Foxton Locks offers an excellent learning environment that extends beyond the classroom and helps schools deliver learning opportunities to inspire in a creative and authentic way.
Learning
Life Afloat in the 19th Century
Our navigable waterways have been home to hundreds of people and saw their busiest use during the industrial periods of the early 1800s. Men, women and children made their living on the water, transporting essential goods across the length and breath of the country. Without their efforts, Britain would not have become the industrial leader of the world, delivering vital raw materials to keep the factories working and transporting their wares to be sold around the world.
Illustrations from 'The Clothes of the Cut' by Avril Lansdell.
During the expansion of the waterways in the 18th century there were up to 100,000 people living on canal boats, 40,000 of them were children. Boatmen were employed by companies to work their boats and had previously lived on the land in small cottages. However, competition from the railways in the 1850s saw their wages cut and to survive, whole families took to living on the small cramped spaces of the narrowboats. Wives had to learn the trade and also work the boats, their children missed any form of education and were often used to walk the horses. All their treasured possessions went on the boats too, plates, patchwork quilts, brasses and birdcages. The narrowboats that had previously been just working barges, now became brightly painted homes. Regional variations of the painting styles led to the roses and castle patterns we see today.
Life afloat was dangerous and often a life in poverty. Conditions were cramped, unhygienic and often fraught with accidents. Many children drowned and others died of contagious diseases such as typhoid, diphtheria, cholera and smallpox. There was no time to stop working and send children to doctors or to school so many remained in poverty because of their lack of education.
George Smith from Coalville began a campaign for the boatpeople. He had worked as a child in brickyards and saw for himself the harsh living conditions children suffered. By 1872 he managed to get a law passed in parliament that regulated the employment of children in industry and he continued to campaign for an improvements to lives of boat people.
Although conditions improved, children remained illiterate until the1920 Boat Children's Act which specified that children should attend school for 200 days a year. Schools opened in some marinas where boats were loading and unloading and others were housed for a short while. In the 1940s a Midlands Local Authority opened a boarding school for boat children who returned to the boats during the holidays.
Life afloat meant that everything had to take place in a cramped space. Cooking, eating, sleeping were all undertaken in a very small space. Families had very few possessions and cherished the few that they had. A Water Can was essential to carry and fetch fresh water for the boats as there was no plumbing. These cans became a symbol of the families pride and were highly decorated and often displayed on the outside of the boats.
To pass time on very long and slow journeys, the women and children would learn to sew and knit. Rag rugs were a very common craft made out of old discarded fabric and could be turned into bed covers when the weather was cold. Some women made intricate lace work and made trims to decorate the bed, shelves and even the horse.
To find out more about Life Afloat on the waterways and explore what workshops we can provide please contact Foxton Canal Museum: learning@foxtoncanalmuseum.org
