Beauchamp Family of Boaters

Life Afloat: NarrowBoat, Summer 2021

Christopher M Jones

Chris M. Jones studies the boating history of the Beauchamp family of Oxfordshire

Edward Senior Our history of the Beauchamp boating family begins with Edward Beauchamp Senior (written as ‘Beecham’ until the early 1840s), born 1800, who appears in canal records of 1840 when he was working over the Thames & Severn Canal. The tolls for these trips were paid by different concerns but the boats were owned by canal carrier, Watkins & Co of Abingdon. Beauchamp was carrying for the Commercial Inland Carrying Co of Abingdon, which traded between London and Gloucester. Its Abingdon agent was Benjamin Watkins, who also traded as Watkins & Co. It seems the Commercial Inland Carrying Co ceased trading during 1840 and Benjamin Watkins later worked with a carrier from Gloucester named Patrick & Co, trading as Watkins & Patrick. Edward Beauchamp subsequently had two narrowboats weighed at Braunston for use on the Grand Junction Canal; one in August 1849 and one in March 1850. At the time he was living with his family at Gloucester Green, Oxford, …