The canal boatmen's strike of 1923 - The History of The Narrow Boat ...

36 For example, in July 1920 W. Yates, Chief Engineer to the Grand Junction Canal
Company, wrote to T. W. Millner, District Engineer for the section from Braunston to
Fenny Stratford, asking for a statement on 'what reductions - inevitable owing to the
decontrol of Canals by the Government - can be made consistent with the carrying out of
the minimum amount of necessary work to keep the Canal open'. By 13 August 1920
informal notices had been served on thirty-two men working on this stretch of canal. On
19 December 1921 Millner was told to reduce the wages of all 48 hour men by Id per
hour and 56-60 hour men by 0.75d per hour; on 30 March 1922 he was ordered to reduce
wages by 0.5d per hour for 48 hour men and 0.25d per hour for 56-60 hour men; on 20
June 1923 the wages of all men in the district were reduced by a further 0.5d per hour, 'a
similar amount to the reduction on the railways'. The effect was that between 1 January
1922 and 2 July 1923 there had been a reduction in weekly wages of 10s for 48 and 60
hour men and of 9s 4d for 56 hour men.
37 Committee on Living-in, 1921, evidence of C. F. Jones, q. 486.
38 Ibid., evidence of Rev. W. Ward, q. 840.
39 The Record, III (September 1923).
40 This figure was quoted in evidence given to the industrial court in 1923. In 1920 FMC
had 208 boats registered as dwellings, of which twenty-one were steamers, twenty-five
motor boats and 162 unpowered butty boats (Committee on Living-in, 1921, evidence of
C. F. Jones, q. 279, q. 288. This compares with the 202 boats registered as dwellings in
the Shropshire Union company's fleet, 1920.
41 The narrative of events at Braunston has been based upon three local newspapers, the
Rugby Advertizer, the Northampton Mercury and the Northampton Daily Echo. The
other Midland depots where boats gathered were Birmingham, Wolverhampton,
Nottingham, Coventry, Leicester and Market Drayton.
42 Samuel Brooks was born in 1880, and after a period of service in the navy he joined
Spreckley's brewery at Worcester. In 1919 he became an officer of the National Union of
Vehicle Workers, which in 1922 became part of the TGWU. Brooks's main interests were
in the conditions of vehicle workers, particularly road transport drivers, and from 1938 to
1944, when he retired, he was Commercial Services Group secretary for Area 5, based at
West Bromwich. He died in 1958. The Record, XXXVIII (April 1958).
43 Rugby Advertizer, 31 August 1923.
44 Braunston School, Admissions Register, 1923. I am grateful to Mr D. Thrower,
headmaster of Braunston School, for permission to use and quote from these records.
45 In the evidence of W. G. E. Childs, Inspector of Canal Boats, to the Committee on
Living-in, 1921, the school at Braunston was described as ‘the best type on the main
canals. I do not know who is responsible for the erection, or how it is controlled, but it is
a very well-known school along the waterways, and that is where the children most
assemble for school' (q. 997).
46 Braunston School, Log Book, 17 September and 5 October 1923.
47 The Record, III (January 1923).
48 TGWU, Minutes of Waterways Section, 18 October 1923.
49 Ibid., 21 August 1923.
50 Rugby Advertizer, 21 September 1923.
51 H. Gosling, Up and Doom Stream (1927), p. 195.
52 Rugby Advertizer, 2 November 1923.
53 Ibid., 7 September 1923.