels on the canals, and perfect for carrying perishable goods.
The volunteers who were looking after Saturn very kindly invited us on board to have a peek inside the cabin and cargo hold. As Saturn is used for education, the interior has been decorated to resemble a family narrow-boat cabin. We very much enjoyed looking around inside.

Cabin shelves and crockery.

After cooling off with an icecream from the visitor centre at the Boat Lift, we explored the museum downstairs, and I tried on a traditional boatwoman's bonnet. I don't think it's the most flattering headgear I've ever worn!
All photos © Sue Wilkes.

Cabin stove.

Cargo hold.

A Wonder of the Waterways

Top of Foxton Locks.

Last year I enjoyed a wonderful visit to Foxton Canal Locks and the site of its former boat lift. The staircase of locks at Foxton (on the Grand Union Canal, near Market Harborough) were a bottleneck for commerce as they were only constructed wide enough to permit one narrow boat to enter at a time. 

The bottom of the former inclined plane.

To speed things up, an inclined plane or boat lift was constructed. This major engineering feat, designed by Gordon Cale Thomas, opened on 10 July 1900. Two giant tanks of water, which counterbalanced each other, carried either one wide boat or two narrow boats per tank. A steam engine provided extra 'oomph' to power the lift. 

Sadly the boat lift became uneconomic to use, and it closed just over a decade after its grand opening. (The Anderton Boat Lift in Cheshire had a much longer working life, and is now back in working order again).

The Foxton Inclined Plane Trust cares for the site’s preservation, and hopes to create a digital model of the boat lift. 

Top of inclined plane, looking down.

Unfortunately it seems most unlikely that this wonder of the waterways will be restored to its former glory owing to the prohibitive cost. 

Former boiler house, now a museum.

But the site is extremely interesting to explore.The museum (in the old boiler house for the steam engine) gives a wonderful insight into the days of working boats, and if you have canal ancestors you will really enjoy a visit.

 

The hull of this old boat (left) illustrates the level at which boats entered the lift.

Former lock-keeper's cottage, now a cafe.

When a canal was frozen over, an ice boat like the Gordon Thomas (left) was rocked from side to side by boatmen to break the ice so that traffic could resume.

All photos copyright Sue Wilkes.

Scotland's Industrial Past and Present

Map of Scotland, 1845.

Michael Portillo's Great British Railway Journeys is back with a new series. This week on the programme he visited some industrial sites and we've been treated to some fascinating archive footage of workers. During the second episode he had a ride on the Waverley paddle steamer, and visited the David Livingstone Centre at Blantyre - I was especially interested as I did not realize that the famous missionary was a child worker in a cotton factory. Episode 3 was another treat as Mr Portillo visited a modern steel rolling mill, the Clyde Falls at New Lanark, and explored the Union Canal and the Falkirk Wheel, which I would love to visit one day. Over the next few weeks, I'll be taking a look at some of the fabulous heritage sites I visited last year, but haven't had time to blog about yet, as I'm busy writing Regency Spies.

'Doing Their Bit'

In some earlier blog posts, I've looked at the sacrifices my family made during WW1. While soldiers were away fighting the war, the women and children of Britain 'did their bit' for the war effort, too, and this was true in both world wars. Women took over many jobs traditionally done by men before that date - working on the railways and buses, and in munitions factories and the steelworks.
Boys and girls - Scouts and Guides - helped with war work such as running messages, or harvesting crops. Young lads served in the navy and mercantile marine, and many patriotic underage teenage lads wangled their way onto active service. My book Tracing Your Ancestor's Childhood has lots of info on how to find out about records for your ancestors' wartime service and in youth organizations, and my latest feature for Family Tree looks at the effect of both world wars on children, especially at Christmastime.

Images of women bus and tram conductors, and a mother and child hauling a canal boat along the Regent's Canal, from the Nigel Wilkes Collection: The Times History of the War, Vol. IV, 1915.

