Coles Family Boaters

A fine posed portrait of Oxford Canal boatman Joseph Coles at Lock 6, or Napton 2nd Lock, with Bridge 114 behind. The bridge was built and repaired by owners and occupiers of adjoining properties, and was rebuilt in 1897. Note the finely shaped balance beams in contrast to those in use today. This image is full of interesting detail relating to commercial working on narrow canals. Joseph’s mule was typical of those employed on narrow canals, especially on the Oxford line, often worked with one animal per boat to obviate bow-hauling the butty. Another point are the large bow fenders, especially the one hanging down to protect the left quarter from impact, and rarely seen in other images. Joseph is likely to be heading north to the colliery districts, or possibly even to get a load of granite roadstone from wharves in the Nuneaton area. 

Jill & Joe Beesley

This article is not a definitive account of the entire Coles family, but instead focuses on several individuals and their boating activities down the generations in an effort to highlight the nature of the trade and traffics of the Oxford Canal.

All the Coles family mentioned here can be genetically traced back to John Coles who worked as a coal dealer, baker and boatman of Kirtlington, a village just south of Banbury. He married his wife Rosetta in 1827 and started a family. Her memorable name would echo down the subsequent generations – her son even had a boat named after her.

George and William: second generation

Two of John and Rosetta’s sons were William, born 1830, and George, born 1835; they were the earliest members of the family that show up in the canal records as boat-owners. George bought a second-hand boat named Fanny and reweighed it on the Oxford Canal in March 1865. William Coles followed with two boats: Italian Hero weighed in April 1866, followed by Unexpected in May 1868, the latter bought second-hand from cement manufacturer Charles Nelson of Stockton (see NB Spring 2011). They worked as independent contractors, probably carrying for their father’s coal business as well as for various traders and carriers along the Oxford Canal.

Thomas Coles: second generation

John and Rosetta’s third son was Thomas, born in 1842. As a teenager he worked as a pig butcher and, just like his father and brothers, eventually took to the boats. John died in September 1862 (Rosetta had passed on four years earlier) and it was the eldest son William who was the beneficiary of his estate. Two months later Thomas married Louisa Humphris at Kirtlington and they started their family as boaters on the Oxford Canal. The Humphrises were a boating family from Eynsham and they had a close relationship with the Coleses for many years. In his earlier days of canal carrying, Thomas used hired craft, which was by no means unusual for these independent boatmen. Boats were hired from several sources, normally boat-builders, owners and sometimes carriers. In November 1865, he hired Rugby from boat-builder William Stephenson of the Grand Junction Dock at Braunston, just a few yards from Braunston Bottom Lock No 1.

Thomas Coles also hired boats from the Oxford Canal Navigation, which was made more convenient due to him and Louisa moving to Thrupp in the 1860s. The OCC owned several iron and wooden boats, both open and with cabins, and when not used for maintenance purposes they were let out on hire to boatmen and various traders, usually being returned to the maintenance yard at Thrupp when they were no longer needed.

In 1871 Thomas and Louisa were working the boat Spectacular with an 18-year-old Joseph Humphris as a young chap or mate to help out. Joseph later became an owner-boatman with a boat of the same name at Oxford. Their chief traffic was the haulage of coal between the Warwickshire and Leicestershire collieries on the Coventry and Ashby canals to Oxford, mainly for the domestic coal trade serving a large number of local and college residential properties.

By the early 1880s Thomas and his family were living and working aboard two boats named Rosetta and Romeo & Juliet. Rosetta was named after his mother, and Thomas and Louisa also called one of their daughters Rosetta, born about 1882, and a granddaughter was also given it as a middle name.

By January 1894 Thomas had bought and registered two secondhand craft named Providence and Envy Not, which were joined by a third boat Louisa in June 1897. As boys grew into men it was quite common for an independent boating family to purchase or hire extra craft to be worked with, or separate from, the family boats. This might be the case here as their oldest son Joseph was aged 20 in 1897 and capable of working a boat with his younger brothers as crew. Providence was an old boat bought from William Humphris and was replaced with a new craft of the same name and registered in August 1906 in Thomas Coles’ name.

He carried coal to wharves at Oxford and elsewhere, organised by the wharfinger at Oxford Basin. It had become a time-honoured practice at Oxford, for many of the traders based there or nearby who did not own boats themselves, to ask the wharfinger to find them a boat to bring up coal supplies. The wharfinger effectively acted as a liaison between boatmancontractor and trader, and organised the unloading and boatman’s pay through his own business accounts. This facility was later organised into a subsidiary department within the Oxford Canal Company in 1908, known as the Traffic Agency.

