Sanitary Boat Registrationa- the last registations

[Heartland]

A useful guide to historians are the registers that record the licensing of boats under the acts of parliaments that came about through the persistence of George Smith to look after the welfare of the boating families that had the canal cabin as their home.

 

The Birmingham registers, in Birmingham Library Archives, end with the following

 

1646 DODONA  British Transport Waterways South Eastern Division June 12th, 1959- reregitered because of cabin enlargement

1647 BERKHAMPSTEAD  British Transport Waterways South Eastern Division February 8th, 1960- reregitered because of cabin enlargement.

 

After these records ceased, there were further re-registions, the source being NARROWBOAT MAGAZINE

 

1649 YEOFORD Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 9th, 1965

1650 ASH Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company December 18th, 1965

1651 LINDA Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 9th, 1965

1652 BARBARA (ARGON) Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 9th, 1965

1653 CYPRESS Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 15th, 1965

1654 ACHILLES Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 15th, 1965

 

The registation numbering being not in strict date order, raises a question as to how the numbers were allocated. There is also the question as what was Birmingham 1648 ?

 

This is YEOFORD at Farmers Bridge Locks

 

[mayalld]

There was a case some years later when somebody discovered that the acts were still in force, and obliged a post-1974 authority to register their boat

[Heartland]

If that is the case, should modern canal carrying craft engaged in selling to the boaters- fuel, coal etc- be registered.

 

Stokie No 1 lacks this registration, I note.

 

 

[pete harrison]

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

A useful guide to historians are the registers that record the licensing of boats under the acts of parliaments that came about through the persistence of George Smith to look after the welfare of the boating families that had the canal cabin as their home.

 

The Birmingham registers, in Birmingham Library Archives, end with the following

 

1646 DODONA  British Transport Waterways South Eastern Division June 12th, 1959- reregitered because of cabin enlargement

1647 BERKHAMPSTEAD  British Transport Waterways South Eastern Division February 8th, 1960- reregitered because of cabin enlargement.

 

After these records ceased, there were further re-registions, the source being NARROWBOAT MAGAZINE

 

1649 YEOFORD Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 9th, 1965

1650 ASH Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company December 18th, 1965

1651 LINDA Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 9th, 1965

1652 BARBARA (ARGON) Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 9th, 1965

1653 CYPRESS Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 15th, 1965

1654 ACHILLES Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company July 15th, 1965

 

The registation numbering being not in strict date order, raises a question as to how the numbers were allocated. There is also the question as what was Birmingham 1648 ?

As with many documents health registers are not always what they appear to be. I have transcripts of numerous health registers, which as you say can be useful when carrying out research.

 

I have two transcripts of the Birmingham Health Register, one by Herbert Dunkley and the other provided by a member of the B.C.N. Society. What is very clear to me is that these two transcripts are from different source documents, although both share the vast majority of the information and I believe both are official and above board. My thoughts are one is the official version of the Birmingham Health Register as maintained by the City of Birmingham authority whilst the other is the Sanitary Inspector's own version. When put together in a database they give a more thorough account, which I completed some years ago.

 

The transcript provided by the B.C.N. society member ends at number 1647, so appears to be that housed within Birmingham Library Archives, whereas Bert Dunkley's transcript captures up to and including 1654 and I 'assume' to be the Inspector's copy. 

 

I can not comment on where Alan H. Faulkner got his dates for the Birmingham and Midland Canal Carrying Company Ltd. health registrations published in NarrowBoat Summer 2008 but I suspect that for 1650 is a typo, being made up of 18 December from ARGON listed above and 1965 from the 1650 registration. Bert Dunkley listed 1650 as 09/07/1965 which is in line with the other boats registered at this time and much more likely to be correct. Bert Dunkley also lists 1653 and 1654 as 15/07/1966, twelve months after the date given in NarrowBoat Summer 2008. Alan H. Faulkner and I compared our transcripts of the Birmingham Health Register in October 2000, and interestingly made no comment about Bert Dunkley's dates for 1648 to 1654.

 

For the record Birmingham 1648 was authorised on 02/11/1962 as ENTERPRISE for Enterprise Carrying Company, Reading with David Blagrove listed as 'Master'.

 

edit = 

Edited September 18, 2019 by pete harrison

[pete harrison]

2 hours ago, mayalld said:

There was a case some years later when somebody discovered that the acts were still in force, and obliged a post-1974 authority to register their boat

If I remember correctly this Health Registration was carried out on a modern pleasure boat by an authority (Market Harborough) that had not issued a health registration before. I am sure that the owner of the boat interpreted the authorities obligations to suit there own needs as they wanted to legitimise living on their boat, and the issuing authority knew no better. This was later proven to be a nonsense and should be disregarded 

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

If that is the case, should modern canal carrying craft engaged in selling to the boaters- fuel, coal etc- be registered.

 

Stokie No 1 lacks this registration, I note.

Health Registrations have not been required for over 45 years 

Edited September 18, 2019 by pete harrison

[Chris M Jones]

Some of the registration dates for boats of the Birmingham & Midland Canal Carrying Company published in NarrowBoat magazine Famous Fleets page 8 Summer 2008 issue are incorrect. Unfortunately I was not consulted when it was written.

The correct dates when registration was approved and instructions given for the Town Clerk to seal the necessary documents are given below - so these dates can be taken as the date of registration.

1649 is 09.07.1965
1650 is 09.07.1965
1651 is 09.07.1965
1652 is 09.07.1965
1653 is 29.07.1966
1654 is 29.07.1966

In my article in NarrowBoat Autumn 2013 titled The Birmingham Canal Boat Register pages 30 to 38, I clearly state the whole of the Canal Boat Acts were finally repealed in 1989 and therefore no longer part of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act of 1984.

