Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Educational Resources
We have developed a range of educational resources
available to support your visit to us, to use on site or
to use in the classroom before or after your trip.
In this pack you’ll find information and activities
supporting Life on a Working Boat.
We’re always working on creating new resources
for you to use with your students, so if there is a
particular topic you’d find helpful to have supporting
resources for then please do let us know!
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Our supporting pack for Life on a Working Boat currently
contains the following information and activities;
Why did people live on boats?
Who were the boat people?
Decorating a boatman’s cabin
Signwriting
Make your own canal-ware ID cards
The decline of canals carrying goods
Design your own boatman’s cabin
Key words
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Why did people live on boats?
Do you live in a town or a city? Or maybe the countryside? 250 years ago, before the
Industrial Revolution started, most people in Britain lived in the countryside. They worked
on the land as farm hands and labourers, although very few of them owned their own farms.
They would plough the fields and harvest the crops for the farmer, as and when he had work
for them to do.
When there was no more work for them to do on one farm, they would have to travel to
another farm to look for work. They couldn’t always guarantee they would have work to do.
This way of life started to change during the Industrial Revolution. Scientists and engineers
discovered new ways of making things. They invented machines – like the steam engine.
Pretty soon hundreds of factories were built to house these new machines and they all
needed coal to burn as fuel and raw materials like limestone and iron ore to make their
products with.
The canals were built to carry these raw materials straight from the mines to the factories
by boat.
With all of these new machines and factories springing up, new jobs were created. You could
now work in a factory, down the mines, or even on a canal boat! Many of the farm hands
and labourers who had lived in the countryside moved to the towns and cities to take these
new jobs. They could guarantee that they would have work to do all year round and the
wages were often higher. Some of these farm labourers became boat people.
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Who were the Boat People?
It was the boatman’s job to take all of the limestone, coal and iron ore from the mines in
the Black Country to the factories, forges and smelting works by boat. Many of these
factories were far away in places such as Manchester, Liverpool and London.
To start with, boatmen earned enough money to keep a little cottage on land for their
families to live in whilst they travelled along the canals transporting their cargo. But as
time went on canal workers were paid less and less and the boatmen were forced to
give up their cottages and move their families onto their boats to travel with them.
What was it like to live on a boat?
Conditions on narrow boats were cramped. As boatmen were paid for the amount of
cargo they carried, they needed to use as much of the boat as possible for storage.
This only left a very tiny space for the family to live in. Even the largest cabins were only
two metres wide and two and a half metres long.
Cabins only had one room which was used as the kitchen, bedroom and dining room
for the whole family. The boatman and his wife (and sometimes as many as 8 children!)
would have all lived and slept in this tiny space.
The engine rooms of motorised boats were frequently used to relieve overcrowding,
with a child sleeping on either side of the dirty, oily engine. How does this compare
to your home?
Do you know somebody who lives on a canal boat now? Ask them how their life is
different to the working boat families’ way of living!
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Decorating their homes
Boat people didn’t have many personal possessions. They didn’t have a lot of money to
spend on buying new things and there simply wasn’t enough room for lots of fancy furniture
or ornaments. Even though they didn’t have much room or money, boatpeople still wanted
to make the tiny cabin where they lived as nice and as cosy as possible. This is why the few
possessions they did have were so decorative.
Roses and Castles
Boatpeople had their own unique style when it came to decorating their cabins. Many of
the everyday objects that they owned were decorated with Roses and Castles. Nobody
knows exactly where this fashion came from but there are some theories. Have a look at
the theories below… Which do you think is most likely to be true?
In the late 18th Century, Grandfather clocks painted with pretty landscape scenes became
very popular. Clock dials painted with flowers and castles became especially popular
around the same time that boat people started to transport coal and limestone along
the canals. More of these decorated clock dials were made in Birmingham and the Black
Country than anywhere else in England. There would have been hundreds of clock
painters here, working just a few metres away from the canal-side. It is possible that this
style inspired the boat painters in the nearby boat yards.
