Gloucester Waterways Museum
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2.2  Life on the Boats

Cylgate Boat Cabin
     This replica of a boat cabin is based on the narrow boat Cylgate, built in 1930 and owned and worked by Alfred Hone of Banbury on the Oxford Canal. It shows many of the features that were common on boats belonging to owner-boatmen, known as 'number ones'. The outside of the cabin as well as the inside of the cabin doors are decorated in the 'roses and castles' style. Inside the cabin on the left is the range used for cooking and heating. Above the range, the shelves are decorated with crochet lace, and behind are some ribbon plates. Below the plates are a brass lamp and some horse brasses, and just inside the doorway is a collection of brass bed-knobs which were easy to obtain from factories in the Birmingham area. A proud boatwoman would keep all this brasswork polished regularly. In the background can be seen the curtains, trimmed with crochet lace, that provided some privacy for the sleeping area behind.
     The rudder was used on the narrow boat Northwich for a time. It is attached to the boat by rope in case it snags on the cill of a lock, causing it to lift off its pintles. Hanging from the top of the rudder is a horse's tail - a common way of remembering the owner's last horse. The tiller is in the cocked-up position used when a boat is moored. Before starting on a trip, the tiller is turned over so that it takes up a convenient position for the steerer standing in the 'hatches' (the entrance to the cabin).
     Alfred Hone was one of the owner boatmen featured in L T C Rolt's wonderful book Narrow Boat. As well as Cylgate, he owned two other boats that were worked by members of his family, all three being kept in spotless condition.
     A larger rudder in the corner came from a Grand Union Canal wide boat, which looked like a narrow boat but had a width of 9 to 13 feet.
     Beside the cabin of Cylgate is a display of water cans and other items painted in the 'roses and castles' style that was long popular with boatmen and their families. Every boat carried one or two water cans on the roof of the cabin as a source of drinking water. There is more painted ware on display on Level 3.

A Way of Life
     The brown teapots and jug are known as Measham ware because much was sold to boat people at Measham, Leicestershire, near the top end of the Ashby Canal, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many such teapots have general inscriptions while others commemorate special occasions, bearing the name of the giver and/or the receiver. A distinctive feature of the large teapot is that the finial on top of the lid is a miniature teapot. The black bonnet is based on the style worn by boatwomen following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.
     The concertina is typical of the type of musical instrument played by boatmen when they gathered in a pub at the end of a hard day.
     The journal in this cabinet records inspections of canal boats to ensure that they conformed to health regulations set out in the accompanying booklet. The page on show records that the boat Cylgate was found to be in a satisfactory condition in July 1932. The books Rob Rat and Water Waifs describe the life of boat people in the late nineteenth century, when there was a national campaign to improve their living conditions.
     Ribbon plates decorated with attractive scenes were commonly imported from Bavaria, and they were popular ornaments inside boat cabins.

Clothes of the Cut
     The clothes in the display cabinet are examples of those worn by boat people on special occasions, but they also indicate the general style of every-day working clothes in the nineteenth century.
     Boat women commonly wore a blouse and a long skirt with an apron tied around the waist, a bonnet on the head and often a shawl around the shoulders. The blouse and skirt shown date from the 1830s. For ordinary wear, the apron was usually fawn in colour, and if dirty work needed to be done, a hessian apron was worn over the top. Bonnets were heavily pleated and frilled and were made by the boatwomen from whatever material they could afford. After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, many boatwomen made themselves black bonnets as a sign of mourning.
     Boatmen commonly wore trousers made of a thick woven fabric called moleskin, a striped shirt with no collar, a waistcoat, a red and white neckerchief and a baggy cap, held in shape by a ring of wire. The trousers were held up by braces, but it was common also to wear a leather belt, into which could be tucked the windlass used to operate the lock paddle gear. The suit shown was evidently kept for best - it belonged to boatman Harry Beresford of Braunstone. Also shown are two decorative belts - the older is formed of five rows of plaits sown on to a webbing background with pearl buttons, and the other shows a pattern of 'spiders web' embroidery that was popular from the 1890s.
     Costumes gradually changed in the twentieth century. Boatmen's caps became smaller and trousers were made of corduroy. The latter were initially dyed dark brown, but every time they were washed they lost a bit of colour until some ended up pale fawn. The boat women gradually gave up wearing their bonnets, but some lasted into the 1930s. (A bonnet pattern is available in the shop - ask at the counter.)

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