Whip Cracking

[canalboat]

Does anyone know who was the last horse-boater to regularly use the whip to warn other boaters of their approach? I had that information and a whip that he made but I have lost his name and boat details.

[Ray T]

The last bone fide horse boaters  I know of was Joe and Rose Skinner of Friendship who worked The Oxford Canal with Dolly the Mule. Whether he used a whip or not I know not.

 

Ken Nelson who owned Ultima and Thule used to do whip cracking demonstrations, but he has now retired.

 

https://www.reading.ac.uk/merl/whatson/exhibitions/merl-POTTkennelson.aspx

 

 

Edited March 30, 2019 by Ray T

[Ray T]

Before anyone else puts this on:
 

 

[alan_fincher]

1 hour ago, Ray T said:

The last bone fide horse boaters  I know of was Joe and Rose Skinner of Friendship who worked The Oxford Canal with Dolly the Mule. Whether he used a whip or not I know not.

I doubt either cracked a whip, but obviously Caggy Stevens was still commercially horse boating many years after Joe and Rose Skinner retired.

[jeannette smith harrison]

this lady married into my Harrison boating family she was also my grandads god mother  . As far as i can remember uncle caggy never used a whip on or near his orse he would use a mixture of a loud kind of clicking sound  & a whistle  a kind of code only him & his orse understood