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Birmingham Canal Navigations Company colours?


agg221

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Although the BCN company did not have a carrying fleet, it did own and operate a lot of boats - everything from open boats to dredgers, ice-boats, a painters' boat and various other special purpose boats, including in the latter days a few ice-breaking tugs (Sott, Byrd and Nansen among them).

 

Some of these boats had cabins, so does anyone have any idea whether the BCN company had a colour scheme, or did it just slap on some gas tar?

 

Alec

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Edward Paget Tomlinson did I believe tried to replicate colours of the workboat fleet where cabins and shelters were provided. 

Of course when looking at the work boats of the BCN, it is important to recognise that the Wyrley & Essington and Dudley Canal were once separate entities and initially in the earliest years the original BCN did operate a coal carrying service.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Heartland said:

Edward Paget Tomlinson did I believe tried to replicate colours of the workboat fleet where cabins and shelters were provided. 

Of course when looking at the work boats of the BCN, it is important to recognise that the Wyrley & Essington and Dudley Canal were once separate entities and initially in the earliest years the original BCN did operate a coal carrying service.

 

 

He did, but the BCN is not included in Colours of the Cut. Any ideas whether he may have published them anywhere else? There are black and white photographs of the painter's boat at least (one of the former wooden ice boats) so cabin colours survived into what should be living memory.

 

For my purposes (what colour to repaint Oates) the BCN is the pertinent entity - it was stationed on the Dudley No.2 post-incorporation but was always a BCN boat rather than a Dudley boat so far as I am aware - its origins are lost in the mists of time. It was certainly a BCN boat for long enough that this would be the most relevant. Of course it never originally had a cabin but some compromises have to be made in the name of practicality.

 

I wasn't aware that the BCN operated a coal carrying service, so effectively they had their own carrying fleet for a while. The BCN boat record books start (from memory) in around 1876 and the purpose is generally recorded - they had a fair few boats at that time but carrying is not specifically mentioned.

 

Alec

Edited by agg221
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There are records previously hidden in different archives, and the engineering records do predate 1876, which mention the odd workboats.

 

As to colours

 

Most images are black and white, but I do wonder if the butty type craft taken in early colour images could be a help

 

From an RCHS Shearing Collection this 1972 shot on the Daw End Canal shows NANSEN II plus a butty, could this help ?

 

 

ES2408r.jpg

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Thanks for that. Nansen II appears to be in a variant of BWB colours of the time, which would be appropriate for the date of the photograph but the butty is in colours I have not seen before, unless it is the remnants of DIWE dark blue with the yellow having gone?

 

I have read the engineering records, have linked up the two boat books and I have what is probably the only surviving copy of the 1858 boat list (the original was in Gloucester but disappeared c.1982 and has not been seen since) but records get quite sketchy when you go back pre-1865 or thereabouts. I would like to think the early engineering records will resurface (they did once which gave indicative dates for Laplander and Antartic) but in the meantime the actual date for Oates remains a bit of a mystery.

 

I should have thought to ask a few people who would probably have known around 20yrs ago, most notably Fred Heritage who started at Bradley in 1947, but unfortunately I didn't.

 

Alec

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I doubt the BCN boats had much in the way of colouring. It was after all a Navigation Company first and foremost, and most of their boats were open day boats - with a few having very short cabins amounting to little more than shelters, with at best a bottle stove. Fore ends might have got some red along the top bend, a yellow crescent at each end of the red, and a number in white on the red. Tony Lewery's 'Narrow Boat Painting' depicts some examples on 123.

 

Even the BCN Blue Book makes no references to colours, and the few line drawings are in B & W, and of long distance boats.

 

Hardly a good example of a livery, but rather typical of very basic elements.

 

 

2096379701_SALLYGen118(Medium).jpg.e87d0ce565a7e0fd5df9c03b8c3b183f.jpg

 

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I can remember when Don Payne carried the occasional load of rubbish on the BCN on Sally.

5 hours ago, agg221 said:

Thanks for that. Nansen II appears to be in a variant of BWB colours of the time, which would be appropriate for the date of the photograph but the butty is in colours I have not seen before, unless it is the remnants of DIWE dark blue with the yellow having gone?

Two versions of BW blue. By 1972, any hint of pre-nationalisation colouring would be long gone.

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Sally, if I recall was sunk on the link from Tipton Green to the Dudley Canal

 

As to the 1858 boat list, I recall also Roy Jamieson showing me a list later than that stated. Sadly some import records for the BCN either did not make it to Ellesmere Port or are still hidden somewhere.

 

Looking through their website details of documents,  there are  notable gaps now.

 

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