Canal Narrowboat Fleets

Fellows Morton & Clayton.

Prior to the nationalisation of the waterways in 1948 one of the largest canal carriers, and probably the most famous, was Fellows Morton and Clayton. Parts of the company dated back to the 1830s and they had been one of the earliest firms to invest confidently in iron boats - steamers, horse boats and some of the earliest motorboats. They built many of them at their own dockyard in Birmingham, but they contracted work out to other shipyards and boatbuilders too.

Contrasting bow shapes on the two 'Josher' narrowboats, the wooden Clent on the right and the fine iron steamer President on the left, both awaiting restoration at Norton Canes in 1975.

However they always specified their own very recognisable style of riveted boat, slim graceful craft with a very fine entry through the water at the bows. The forged bow plates flared out in a double curvature to meet the sharp inward slope of the top strake behind a strengthened guard iron at the loaded waterline. It was a powerful balance between utility and beauty, a characteristic shape that became a strictly guarded company style - virtually a trademark. These iron 'Joshers', as they were affectionately known (after the firm's founder Joshua Fellows) were well built and well respected and many survive in good condition, most of the over seventy years old whilst a few have reached their century.

F.M.&C. also had hundreds of wooden boats over the years, with a separate dockyard to build and service them at Uxbridge, but few now survive in reasonable condition. Wooden boats were built in the expectation that they would be worn out long before the ordinary rot of old age would get a grip. The fact that we have any at all over half a century after they were built is a surprising bonus, and they now require a very different order of maintenance and restoration to that with which they were built.

Motor boat Ferret and her dumb butty Ilkeston at Ellesmere Port in 1999 displaying the two different colour schemes that the company wore during its history.

Thomas Clayton [Oldbury] Ltd.

An interesting variation from the standard long distance narrowboat came from the long established company of Thomas Clayton of Oldbury. They operated a fleet of wooden narrow boats especially equipped to carry liquid in bulk - tar, crude oil and creosote. Instead of conventional canvas covers over the hold, each boat was fitted with sealed bulkheads near the bow, stern and centrally, with a permanent weatherproof deck fixed over the hold, thus converting most of the boat into two massive wooden tanks, with shapely ends. If it was waterproof from the outside it could be presumed to be oil proof from the inside. They were built at a number of different boatyards but were maintained at their own dock at Oldbury. Because of the preservative nature of much of their cargo, soaking and seeping into the woodwork, several of these old boats still survive, instantly recognisable by their characteristic long unencumbered deck, broken only by some small loading hatches, and all named after British rivers. The company carried on trading until 1966 and still had a few horse drawn boats in commission until the end.