Chinese and Japanese style ornaments were all the rage in England in the 18th century,
as exciting, never before seen objects were imported from the East. After seeing these
ornaments, English craftspeople (painters, potters and furniture makers) started to copy
these designs. These craftspeople made very fancy, expensive ornaments for the rich, but
they also made cheaper knickknacks for the poor. One of these cheaper designs became
extremely popular amongst the poorer working classes. It was a picture of a beautiful castle
by a lake. As lots of these craftspeople making Japanese style ornaments happened to
work quite close to the canals in Wolverhampton, Bilston and Birmingham, it is possible
that boat people saw these Japanese designs and copied them.
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Crochet
Many boatwomen would crochet pretty doilies and trimmings to decorate their cabins
with. The aprons and bonnets worn by the boatman’s wife and the shawls used to wrap
their babies would also have been edged with home-made crochet work. Crochet
patterns were often passed down through families, from mother to daughter.
Rag Rugging
People who lived and worked on boats didn’t have an awful lot of money. They couldn’t
always afford to buy new things and would often recycle their old clothes and bed sheets
to make rag rugs.
Rag rugs were made by cutting old clothes into small, thin strips. The boatman’s wife
would then take a large old hessian sack, punch holes into it, and pull the strips through
the holes until the whole sack was covered to make a rug. Rag rugs took a very long time
to make, but the saved the boatpeople money.
Signwriting
Have you ever noticed the words painted onto the sides of the boats that travel along the
canals? What sorts of things do they say?
All boats have names, and narrowboats are no exception. In Victorian times it was the law
that all narrowboats had their name and their home town painted onto their sides.
The name was usually painted in an arch shape, with the home town painted in a straight
line underneath. Signs are traditionally painted in bold colours, such as red, dark green,
blue, yellow and white.
Imagine you owned a boat. Can you think of a name for it and have a go at making your
own boat sign? Don’t forget to add your home town underneath the boat’s name.
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Make your own canal-ware ID cards
Boat people had some very unique objects that were suited to a life on the water. We’ve
included some pictures and descriptions of some of these objects on the next couple of
pages. You’ll also find some templates for ID cards for these objects - try writing your own
descriptions of the objects based on the information we’ve given you.
Buckby Can
The boatman and his family kept their drinking water in a
Buckby Can which sat on top of their boat when they were on
the move. Canal water isn’t safe to drink (it’s full of nasty germs
and would taste disgusting!) so the boatman’s wife would fill this
can with safe drinking water at a tap on the tow path. The water
would need to last the whole family until they reached the next
tap, which could be many miles away. If they ran out of clean
drinking water, they would be very, very thirsty!
Dipper
Boat people would wash themselves in water from the canal
rather than wasting their valuable supply of clean drinking
water. This saucepan shaped object is called a dipper and
was ‘dipped’ into the canal to scoop up the water. The water
from the dipper was then used to wash their face and hands.
Do you think they would be cleaner or dirtier after washing
in canal water?
Cabin Stool
Small, moveable stools are useful where there isn’t
much space. Cabin stools like this one are often
painted in a ‘rose and castle’ design, as they are
very popular with canal boat people.
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Iron
Do you have an item similar to this in your house? This iron
was heated on the stove (a small coal oven) by the boatman’s
wife, and was used to remove the creases from the family’s
clothes. Boat people would often have to wait until the boat
stopped and was moored up to do their washing. They
pegged their clean clothes along the length of the boat to
dry them.
Horse Brass
Everything that boat people owned was highly
decorated, including their horses which they
decorated with horse brasses. Before boats had
engines, horses were used to pull the boats along the
canals as they walked along the towpath. Every boat
would have a workhorse decorated in horse brass.