Thomas also carried coal for other traders such as Richard Wakefield in 1877. He had just taken over as the proprietor of Eynsham Paper Mills, which was situated on the River Evenlode and connected with the Thames near Oxford. The river itself was not navigable, so coal was landed at Swinford Bridge on the Thames, and carted the rest of the way by road. This was only a short-term traffic as coal went by rail soon after, although there were further attempts to restore water transport later. Another traffic Thomas worked on was bricks from Wilkins & Webster, brickworks at Stoney Stanton Road, Coventry, to Oxford in the mid-1890s.

Louisa Coles: second generation

The Coles family patronised a number of boat-builders in the Oxford and Coventry canals including F.W. & A. Sephton of Sutton Stop, whose yard was directly opposite the junction between the two canals, as shown here in the early 1920s. The nearest boat moored on the far side is Violet No 3, bought by John Thomas Coles around 1924. His father Thomas also used the services of Sephton’s for many years during the latter part of the 19th century. John Thomas mainly used Lees & Atkins of Polesworth during the 1920s up until 1937, then switched over to Nurser Brothers of Braunston Wharf until he retired early in World War II. John Thomas sold Violet to his son Reginald in 1927. 

Christopher M. Jones Collection



At some point early in the 20th century, Thomas and Louisa left the boating life and moved on the bank, taking over the old Britannia Inn at their home village of Thrupp. Their boats were subsequently crewed by their daughter Phoebe Ann and her husband John Beesley.

After 44 years of marriage Thomas Coles died on 30th October 1906 aged 64, so Louisa continued as landlady of the Britannia, which was situated next to Bridge No 223, halfway between Thrupp and Kidlington. Her late husband’s boats Providence and Envy Not were subsequently registered in her name in April 1907. Providence had been replaced with a new boat of the same name in August 1906, likewise Envy Not in 1908. Louisa Coles died in March 1924.

Coles brothers: third generation

Thomas and Louisa had three sons who all grew up on their father’s boats and naturally followed him into the same Oxford Canal trade. After Joseph, the second oldest was John Thomas born in 1878, and then Samuel born in 1880. A major point in the boating careers of Joseph, Thomas and Samuel was the opening of a new Portland cement works at Washford Hill near Kirtlington in 1906. It was owned by the Oxford Portland Cement Co Ltd, and from the beginning the Coleses seemed to have had a monopoly of the haulage work there. On the strength of this new contract they all purchased boats over the following two years: Samuel with Eleanor, John Thomas with Rebecca, and Joseph with Three Brothers. Other craft were hired from boat-builders such as F.W. & A. Sephton of Sutton Stop and William Nurser & Sons of Braunston. As cement production increased during the first few years, other carriers were brought in to help out, such as John Griffiths of Bedworth and Samuel Barlow of Glascote.

In 1908 the firm started its own fleet of boats, mainly to carry cement but also coal when needed. Initially the Coleses steered these boats together with their own craft. Coal and cement were not the only cargoes available; gypsum was used in cement production and was brought in from Barrow-on-Soar after an outward trip loaded with cement. There was an attempt to bring in sand, which was loaded at pits on the Staffs & Worcs Canal near Stourport, after delivering cement to Worcester.

Coal was their main cargo, however, and came from several pits in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, such as Measham on the Ashby Canal, Littleton Colliery on the Staffs & Worcs, plus Cannock Chase, East Cannock and Conduit Collieries on the Birmingham Canal Navigations’ Cannock Extension line. Also on the BCN was Walsall Wood Colliery, which had its loading wharf on the Daw End Branch. Of these, the Warwickshire pits were considered the most economical.

After 1908, three more boats were bought: John Thomas had Thomas, and Joseph had Frederick James and Lillian Rose. Samuel left the cement job in 1910, leaving Joseph working three boats, his own Three Brothers, along with Lillian Rose, and Amiable hired from owner Joseph Phipkin. John Thomas had his own craft, Thomas and Rebecca, and hired Montrose from a relative, later buying it in 1915.



Joseph: third generation

Boatwoman Louisa Coles sitting outside the Britannia Inn at Thrupp in the early 1920s, which she ran as a widow for many years. She was the daughter of William and Mary Humphris of Eynsham, another famous Oxford Canal boating family, and married Thomas Coles in December 1862 at St Mary’s Church, Kidlington. After 44 years of boating and married life, which included rearing some 17 children, she took over the Britannia Inn about the time her husband Thomas died. 