Birmingham Brass Founders

Brass, an alloy of copper and zinc, is a wonder material. It’s highly malleable, does not rust when exposed to air, takes a high polish, and lcan be cast into any shape. Birmingham artisans made cutlery and iron tools since at least Tudor times, and in the 18^th century the city was famous for its metal ‘toys’ (buttons, buckles, etc.). Matthew Boulton of Soho was a toy-manufacturer.

Brass casting.

Brass manufacture is said to have been introduced to Birmingham in 1740 by a Mr Turner, on Coleshill St. The growth of the city’s famous canal network made it easy to transport raw materials and finished goods. By the mid-19^th century Birmingham’s brass bolts, wire, lamps and chandeliers, nails, cabinet and gas fittings were exported worldwide. Firms like Winfield’s capitalised on the increasing popularity of brass bedsteads.

Brass strip casting.

Winfield’s exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace, Hyde Park.The royal commissioners and executive committee of the Exhibition visited Birmingham that summer: ‘At the factory of Mr Winfield, for brass-founding, a very touching scene took place...after being conducted around the interior, and having the different branches of the business explained to them...[the visitors] were ushered into a large school-room... A bell was sounded, and immediately all the work-people, male and female, came flocking into this apartment...all were dressed in their everyday attire – the paper apron and cap retained, and in most instances the shirt-sleeves turned up over the elbows. A choir was immediately formed, and a vocal performance commenced’.  A senior clerk of the firm, who gave a congratulatory address to its august visitors, had reportedly worked for Winfield’s for 25 years (Illustrated London News, 28 June 1851).

Making brass moulds.

A government investigator interviewed adults and children at Winfield’s Cambridge St works in the 1860s (3^rd Report, Children’s Employment Commission).  Brass foundries were important employers for boys (girls worked in the packing rooms). Children started work around age 7, or more usually age 9 or 10. 

The choking, poisonous fumes in the founding and casting shops affected adult and child workers. The men making ‘yellow’ brass in particular suffered from lung diseases. Henry Peel (27), a brass-caster at Timothy Smith & Sons, said that ‘you get old’ at age forty: ‘I hope to live over 40’.

You can find out more about Birmingham brass manufacture, and how to trace ancestors who worked in the industry, in the December issue of Who Do YouThink You Are? magazine. 

Illustrations of brass strip casting, the brass workers' frieze, and the canals are from the English Illustrated Magazine, 1883. Making moulds and brass casting are from the Boys' Book of Trades, c.1890s. Author's collection. 

The Manchester Ship Canal

In the 1880s, Manchester businessmen floated the idea of building a canal broad and deep enough so that ships could sail from the Mersey estuary all the way to Manchester.  Cargoes could then be unloaded straight onto canal boats or onto railway waggons.   In 1882 a bill to construct the Ship Canal was proposed in parliament, but rejected by the House of Lords the following year. The scheme was bitterly opposed by Liverpool businessmen who did not want to see potential profits sailing past their collective noses. At last it was given the go-ahead.

 

The Manchester Ship Canal was a massive undertaking - some 76 million tons of rock and earth were excavated to complete its 35½ mile length. ‘Steam navvies’ (images left and below) were used to speed up the work, but even then over 16,000 ordinary navvies (men and boys) were employed at peak times. After the Ship Canal opened to traffic in January 1894, it rejuvenated trade and industry and the docks at Manchester bustled with cotton, grain and other imports.
The Canal still carries commercial traffic. 

If you have ancestors who worked on the Ship Canal, there's information on the location of records here on the National Register of Archives database. The main collection relating to workers (including accident books and pension records) is held at Greater Manchester County Record Office (series B10), soon to reopen as part of the new Archivesplus at Manchester Central Library.

Illustrations from author's collection:
Steamers in the Manchester Ship Canal. Lancashire Industrial & Commercial, 1935. 
English Steam Navvy, used to make the cutting for the Ship Canal. These ‘steam navvies’ could remove 3,000 tons of earth per day. Discoveries and Inventions.
French Steam Navvy, used for scooping out material for embankments along the Manchester Ship Canal. Discoveries and Inventions of the Nineteenth Century, Robert Routledge, (Routledge & Sons, 1901.)