Crocheted Horse Ear Caps
Ear caps protected the workhorse’s ears from flies. A lot of
the insects that live near the canals bite, and horses working
along the tow path needed to be protected from bites and
infections. These caps would have been crocheted by the
boatman’s wife and were often decorated with colourful
tassels. They would fit over the horse’s ears like a hat.
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Gazunda
The Gazunda is similar to a potty or chamber pot. The
Gazunda was used as a toilet by all members of the family.
Once it had been used, the wee and poo was thrown over
the side of the boat into the canal! There wasn’t much
privacy when going to the loo in the tiny boatman’s cabin
as everyone lived in the same room. Going to the toilet
would have been very unpleasant!
Babby Drawer
Do you have a baby brother or sister? Where do they sleep
at home? If they lived on a canal boat they would have to
sleep in a box kept under the bed! This box was known as
the babby drawer. Don’t worry - it didn’t have a lid, so the
baby could still breathe. As there wasn’t much space, this
was the only place for the baby to sleep.
Now you’ve read all the descriptions, have a go at making your own ID cards for these
unique working boat objects!
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Make Your Own Cards
Use these templates to make
your canal-ware ID cards.
Item name:
_______________________________
Description:
You can print out as many as
you like to create a full set!
_________________________
Draw a picture in the box to
show what the object looks like.
_________________________
Use the information on the
previous two pages to write
your object descriptions. You
could continue on the back of
the card if you need more space.
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
Item name:
_______________________________
Description:
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
Item name:
_______________________________
Description:
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Why don’t people live on working boats, carrying cargo today?
As time went on, many of the canal companies found that they couldn’t compete with the
new steam trains. Trains were much faster than canal boats and could carry a lot more
cargo. Boatpeople were offered less work, and their way of life gradually came to an end.
Today, the waterways are generally used for pleasure. People take narrow boat holidays, or
trips like you have taken at Dudley Canal Tunnel and Limestone Mines. People do still live
on boats, too – although the hold where the cargo was once stored is now used as living
space, so they’re much more spacious!
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Design your own boatman’s cabin
Imagine you live on a working boat today, in the 21st century. Think about the sorts of things
you would want and need in your cabin. Compare these with the things you would have
found in the cabin back in the Industrial Revolution. Do you still need the same sorts of
things? What would be different? What would be the same?
We’ve drawn an outline of a cabin space below. Have a go at adding your own furniture and
decorations into it to create your own boatman’s cabin!
Working Afloat
Supporting Life on a Working Boat
Key Words
Black Country: The area of the West Midlands north of Birmingham, including
Walsall, Dudley, Sandwell and Wolverhampton.
Boatman: A man who lives and works on a narrowboat.
Boat People: Another word for the people who live and work on a narrowboats.
Coal: A black rock found under the earth’s surface that is burned for fuel. It is removed
from underneath the ground by miners. During the Industrial Revolution, there was
more coal found in the Black Country than anywhere else in England.
Doily: A round piece of crochet work used as a coaster or table mat.
Trimmings: A decorative piece of crochet work used to decorate the edges of shelves,
tables and other pieces of furniture.
Engineer: Somebody who designs and creates new products, roads, bridges and machines.
Industrial Revolution: The period of time in the late 18th century and early 19th century
when new machines and new ways of manufacturing were developed.
Iron Ore: A raw material. The rock heated and melted to extract iron- a metal used to
make machines, tools and other objects.
Knickknacks: A small object used for decoration.
Labourers: A farm labourer is somebody who works for the farmer on the land,
picking and sewing crops, ploughing fields and looking after farm animals.
Landscape: A picture that shows a natural scene, usually of the countryside.
Limestone: A greyish coloured rock found under the earth’s surface that is used in
forges, factories and as building material. It is removed from underneath the ground
by miners. During the Industrial Revolution, there was a large amount of limestone
found in the Black Country.
Raw Materials: The basic natural materials that can be used to make or create things,
for example – wood, iron ore, gold or clay.