If you know the name of the person or boat:
- John Roberts’ Waterway Index contains the names of more than 9500 men
connected to the waterways (such as boatman, waterman, flatman, boatbuilder,
lock-keeper, toll-collector, canal or river company clerk, canal agent, boat
owner, navigator (navvies), wharf inger, etc.), and indicates who filed the
information. It has been compiled by Mr John Roberts, 52 St. Andrews Road,
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, B75 6UH. This is a self-financed
‘hobby’. Mr Roberts says the index should be ‘regarded very much
as an aid i.e. as a pointer to the original records’. If you wish for
information from the records, a 9" x 4" SAE is necessary, and
although no fee is required, donations are very welcome. Also, Mr Roberts
always appreciates any further information for the index.
- Books written by boat people include names of other people and boats, such
as "No. 1" or Anderton for Orders by Tom Foxon, and
Maidens’ Trip by Emma Smith.
- The name of the boat can give you a link to the public health registers
– see below under ‘location’. Note: the same name was often used
by different boats, but the registration number was unique to each boat.
- A source of genealogical information, including existing family trees, is
the Society of Genealogists, which has a library containing ‘family
histories, civil registration and census material, and the widest collection of
Parish Register copies in the country’ (www.sog.org.uk) or the
various County Family History Societies.
- RootsWeb.com
is a free genealogy website. It includes a mailing list which allows you to
contact other people who are interested in canal genealogy.
If you know the location/name of the canal
- Public Health Registers: the Canal Boats Acts of 1877-84 (introduced to
improve living standards on canal boats) required all working narrow boats to
register with a local authority, where they were issued with a numbered
certificate. The number together with the town where they were registered was
usually painted on the side of the cabin. Most of these registers are in local
record offices or county archives.
- If working in the Midlands, many boatmen’s weddings and funerals took
place at Braunston, Northamptonshire – you can look in the Register of
Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals of the Parish Church there.
- Most canals have canal societies which may be able to tell you where local
archives are kept.
- Here at the London Canal Museum we have a copy of a small database of
boaters from Wolverhampton – it is in PDF format which can be searched
although not ideal. See our Holt's Index page to
download this.
If you know the company/type of boat:
- There are many societies for different types of boat, which may have
further information, e.g. the Thames Barge Sailing Club.
- Register of boats and barges: from 1795, inland waterway craft had to be
registered with their owner’s name by the Clerk of the Peace of a county.
These registers are usually deposited at local record offices.
Census data:
This will show what boat a person was on. It is quite sketchy for C19th, and
much more complete for C20th. The language used to describe the jobs, etc. of
canal workers can be misleading as those taking the censuses were not always
sure of the right terminology. (Note: this is true of any data which does not
come from a canal source.)
Sources containing a variety of information
The Waterways Archive
The Waterways Archive (administered by The Waterways Trust) has records of
boat owners and registered boatmen, some toll records (which allows you to
associate a person with a boat), archives of large carrying companies, gauging
tables (kept by each Navigation Company - showed details of a boat’s
carrying capacity, and usually contains the owners name and address). The
majority of the material is located at Gloucester. The archive is distributed
among:
- The British Waterways Archive – a library strong in plans, drawings
and technical records, with a photographic collection. (National Waterways Museum, Llanthony
Warehouse, Gloucester Docks, Gloucester. GL1 2EH; Telephone +44 1452 318041
- The David Owen Waterways Archive – contains a collection of documents,
books and periodicals relating to inland waterways worldwide, including
extensive collections relating to the Weaver Navigation Trust, Middlewich Wharf
and the Charles Hadfield World Canals Research; the I.W.A. John Heap Library;
Shropshire Union Railways Canal Co. minutes; oral history recordings; and
photographic collections. (The Boat
Museum, Boat Museum Dockyard Road, Ellesmere Port, South Wirral,
Merseyside. L65 4EF; Telephone + 44 151 355 5017)
- Some local record offices: Cheshire Record Office; Gloucestershire Record
Office; Highland Council Archive; Lancashire Record Office; The Record Office
for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland; Liverpool Record Office and Local
History Service; National Archives of Scotland; Public Record Office (see
below); Sheffield Archives; Shropshire Records and Research Centre;
Warwickshire County Record Office; West Yorkshire Archive Service, Wakefield
Headquarters.
Virtual Waterways Archive Catalogue
A combined on-line index to a range of archive collections around the
country including some of the most major archives. It holds information on over
70,000 records all over the country. Look at the
Virtual Waterways Archive
Catalogue for more information.
Public Record Office
The National Archives (The Public Record
Office) repository includes maps, administrative records, plans, photographs
and canal company minutes (some of it part of the Waterways Trust archive). For
example it has:
- principal records of pre-nationalisation canal companies (pre-1948) (class
RAIL).
- principal records of the British Transport Commission and Docks Inland
Waterways Executive (class AN).
It has an online catalogue (PROCAT), which allows you to find out what
documents the PRO holds - it can be browsed by class and searched by
keyword or phrase, and documents can be ordered in advance.
(Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond, Surrey. TW9 4DU; Telephone +44 20 8876 3444
National Register of Archives
The National Register of
Archives (NRA), part of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC), has
online indexes which can be searched by corporate name, personal name, family
name and place name. You can find out where the collections are held and
whether the NRA holds paper catalogues for them.
Jim Shead's Website
Jim Shead's website offers a
compilation of information from various sources
If you’re not sure where to start
- The Virtual Waterways Archive Catalogue is a good place to begin (see
above)
- The Railway Canal
Historical Society advises that the first place to look is often your local
record office or local studies collection: "Local record offices are the
main repositories for deposited plans and other legislative material relating
to the construction of canals and railways; archives of navigations which did
not become part of British Waterways; records of highway authorities, turnpike
trusts, port authorities and municipal transport services; and private deposits
which will include those of traders and transport contractors, manufacturers of
transport equipment, and personal, family, estate, legal or commercial records
which might bear on transport operations."
Questions
We cannot help you reasearch individuals but if you have general questions
about canals which might help you, we will try to answer them. Our field is
London canals, and although we know something about waterways in the rest of
the UK we don't cover the river Thames. If you have a question for us which is
not answered on this website please use our feedback
form.
