BCN Experts - Day boat disposals

[onward to inlanding]

Dear All

 

BCN day boat fleets, in particular the Hickmans / Stewart & Lloyds fleets; are there records of disposals made by the Company out there?

 

In trying to piece together the history of BCN 18686 this is an area I'm struggling with. I'm trying to make the link between the end of her working life at Spring Vale and the next phase, whatever that was.

 

The postwar period is a mystery until she was purchased by Mick & Judy Vedmore from Beeston Castle Cruisers in the late 1960's.

 

At some point she must have been cut down to 62' and marinised, but every lead so far has drawn a blank...

 

Any fresh leads anyone?

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[Laurence Hogg]

Quite honestly you have been lucky to have acheived the knowledge already attained. The day boats went far and wide some going as far as Scotland, Chichester and down on the Devon waterways. I know of no record keeping by S&L or Hickmans, some of their records may have got to Wolverhampton museums like Bantock House possibly. At the end of the day these were just floating skips of their time and in most cases were not of any great design or decoration. Sadly the cabin wooden boats had a lot more character with a whole variety of liveries, now all but gone

Best of luck..

[onward to inlanding]

Cheers Laurence,

 

Yep, I suspect you're dead right, but I live in hope!

 

Best wishes

 

Nick

Edited May 27, 2013 by onward to inlanding

[Heartland]

The British Steel records did go to their records office in Northamptonshire, but elements of that are now with Wolverhampton Archives. Boat sales, can be recorded in some archive material, but I have not checked whether Wolverhampton has this type of information.

 

There is of course the possibility that the boat went to a local boatyard for conversion. Several of our well known boat builders undertook such work, but was this recorded?- Perhaps not.

 

Ray Shill

[alan_fincher]

I can't answer your question, but once owned an ex Stewarts & Lloyds tube boat that had been disposed of from Coombeswood about 1960, and crudely converted to a 40 foot motorised leisure boat by Harris brothers at Bumblehole.

 

That led me to go looking at full length boats still at S&L Coombeswood in the mid 1970s, when many were still there. An enquiry to try and determine how they would be disposed of said my name and address would be put on file, but I never heard more about it.

 

In his recently published "My Family Afloat" John Wain, (father to Rex and Simon), records a diary entry from June 2nd 1976 where they boated to Coombeswood, and looked over boats for sale. I think this would have been a little after my visit and enquiry. He records 40 for sale, 15 wooden Joeys at £350, and 25 "steel", (although I suspect iron, or iron composite in most cases) at £450, or over.

 

I think Mike the Boilerman's "Reginald" may well have been one of these. Mike has a whole file that I think covers the sale from the tube works.

 

But this is all clearly a lot later than a boat you say was already sold off by the late 1960s. Certainly iron composite boats were sold of from S&L Coombeswood around 1960, if what I was told about ours was actually correct, and it came from the first owners after S&L.

Edited May 28, 2013 by alan_fincher

[pete harrison]

Dear All

 

BCN day boat fleets, in particular the Hickmans / Stewart & Lloyds fleets; are there records of disposals made by the Company out there?

 

Any fresh leads anyone?

 

Cheers

 

Nick

I have been looking for some sort of official Stewarts and Lloyds Ltd. boat disposal listing for years, and so far without success. One owner told me that when he purchased his boat from Coombeswood in the 1970's he saw a ledger of some sort that listed S. & L. Ltd. fleet numbers / B.C.N. gauge numbers and who the boat was sold to. This ledger would tie up loads of loose ends within my records.