 Hand
painted signwriting is an important ingredient within the
tradition of canal boat decoration, part of the overall painted
texture, regardless of what the words say.
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| The owner's name and home town are usually
marked on either side of the cabin, and the boat's name is
painted on the top plank of the hull at the stern of a horse
drawn boat, or on the sides of the engine room of a motor boat.
In common with most other parts of this complicated tradition
the origin of this sign writing is fairly mundane, merely
fulfilling the demands of canal company bye-laws that the "owner's
name and boat's name shall be painted on the head or stern of
every such Boat, Barge or other Vessel, higher than the Place to
which the same shall sink into the Water when full laden".
Some even specify the colour and size "... large White Capital
Letters on a black ground, Three inches high at the least and of
a proportionable Breadth ...." but some left it to commonsense.
In an age when handpainted lettering was the norm however, a
mixture of self esteem and the need to advertise respectability
and reliability soon demanded a good standard of contemporary
craftsmanship, well painted lettering set out in the
conventional way on the cabin sides, which were panelled and
framed like a notice board anyway. |
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| The larger carrying companies continued to
use their boats as advertising hoardings to the end of their
days, filling the cabin sides with a stately statement of
ownership in large handsome lettering. On the boats of the
smaller companies however, and particularly on those belonging
to individual boatmen, known in the trade as 'Number Ones', the
lettering was also conscripted to become part of their own
painted language, expressing far more than the basic message of
the wording. It was treated as another painted pattern to
enhance the boat, which is not so surprising when it is
remembered that a majority of the boating population had always
been illiterate. Needless to say the letter styles that found
most favour with them were the more elaborate ones, those with
strong serifs like the heavy 'Egyptian' style, or the leafy
exuberance of Edwardian fairground lettering, all deeply shaded
and blocked-out in another colour in a decorative pretence at
three dimensions. With extra scrollwork or groups of painted
flowers occupying any other available space, the effect was rich
and colourful, a lovely statement of the boatman's pride in his
trade and his floating home. |
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| The most common traditional layout on the
cabin side is centrally placed, with the owner's name arranged
in a shallow arch at the top over the name of its home town
painted straight along the lower part, parallel with the
gunwhale. Adjectival phrases like 'canal haulage' or 'coal
contractor' might feature too, but it was more important in
carrying days to include all the official numbering in the
layout, the fleet number, cabin registration details and
sometimes the gauging number for specific canals from which the
tonnage could be worked out. Painted roses also featured
strongly on the fanciest boats, with extra borders painted to
echo the mouldings, and most horse drawn boats had one or two
small panels on the cabin sides carrying castle landscape
pictures.
One or two of the bigger boatyards employed
specialist sign-writers, but most canal boat letter painting was
done by the ordinary boatbuilders who made and maintained the
boats. The lettering did therefore often lack the fluency and
polish of the work of a practising trade sign painter, but it
made up of it in spirit. Pushed by practice and commercial
pressure it was often dashed on with a handwritten flair that
suited the nature and style of the canal boat tradition very
well, far better than the sophisticated skill of a regular trade
signwriter, another folk art skill of the canal. |
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