Heading north back to the Midlands colliery district in April 1911 is Joseph Coles aboard his boat Lillian Rose. This was one of a series of four images taken by author E. Temple Thurston when compiling his book The Flower of Gloster, published the same year. The location is above Bourton House Lock 24, otherwise known as Jobson’s, with the boat approaching accommodation Bridge 158. Lillian Rose was bought from boat-builders William Nurser & Sons of Braunston Wharf in the spring of 1910. At the time Joseph was involved in coal carrying to the Oxford Portland Cement Co Ltd works at Washford, near Kirtlington, south of Banbury. Note the boat was fitted with cloths, an important feature as fine coal for the cement kilns had to be clothed up and kept dry, and occasional backloads of cement or gypsum also had to be protected. 

The second of Temple Thurston’s images shows Joseph Coles’ wife Harriet Maria (née Collins) with their daughter Laura Louisa aged one. In the 1911 census, taken about the same time as Thurston’s trip, Joseph and his family were recorded aboard their boats Amiable and Lillian Rose at Newbold-onAvon. One point of interest is the water can which appears to be decorated by the boaters themselves, rather than by a professional dock painter, and the clutter on the cabin top may well be Temple Thurston’s own travelling gear. Judging by the water level in the background, the pound appears to be about a foot or so down. 

Canal & River Trust Waterways Archive



This shot of Cropredy Lock 22 was taken beneath Bridge 152 and shows Joseph on the left, leaning on the balance beam, with his young chap and horse on the right. 

Temple Thurston has captured this action shot perfectly showing Joseph Coles and his chap using the time-honoured boaters’ method of employing the bottom gates as a brake to slow the forward progress of his empty boat. Wooden boats always had an iron guard spiked into the planks along the knuckle below the top strake, which extended a little way forward of the cabin bulkhead. It was there for the purpose of slowing the boat, which takes a degree of skill to pull off correctly. Too much pressure forced the boat to stop prematurely so time was wasted pulling it forward a few feet to enable both gates to be closed, or too little pressure would fail to slow the boat so it bumped the cill with a plate-rattling crunch. 

Joseph left the cement contract in 1913, selling his remaining boat Lillian Rose to boatman George Grantham, then steering various hired boats for a while including Pretoria and Doris owned by the Moira Colliery Company, until about 1916, before switching to three boats named Princess, Queen and Mildred Maud. These were owned by King & Company of Oxford, which traded as coal and builders’ merchants and also owned the coal and furniture removal business of Restall & Company of Hayfield Wharf, Oxford. Joseph made coal deliveries to both Hayfield Road and the King & Company’s wharf at New Road, where the canal had its terminus, as well as for other coal merchants based there. Joseph continued with these boats for some ten years before giving them up in December 1926.

In November 1927, the Hon. Rupert Craven started carrying coal from Baddesley Colliery for London, and Joseph Coles was one of his steerers. At the beginning of World War II he was a general labourer living at Thrupp and later was said to have run the Britannia Inn at Thrupp. He died in 1948.

John Thomas Coles: third generation

John Thomas Coles was born at Stoke Bruerne and was the younger brother of Joseph. He was always known on the cut as Tom.

It was John Thomas who remained at the Washford cement works the longest, working Montrose and Rebecca; the latter he sold and replaced with a new boat Primrose built by George Tooley of Banbury Dock in March 1915. At this time John Thomas left the cement traffic after he had negotiated his own contract with the Rugby Industrial & Provident Co-operative Society Ltd, and started coal haulage from pits in Warwickshire to Rugby Wharf, a traffic that had previously gone by rail. This was a success and through the war years the Co-op took on space at Clifton New Wharf near Rugby in 1916, and part of Folly Wharf at Napton in 1917.

Joseph Coles in shirt sleeves standing in the hatches of King & Company boat Mildred Maud surrounded by other boaters at some time in the early 1920s. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to accurately identify the boaters although it’s likely some were from the Hoare family, who were related to the Coles, and also the Finch boating family are represented. Clara Coles (née Hoare) was married to John Thomas Coles’ son Thomas Junior, who worked with his father on the coal run to Home Park Mill. Although Joseph Coles was working King & Company’s three boats, he was actually an independent boatman. 

