Exploring your canal ancestry: company records
Nicola Lisle continues her family history series by looking at how the staff records of canal and carrying company archives can help your research.
DURING the industrial heyday of the canals, the number and type of boats on the waterways increased rapidly. While many of those plying their trade were independent boat owners – known as Number Ones – the majority were employed by carrying companies.
Some of these companies were independent entities, while others were attached to a canal company. Despite growing competition from the railways, many of the carrying companies continued to flourish throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th century.
The good news for family historians is that canal and carrying companies kept detailed records, so if you know which company your ancestor worked for you may well glean all kinds of useful information, including dates and place of employment, job title, wage and pension details and much more.
Archives for canal companies can often be found in local record offices, local studies collections and other specialist archives for the relevant area. For example, there are records for the Oxford Canal Company in the Oxfordshire History Centre (https:// apps2.oxfordshire.gov.uk/srvheritage/ basicSearch) and also at the Bodleian Library (https://archives.bodleian.ox.ac. uk/ repositories/ 2/ resources/ 8787/ collection_organisation). In both cases, records date back to the company’s formation in 1769. Holdings at the OHC include a lock keeper’s journal as well as oral history recordings, while the Bodleian holds mostly financial and administrative records.
Records for canal companies taken over by railway companies following nationalisation in 1947 are held by The National Archives at Kew under the RAIL series (https://discovery. nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/ C1023), so it is worth taking a look to see if this includes the company you are interested in.
The main specialist repository is The Waterways Archive, established by The Waterways Trust, the charitable arm of the British Waterways Board (BWB), in 1999 and now in the care of the Canal & River Trust. The bulk of the collection is formed from the archives of the BWB, which took over responsibility for Britain’s canal network in 1963 until its closure in 2012.
Holdings include more than 37,000 documents and photographs relating to canal and carrying companies as well as other canal organisations and people.
Company archives include staff records, photographs of workers and boats, minute books, reports, ledgers, journals, vessels’ log books, correspondence and documents relating to the construction and administration of the canals.
Visit the archive at Ellesmere Port (by appointment only), or search the online catalogue (https://collections. canalrivertrust.org.uk/browse). There is also an enquiry service. Having recently reopened, the archive is currently running a reduced service, so if you make an enquiry expect to wait around 4-6 weeks for a response.
Pay and pensions
The most useful documents for family researchers are likely to be those relating to wages. These include details of an employee’s place of work, hours worked and wages earned, sometimes with other miscellaneous information or employers’ comments. Pension records are also useful as they give details of contributions made, payments received and relevant dates, including date of retirement.
If your ancestor lived in a company house, there may be rent books available confirming location, dates and payments. You may also find information on company tenancies in minute books.
From 1880, following the passing of the Employers’ Liability Act, workers (or their families) were entitled to compensation in the event of an accident or death at work, provided they could prove employer negligence. This was replaced in 1897 with the Workmen’s Compensation Act, which took away the burden of proof and gave the right of compensation to any employee injured or killed at work. Accident registers record dates of accidents, details of injuries, whether death occurred and any compensation paid.
Once you have consulted all the most likely documents, it is worth casting your net a little wider by searching other records within the relevant company archives. Your ancestor may be mentioned in company reports, minute books and journals, for example, or they may feature in photographs of canal workers and boats. Oral histories are interesting to listen to, and even if your ancestor is not mentioned they can give a good idea of his working life at the time.
Finally, if you want to find out more about the history of your ancestor’s company, you can sometimes strike lucky by simply searching the company name online and possibly finding a dedicated website for that company. For example, a search for the Severn & Canal Carrying Company yielded a website devoted to the Gloucester Docks and Sharpness Canal, past and present. The ‘People’ section has lots of useful information about local companies, vessel owners, families and individuals, and is well worth a look if Gloucestershire is your area of interest.