Canal Boatmen's Missions

Journal of Transport History, The, Sep 2005 by Bebbington, D W

Wendy Freer and Gill Foster, Canal Boatmen's Missions, Railway & Canal Historical Society, Oxford (2004), 72 pp., £12.50.

The British inland waterway system, flourishing in the early nineteenth century, was staffed by a large body of bargees who, like the railway navvies, earned an unenviable reputation for roughness. They swore, drank too much, worked on Sundays and seemed untrustworthy because, always on the move, they could readily disappear with debts unpaid. The boat people were rootless, unrestrained by the ties of neighbourliness. Consequently they caused particular concern to the rising Evangelical movement, which, dedicated to bringing the gospel to every inhabitant, rose to the challenge posed by an especially disreputable section of the population. Wendy Freer, who has previously written about the women and children of the canals, and Gill Foster have written an engaging account of the boat men's missions conducted by Evangelicals during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Originally the efforts for the bargees and their families were an offshoot of the missions to seafarers begun by George ('Bo'sun') Smith. His Soldiers' and Sailors' Bethel Union, established in 1826, was an undenominational body that held services and distributed Christian literature among seafarers. In 1827, under its auspices, a boat men's chapel was opened close to the City Road basin of the Regent's Park Canal in London. Another mission was begun in the capital at Paddington, and soon there were similar schemes in the provinces. Many were short-lived, lacking a firm institutional base. Others, however, were backed by a denomination, and so were sustained over many years. One such was set up in his Cheshire parish on the Bridgewater Canal as an Anglican venture by a clergyman named Dodgson who was the father of the author Lewis Carroll. Like several missions of the established Church, it enjoyed the support of the canal's owners.

Other undenominational bodies, however, entered the field in the second half of the nineteenth century, and several institutions serving the dwindling canal population continued their work down to the later twentieth century. There was still a barge maintained by an evangelistic organisation operating in the 1990s, but now there is only a Boaters' Christian Fellowship catering for leisure users of the inland waterways. The authors have tracked down with immense care as many missions as possible, each recorded in a valuable gazetteer at the end of the book. Pictures illustrate many of the canalside buildings and floating chapels, while maps show their locations. And the authors are not content merely to record, for they present a final chapter that evaluates the achievement of the boatmen's missions. It is difficult to assess the numbers drawn into the places of worship, since usually people from other walks of life attended the missions, but it is clear that they strongly influenced many boat people. They gave up strong drink, learned to read and write, used the new recreational facilities and had their social needs relieved. The missionaries wrote letters for them free (while the public houses usually charged for the service) and represented their interests to the authorities. The authors recognise that there were elements of social control in the canal companies' support for some ventures, but conclude that these drawbacks were far outweighed by the benefits to the welfare of the canal population brought by the missions. This is a clear, thorough and well judged study of the main intersection between the histories of religion and of the British canal system.

D. W. Bebbington, University of Stirling