Lightermen

[Hunnyb22]

Hi...My maternal Grandfather James Knott  was born (1872-1952) in Winteringham, Lincolnshire, his family were all lightermen, I'm not sure what sort of cargo he carried but his route was Yorkshire, mainly Hull to Sheffield, where he met and married my Granny in 1895. I would just like to know about his life as a lighterman, I never knew my Grandad as he died when I was a baby, my mum didn't talk much about her family, so it's all rather vague. Any help would be much appreciated.

Kind regards

Hunnyb22

[onefortheroad]

A lighterman was a worker on a flat-bottomed boat (a lighter).

Apart from that, I'm afraid I'd only be guessing as to his cargo.

David

[onefortheroad]

As an afterthought,Hunnyb, have you looked up the trade of lighterman on Wiki?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightermen

David

[1pds]

There's a little bit about Lightermen in the National Archives here:

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66776

Also, I guess a lighterman's work in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire would not be too dissimilar from that of the same trade on the Thames, so you might want to look at the Company of Watermen and Lightermen's website and browse their history:

http://www.watermenshall.org/index.html

[1pds]

Sorry - the first link is to British History Online, not the National Archives!   

[dave the tyke]

Hi,
There's lots of literature on the subject and there was a series on the TV last year (Ch 4 ?). From what I can gather Coal would be mined around Sheffield, and transported to Bradford and Halifax to feed the Steam engines that were used in the textile industry. Iron ore mined around Halifax and Bradford was transported to Sheffield for the steel industry. Textile products were sent over to Hull to be shipped to all corners of the world. So the barges went out with one product and came back with another.
Now I'm sure that is a very over simplified version and I can see all sorts of problems, not least that textiles and coal don't mix so there must have been limitations as to what cargoes were carried.
There is a display about the canals and waterways in Skipton civic center.
This site has interesting data
http://www.penninewaterways.co.uk/index.htm

Dave

[Hunnyb22]

Thank you gentlemen for your help and for the links, I'll enjoy looking through them.

Hunnyb22

[cir]

Just a thought...

The port of Hull was, and still is, one of the biggest importers of soft timber from the Baltic. A large amount of this was used as pit props and telegraph poles. The coal mines were more Barnsley than Sheffield and Hull was a major exporter of coal.

This economic prosperity of Hull was largely held back by a lack of docks and the stranglehold upon the single rail line owned by the NER. This was eventually broken by the construction of a new dock (Alexandra) and rail line into the city by The Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company in1885. This was all done so as to export more coal at a cheaper price. I would suspect that these two commodities were those moved by your Grandfather.

[cir]

This may be useful ?

http://www.parishregister.com/watermen_and_lightermen.html