Herbert MacKey

Reader's Letters & Queries: NarrowBoat, Summer 2021

I would like to belatedly add some points to the late Harry Arnold’s article on Duchess Countess (NB Winter 2012). I can confirm from family history sources that the final owner of the boat was Herbert William Mackey (1877–1959), not Mackie. It is unlikely that he was connected to the owners of the Warrington Guardian – his father George, born in County Roscommon in 1832, came to Warrington to become Master of the Workhouse there between 1869 and 1887. Censuses from 1891 to 1911 record Herbert in Warrington as an “Engineer’s Apprentice” and then an “Engineer’s Fitter”. This is consistent with an item in the Blyth News of 5th March 1934, which recorded that the boat had been acquired by “three engineers, one of whom, Mr Harry McClew of Warrington, has made it his permanent home”. It was then moored at Preston Brook, having been raised “some months ago”, and it was hoped to take it “along some of the ca…