Jill & Joe Beesley

This image is one of two showing John Thomas Coles’ motor Hilda and butty Primrose passing breach repairs at Weedon on the Grand Union Canal in 1939. Hilda was built in 1917 but only passed into the hands of Coles in 1933, having been bought from boat-builders Lees & Atkins of Polesworth for £281 7s 4d with a new engine. John Thomas appears to have ducked down into the cabin as the motor continues forward. At the time he had the exclusive haulage contract to transport coal to Dickinson’s Home Park Mill for the coal factors Eveson’s (Coal) Ltd. 

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This second photo of the Weedon breach repairs shows Hilda’s butty Primrose with John Thomas Coles’ wife Mary Jane at the tiller. Primrose was built in 1924 for cement manufacturers Kaye & Co of Southam, and was later bought from Lees & Atkins in the summer of 1935 for £70. Both images clearly show the distinctive painted decoration of Nurser Brothers dock at Braunston, as John Thomas had his boats regularly docked there since the spring of 1937. 

Canal & River Trust Waterways Archive 



While boating for the Co-op, John Thomas was given conditional exemption from military service. From 1916 the Co-op started buying boats that it named after prominent members of the society, and when John Thomas eventually left the contract late in 1919, it replaced his pair with two more craft.

After this, John Thomas continued working his Montrose & Primrose for many different carriers and traders, also returning to the Oxford Portland Cement traffic in 1926. He finally left this job for good early in 1928 and started hauling coal to Harefield on the Grand Junction Canal for coal factors Eveson’s (Coal) Ltd of Birmingham. This firm was new to carrying on the Oxford and Grand Junction canals and was granted a toll credit account with the Oxford company on 1st March 1928, after the first load was already underway, steered by J.T. Coles. He was assisted in this initially by Samuel’s son Hubert Coles who steered a third boat named Gertrude, hired by Eveson’s. This was the start of a long relationship between Eveson’s and Coles.

Thomas’s last major contract as an owner-boatman was coal carrying to Home Park paper mills, owned by John Dickinson & Company Ltd, which he worked with his son, Thomas Junior, operating two pairs between them. For many years Dickinson’s handled its carrying arrangements through its own traffic office, but during the 1930s its Home Park deliveries were handled by Eveson’s (Coal) Ltd, which issued John Thomas with its declarations for him to pass on credit in its name.

This new contract prompted Thomas to invest in more boats, the first being motor Hilda bought for £281 7s 4d, including a new engine, from boatbuilder Lees & Atkins of Polesworth. It is likely the boat was bought from the Samuel Barlow Coal Company Ltd and Lees & Atkins was acting as a bank, but whatever the facts were, it was John Thomas’s first motor-boat. Montrose was sold to Lees & Atkins in 1934 and replaced by Snowdrop. Primrose was replaced in 1935 with another boat of the same name for £70 from Lees & Atkins.

In March 1936 a second motor was bought, The Hawk, for £130 from the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company Ltd. This purchase enabled both father and son to operate two motor-andbutty pairs: John Thomas working Hilda & Primrose, and Thomas Junior, working The Hawk & Snowdrop.

Thomas and his son were two of 14 boat-owners regularly carrying to the four Dickinson’s mills at Apsley, Nash, Home Park and Croxley, working 13 pairs of motors and butties between them. They were assisted by two more owner-boatmen contractors on an occasional basis, as well as several carrying firms, such as the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company Ltd. Canal carrying by contractors to Dickinson’s mills came to an end on 1st March 1938, when the traffic was taken over by the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company Ltd, putting most of the boatmen contractors out of business. Because J.T. Coles and his son were carrying exclusively to Home Park Mills, which was under the control of a coal factor, Eveson’s (Coal) Ltd, they escaped this predation and continued as normal. David Hambridge, who was one of the former boatmen-owners, started working for J.T. Coles with his own boats, making a total of three pairs to Home Park between them (see ‘Carriers at War’, NB Winter 2018).

John Thomas Coles and his son later sold their boats to carrier S.E. Barlow of Glascote early in 1940 but continued working to Home Park. Then in August 1940 J.T. Coles sold the Eveson’s carrying contract to S.E. Barlow, gave up boating and retired to a cottage at Newbold-on-Avon.

After unloading at Home Park Mill, Thomas Coles Junior, with motor The Hawk, delays his progress at Nash Mill Bottom Lock 69, below the coal wharf, while he uses a shaft to dislodge some obstruction from its propeller. His wife Clara is standing in the hatches of butty Snowdrop, which was originally built as Cyril in 1919 for a Coventry building company; it was bought in 1934 and renamed Snowdrop. The motor was built in 1927 as steam-powered Sentinal but had had a diesel engine fitted when acquired by John Thomas Coles in 1937 as The Hawk. 

