This rather awkward looking photograph is yet another from my parents’ album. It tells a tale of the perilous life endured by canal barge families.
The picture shows my paternal grandfather and his sister, their mother, and their grandma, i.e. my own great- and great-great grandmas. The children were born in 1895 and 1896, so it would have been taken, what, around 1902? Great-Grandma was born in 1876, and Great-Great-Grandma in 1847.
The family lived in houses for much of the time, but when they were carrying vessels around the Yorkshire rivers and canals, they lived on barges, sometimes for weeks at a time. My great-grandma was born on a canal barge at Bolten-upon-Dearne. By the time of the photograph, Great-Great Grandma was widowed, and they were all living at St. Andrew’s Terrace near Goole railway station. The children’s father (i.e. my Great Grandfather) would have been at sea.
On the barges, they travelled West on the Rivers Dearne and Don through Doncaster and Barnsley, the River Aire to Leeds and beyond, the River Calder towards Halifax, and their associated canals. Eastwards, these rivers flowed into the River Ouse at the port of Goole, giving a route through to Hull on the River Humber. They carried heavy and unpleasant cargoes of all kinds, such as tar and coal. The Ouse and Humber were difficult to navigate, and had strong tides.
Great Grandma also had a later child in 1908, and adopted my great-grandma’s sister, “our Liddy” (Hilda), in 1911 after both her parents died when she was six weeks old. Her parents were both 24. Their deaths were caused by the canals.
Liddy’s father dies after falling into the Calder and Hebble Canal near Dewsbury. An inquest records a verdict as heart failure due to shock. Their mother was with Liddy and her older sister, but did not see it happen. However, one of the crew did.
They were sailing east towards Horbury when Liddy’s father’s leg gave way because of stiffness due to rheumatism. He also had not fully recovered from a previous leg fracture.
“At 2.30 on Tuesday afternoon the deceased was about to sit down on the stern rail, when his left foot slipped and he fell backwards into the water. He came up twice, but the second time only the top of his head was visible. The boat was stopped and in three minutes time deceased was got out of the water...”.
Artificial respiration was to no avail. It seems likely he hit his head on the rudder or the side of the barge.
The owner of the barge added that Liddy’s father had been in his employ for a number of years and was an exceedingly good captain.
Liddy’s mother lived just one more week. It was always said that she died of a broken heart, although the death certificate records heart disease. She had asked my great-grandma to bring Liddy up, and her slightly older baby by an older sister.
Liddy left the town under a cloud. Her later husband hatched a scheme to buy a wagon of coal and sell it to friends, relatives, and others in smaller quantities. He then disappeared without paying for the coal. The marriage later came to an end, and Liddy turned up in Leeds, remarried. I met her at a couple of family funerals.
It seems most of the women were able to escape life on the canal barges through widowhood, marriage, or adoption. Liddy lived to 95, and her slightly older sister who was also on the barge, moved to Leeds as well, and lived to 83. Great-Great Grandma lived mostly in houses, and lived to 85. She spent her later years living in East Hull.
It was a very different outcome for the men who stayed on the barges. They faced a life of injury, ill-health, and premature death. Great-Great Grandma’s husband died aged 53 of an aortic aneurism after being taken ill on his barge. Two of their other sons also stayed on the barges, one living to 56, and the other I can’t trace. They had twelve children in all between 1866 and 1887, four dying in infancy.
It was a very tough life. The men were small, and they were fighters and boozers, fought dirty. and liked stout. One in particular, Manny, would fight anybody, and went to Wakefield Prison twelve times for fighting and drunkenness. My dad was taken to a family wedding reception when still very young, and remembers Manny causing a disturbance. My grandpa and another relative, both hardened First-World War veterans, pushed Manny out of the door, and the next minute a brick came through the window.
The women could drink as well. The husband of one daughter said never to imagine for one minute you could go for a drink with them and come out sober. You would end up lying on the floor comatose while they were deciding who was buying the next round of stout.
This second picture is of that wedding: the husband who said the women could drink you under the table, and where the disturbance at the reception later occurred. Don’t they look innocent! My dad, aged 3, is on the left between Liddy, aged about 13, and his grandma (my great grandma). Great Grandma has aged over the twenty or so years since the first photograph, and my dad was recovering from Polio. Great Grandma’s sister (the bride’s mother) who adopted the other orphaned child is on the lower right, and she may be just above to the left of the picture. We are not entirely certain.