[Heartland]

Thank you Pete and Chris for the clarification. It was Hecla from this forum who carried out the reproduction of Birmingham Library Archives when it was located on floor 7 of the now demolished library.

[mayalld]

58 minutes ago, pete harrison said:

If I remember correctly this Health Registration was carried out on a modern pleasure boat by an authority (Market Harborough) that had not issued a health registration before. I am sure that the owner of the boat interpreted the authorities obligations to suit there own needs as they wanted to legitimise living on their boat, and the issuing authority knew no better. This was later proven to be a nonsense and should be disregarded 

Perhaps that was the motivation.

 

Perhaps it was sheer mischief aimed at a local authority that the boater had a beef with.

 

However, I don't think that it was a nonsense. Rather that with the end of carrying, and the lack of boats coming onto the system there was simply no cause to add boats to the register, and the process simply ceased through a lack of use, until somebody found it, and discovered that he could force a council to register his boat.

 

Having done it, steps were taken to abolish the requirement

[pete harrison]

27 minutes ago, mayalld said:

Perhaps that was the motivation.

 

Perhaps it was sheer mischief aimed at a local authority that the boater had a beef with.

 

However, I don't think that it was a nonsense. Rather that with the end of carrying, and the lack of boats coming onto the system there was simply no cause to add boats to the register, and the process simply ceased through a lack of use, until somebody found it, and discovered that he could force a council to register his boat.

 

Having done it, steps were taken to abolish the requirement

It was not only carrying 'boats coming onto the system' that required a health registration but notification of transfer of ownership was also a requirement for any boat already registered and used or to be used as a dwelling, Numerous boats were still in trade or lived on (carrying, camping e,t,c,) during the 1970's and 1980's with full time live aboard crew but there was no requirement to inform the registering authority or to have the boat re-registered as a dwelling, This makes the later registration of the live aboard pleasure boat a nonsense, or it does to me anyway - an opinion that must have been shared by the authorities as they repealed the Canal Boat Act in 1989   

Edited September 18, 2019 by pete harrison

[Chris M Jones]

One of the reasons Market Harborough may have believed they had the power to register boats could be that they were using outdated documents. Although a law may be repealed it might be some time before all the paperwork was updated and reprinted.

When I visited Worcester Environmental Health Department in 1990 to look at canal documents (a year after the Canal Boats Acts had been repealed) the Environmental Health Officer there showed me his Local Authority Licensing and Regulations documents (bound in a file similar to a Filofax). This set out his powers and authority under Government Legislation that he had to work within, and all the details of the Canal Boats Acts and his authority to implement them were still there even though it was no longer valid.

An inexperienced Environmental Health Officer unfamiliar with the latest regulations using old documentation could easily be under the impression initially that the Acts were still in force, and may think they were required to inspect a boat for registration if an application from a boat owner was received in the area it was based or intended to ply.

[John Chard]

On 18/09/2019 at 13:38, Heartland said:

If that is the case, should modern canal carrying craft engaged in selling to the boaters- fuel, coal etc- be registered.

 

Stokie No 1 lacks this registration, I note

My name is John, original  joint owner of Stokie. The claim by Heartland that the registration No was lacking on the photo of StokieNo1 is wrong. 

We had the registration plates either side of the pigeon box.. 

Edited February 26, 2020 by John Chard
Added photo

[Derek R.]

Is there some confusion over boat registrations, and Public Health registrations? The latter for the living space and number of occupants.

[NB Alnwick]

My apologies for bumping an oldish topic.

Is there anywhere where I can find a list of the local sanitary authorities where live-aboard  boats were registered before the act was repealed?

[Heartland]

There are lists of the different authorities. Most of this was assigned under the original act, then there was secondary legislation that permitted other local authorities to inspect boats. Examples of both systems can be found in local records offices. There were a few authorities that later had the right to allocate an inspection number. And, as stated these numbers are not to be confused with the BW/CRT numbering scheme

 

Not all lists are complete, but registration also appeared  in the council sanitary minutes. With Wolverhampton this was the only means of compiling a near as complete list. 

[Chris M Jones]

As far as I can tell the simple answer is no. I've been researching this subject for years all over the country and new information comes to light all the time.

 

When the administration of the original Canal Boat Act of 1877 was being drawn-up an initial (rather inadequate) list was created, then almost straight after it came into effect in January 1879 further registration authorities were quickly annexed. Many additional authorities were subsequently added over the time the Act was in law, and many others were deleted as being redundant during the same period.

 

Even though they had the power to register boats not all these authorities did so, for many reasons. In some instances those that did start registers sometimes had several restarts over the course of time with earlier records being deleted.

 

Many craft that used both canal and river navigations that connected with the sea were never registered under the CB Acts, and registered as merchant shipping instead to avoid inspection. This was finally corrected in the 1920’s and many of these old boats started to appear in the registers.

 

To compile a definitive list would be very difficult as information about when they were created and dissolved has been hard to find. Added to that is the occasional local Government reorganisation that occurred from time to time which altered how the Acts were administered, with the Acts themselves being subsequently incorporated into new Public Health legislation over time.

 

If all that wasn’t enough, the surviving documents in various archives represent only a minuscule fraction of administrative records that once existed.

 

So in short there is no one place I know of that will list every registration authority, and the time period it was involved in registering boats under the Acts up until it was repealed.