Samuel Coles: third generation

After leaving the Oxford Portland Cement Works contract, Samuel Coles stripped out his boat Eleanor for working in the granite roadstone traffic from quarries around Nuneaton. This lasted until 1912 when he sold his boat and went to work for the Oxford Canal Company Traffic Agency, mainly on traffic to coal merchants and other traders in the city of Oxford and on the River Thames.

Throughout the time Samuel was working for the traffic agency, he steered the same two hired boats, Elizabeth and Orchid, owned by boatman John Humphris of Oxford. Orchid was bought by OCC traffic agent Hubert Hawkins shortly after the beginning of World War I and renamed Oxford, but this made no difference to Samuel as he was at liberty to use the boat as he wished so long as he paid the hire fee to Hawkins. He sometimes took on a third boat if he could get somebody to steer it, mostly hired from boatbuilders or other owners, such as the various quarry firms around Atherstone and Nuneaton.

Like his brothers he mainly carried coal, but there were other cargoes available from time to time. Basic slag, which was a by-product of the iron and steel industry, was taken from the Black Country to farms around Newbridge Wharf on the Upper Thames near Eynsham. It was carried in bags and used as a super-phosphate artificial fertiliser.

Here Samuel Coles poses with a glass of his favourite beverage for a photo with his mule and most likely one of his sons, perhaps Hubert born in 1911 or Albert born in 1914. Samuel was one of the three sons of Thomas and Louisa Coles of Thrupp and this image might have been taken at the Britannia Inn, which was run by his mother, then later by his brother Joseph. It was situated on the Banbury Road, south of Thrupp, close to Sparrowgap Bridge 223. It was one of Morrell’s Brewery pubs known as the ‘Old Brit’ to boaters, but renamed as the Jolly Boatman much later due to confusion with another Britannia Inn owned by Morrells in the village of Kidlington a short distance away. 

Samuel left the Oxford traffic agency in September 1915 and went to work for canal carriers Samuel Barlow of Glascote, hauling coal from Moira Colliery to Coventry Electric Light Works. Like other boatmen working the Coventry line, he became a ‘Badged Man’, exempt from conscription into the army as this traffic was essential war work. This included coal deliveries to Coventry Ordnance and other factories. The Oxford traffic agency tried to get him back on its canal in April 1916, but he refused due to the threat of losing his exempt status – most of the coal traffic to Oxford was for domestic use and considered nonessential.

In November 1916 Samuel became an owner-boatman again with the purchase of Elizabeth from John Humphris, which he renamed Louisa. He kept the boat for almost three years then sold it to boatman Harry Humphris, and started working for the Moira Colliery Company, steering its distinctive brick-red boats Pretoria and Stanleigh for many years. In 1928 Samuel was steering the Moira company’s Stanleigh and Stuart. At the outbreak of World War II he was a general labourer at a power station in Coventry and died in 1942.

Reginald Coles: fourth generation

Unlike other members of the family during the 1920s, Reginald Coles worked mainly with a single boat. He became an owner-boatman after buying Violet from his father John Thomas Coles in 1927, and worked predominantly for S.E. Barlow on coal carrying and also for the Traffic Agency doing similar work. Violet was well over 20 years old and, like so many contractors at the time when faced with expensive repair bills, he sold it to boat-builders Lees & Atkins, and hired boats instead. From August 1930 he rented Lees & Atkins’ Friendship, then in March 1932 he took over the appropriately named Reg. He finally gave up working independently at the end of May 1935, and later worked in a factory.

Arthur Coles: fourth generation

Arthur Coles was another son of John Thomas Coles and in time he became an owner-boatman with the purchase of Ladysmith from the Moira Colliery Company Ltd, registered in December 1928. Little information survives as to what traffic he was involved in, although it is most likely the coal trade. Arthur later sold up and worked for the GUCCC.

After the Grand Union Canal Carrying Co Ltd was created there was a great demand for crews and John Thomas Coles’ son Arthur went to work for the company. This image is from an August 1936 edition of the National Bulletin, a house magazine of the National Gas & Oil Engine Co Ltd of Ashton-under-Lyne. The original caption reads “Mr A. Coles and his daughter are very proud of their National engine and boast that they have not had the need of any mechanic for the eight months they have had their engine. This picture shows them on their butty boat.” Although the motor’s name was not identified, it was almost certainly Columba, which was originally paired with Dodona eight months before publication of the magazine. Both were built by Harland & Wolff of Woolwich as a pair of Small Woolwich craft and Columba was fitted with a National engine.