Will Noble16 Incredible Edwardian Photos Of The Regent's Canal
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Fellows Morton and Clayton narrowboat butty Avon (built 1902, fleet number 51, registered Uxbridge 338) passing east under Hampstead Road Bridge on the Regent's Canal.
Almost a century and a quarter ago, a group of Londoners packed into Ilford Lecture Hall were spellbound by these photographs of life on the capital's industrious Regent's Canal.
Carts on a wharf, thought to be where the Rosemary Branch pub stands now.
Ilford was one of the places where the photographer W N Beal came to deliver his lecture and 'lantern show', Through London on a Monkey Boat, in which he shared his images of life on the waterways: rugged bargemen, kids bathing in the water, trusty dogs performing tricks, and timber yards stacked like skyscrapers, which told of the booming trade of those Edwardian days.
Three boys fishing on the offside of The Regent's Canal in Regent's Park with London Zoo buildings in background, near the location where the 'Waterbus' now stops on its route from Paddington to Camden Town.
Between 1906 and 1908, Beal traversed the Regent's Canal (itself completed in 1820) from Paddington to Limehouse, capturing images of the folk who worked and lived on and near the waters, in places including Maida Vale, Islington, Shoreditch and Mile End.
Two bargemen at St. Pancras.
"Many interesting stories were told of the bargees, their wives and children, their favourite and intelligent dogs, of the towing path men and their horses, and of the the lock-keepers, while the pathos of the lives of the people living in the squalid neighbourhoods adjacent to the Canal was referred to in eloquent passages," reported a write-up on one of Beale's talks from December 1908.
Boat cabin exterior with two people and dog – boat partially identifiable as no. J11069 operated by William Boy…. of Paddington (possibly William Boyer of Paddington), probably below Sturt's Lock. The original title of this picture may have been "Stand Up Sir!" as the dog is performing a standing action.
These glass plate images — which now reside in the collection of the London Canal Museum — and the quality of them, are all the more impressive when you consider that not only were they captured with relatively clunky and rudimentary equipment, but that the photographer would've often been on the water, and in motion.
Gardens backing onto the offside of The Regent’s Canal at Victoria Park, north of Old Ford Lock.
But the question you've probably been shouting at your screen for two minutes now is 'what's a monkey boat when it's at home?'. At that Ilford lantern show, Beale revealed it was a 'gaudily painted narrow barge with its peculiar ridge-shaped planks, with small and badly-ventilated cabins that are often stuffed with numerous occupants'.
Four people and a horse waiting at the west entrance to Islington Tunnel, Regent’s Canal, showing west portal of tunnel with smoke from the steam tug emerging. The steam tug ran from 1826 to 1927 and worked by winding the boat along a fixed chain that ran the length of the tunnel. It towed several barges behind it and was far more efficient than the old process of manual 'legging'.
This still doesn't explain the name. Were the occupants the monkeys? Elsewhere on the internet there are suggestions that monkey boats got their name from boat builder and canal pioneer Thomas Monk, who designed the first canal boats with living cabins. Then again, in the book Britain at Work, the author Mr F Holmes claims a monkey boat is the second boat of two being pulled by horse.
An empty narrowboat with a boatman passing a loaded boat at St Pancras Lock with the St Pancras gasometers, lock keeper's hovel, railway bridge to coal drops and pump-house in background.
Anyway, that's enough monkeying around. We hope these images captivate you as much as they did the people who saw them back in the 1900s.
Three people posing outside the former lock keeper’s cottage at St. Pancras Lock, Regent’s Canal. The younger man may be the lock-keeper and the woman may be his wife. They appear to be dressed in their best clothing – possibly the picture was taken on a Sunday when they would have worn their best clothes for church.
The images are available to purchase from the London Canal Museum's website. And if you've not yet been to the London Canal Museum, hopefully our write up will inspire you to visit soon.
Boys swimming in the canal. You can see Ben Jonson Road bridge in background.Barges moored besides a timber yard at De Beauvoir, with a crane on the offside of the canal, looking west with Bridge 25, Southgate Road, in background.Three men and a woman standing in cabin doors of a Fellows, Moreton, and Clayton butty.Man steering a laden barge under Bonner Hall Bridge on The Regent's Canal.Loaded barge travelling west on The Regent’s Canal entering lock (possibly Sturt's Lock) and preparing to ascend, showing paired locks.A canal boat child and the family dog on top of a narrowboat at Paddington Basin. Her mother is at the rear, dressed in black. It is said that many of the canal women continued to wear black long after the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.Boatman steering under bridge on The Regent's Canal. The location is believed to be Victory Bridge, located close to what is now the Ragged School Museum. The bridge has been replaced since the photograph was taken. In the background through the bridge hole there is a distant view of pylons that supported an overhead tramway for bringing coal to the retort houses of the Stepney Gas Works.
