J. H. Taylor of Chester

It isn’t difficult to see how individuals can become fascinated with specific fleets of canal boats, although to outsiders appreciating the finer points of difference between a Large Woolwich and the Small variant may be a step too far. So, let’s look at something completely different: the wooden pleasure-boat fleets in the post-war era, specifically, those built by J.H. Taylor of Chester.

Personal experiences

Before I dive into the remarkable history of this business, I think a bit of context is in order. My enthusiasm for Taylor’s craft goes way back to the very dawn of my canal-boating experience, to a time when my family hired Lindy Helen from a Mr Smout on the Llangollen Canal. We had hired a number of boats over the years and most were very much a product of their era: rudimentary plywood craft that aped the style of larger river cruisers, and were generally powered by unreliable and fuel-hungry outboard motors. These primitive pleasurecruisers may have been cheap but they were far from cheerful. In retrospect, those trips were a lot of fun but they also seemed to be one long catalogue of breakdowns. I remember endless broken split pins, lost propellers, bent propshafts, not to mention the non-collapsible collapsing windscreen that met an unfortunate end in the unreconstructed Harecastle Tunnel.

However, in 1971 we came to Lindy Helen, a boat which was a distinct cut above the rest. Not only did it have an inboard engine, it also had two cabins and was built out of mahogany planks riveted to an oak frame. Far from the marine-ply boxes we were used to, this was a genuine Broads cruiser in miniature, a look which really appealed to a boy brought up on the East Anglian rivers. Put simply, this 32ft boat, built in 1963, had both style and substance. Of course, at the tender age of ten, the subtleties of boat construction were lost on me, but even then I could appreciate a lovely bit of woodwork when I saw it.

Well, there I guess the matter rested for several decades. Our memories of Lindy Helen lived on, buoyed up by a handful of fading family photos taken as we cruised it over the landmark aqueducts of Chirk and Pontcysyllte. Rested, that is, until we were taking our narrowboat on its first journey down the River Thames in 2010 and we encountered Gazelle at Eton Lock. Gazelle was the spitting image of Lindy Helen and I couldn’t resist approaching the Millward family who own it, and so the whole story of J.H. Taylor & Sons of Chester started to unfold. I described my recollections of going to sleep with my nose pressed against the copper rivets, which held the skin to the ribs, and was promptly ushered into the main cabin where the cushions were swept aside and the same arrangement of fastenings gleamed back at me – dulled by 40 years of tarnish, but essentially just the same.

They do say that cream tends to float to the top, and this was certainly true of the output from Taylor’s boatyard. Few wooden boats from the 1950s and ’60s have survived, but the quality of construction of these round bilged cruisers seems to have bucked the trend, acquiring a dedicated following along the way. While some examples from the fleet have been lost, a surprising number have survived and are still cruising the inland waterways 60 years after they left Tower Wharf.

These boats took time to build and a 1957 invoice for the 36ft hard-chined cruiser Ottilie suggests that 6,500 hours were spent on its construction, a commitment reflected in a price tag of just under £2,000; a very significant sum when you consider that you could buy a brand-new Mini car for just £500 when it was launched two years later. I guess that quality comes at a price.

History of J.H. Taylor & Sons

I could start the story of this Chester boat-building business when it was established by Joseph Henry Taylor and his son Wilfred in 1914 but I would only be telling half the tale.

The Taylor family were something of a boat-building dynasty that started with James Taylor who was born in 1815. James developed a canal boatbuilding and repair business in Tipton in the Black Country before moving to a new site in Brierley Hill, somewhere near what became the Round Oak Steel Works. Boat-building was a profession he followed for his entire working life and Joseph, one of his sons born in 1842, followed him into the trade as a jobbing boat-builder. By 1863 Joseph was to be found working on boats in Netherton and he subsequently had four sons, one of whom was Joseph Harry Taylor (Harry) who went on to found the Chester-based business.

By 1871 James Taylor and his wife Elizabeth had moved to Darlaston, close to his son Joseph and his family. Joseph was then working from a rudimentary mud slipway on the Walsall Canal and, when he wasn’t boat-building, he was often to be found out and about in one of the local pubs, fiddle in one hand and a drink in the other. According to his son Harry, Joseph “was a good businessman, when he was off the drink”.

In the early 1880s Joseph moved his business to the Victoria Boatyard at the Reedswood end of the Anson Branch, where he was joined by his son, also and rather confusingly called Joseph but generally referred to as Harry. Harry took over the business when his father, Joseph Snr, died in 1889 at the age of 47 and, along with his brother James Jessie (known as J.J.) ran the site supporting themselves and their many siblings. Harry proved to be more entrepreneurial than his father, expanding the business to include the adjacent Victory pub, also using their Reedswood Park base to build and rent out pleasure skiffs. As the 1800s rolled into the 1900s, Harry and Jessie sold the Reedswood business to Tom Pearsall, whose family ran it until it was demolished in 1951.

J.J. goes to Canada

After the sale J.J. set off for Canada in 1904, settling in Northern Ontario on the shores of Lake Temiskaming where he found work building and maintaining a fleet of boats that moved minerals to the railheads. Later, he moved to Port Carling on Lake Rosseau where he worked on the powerboats owned by wealthy families, who maintained summer houses on and around the lake. By 1909 he had his own yard and, during World War I, production was switched to seaplane pontoons, reverting to powerboats in the post-war years using surplus aero engines. One of the more notable boats he built was Heldina III, which became the fastest displacement boat in the world at the time. All a far cry from the plodding narrowboats of Walsall.

But things didn’t stop there. J.J. continued to build high-spec speedboats for the rich and famous, which morphed into the infamous rum-runners during Prohibition. Never one to turn down a commission, J.J. built an incredible 45ft speedboat powered by three Liberty aircraft engines, turning out a heartstopping 1,500hp. The boat was built with armour plating on the wheelhouse, helping the alcohol smugglers play cat and mouse with the American customs men. But all good things come to an end and the 1929 Wall Street Crash brought the curtains down on the high-end craft. J.J. then turned his attention to humbler fishing vessels and later wooden leisure sloops, before switching to the manufacture of nine Fairmile motor launches for the Canadian Navy during WWII. The war years also saw J.J. build two 145ft wooden minesweepers and these proved to be the largest boats he ever produced.

The Reedswood boatyard.

Taylor’s skiff hire facility at Reedswood.

Joseph Taylor (front) at the Victory Pub, Chester.

J.J. died in 1945 and presided over the last era of Canadian woodenboat-building, earning him the unofficial title of ‘Dean of Canadian Boatbuilding’. The Canadian arm of the Taylor boat-building dynasty was passed on to J.J.’s sons, but the golden era of wooden boats was over, and they never really managed to adapt to the new building materials such as fibreglass. The business was sold out of the family in 1969.

Harry heads north

In one of those strange twists of fate, just as J.J. was taking Canada by storm, his elder brother Harry moved north from Walsall to Birkenhead where he suffered a series of misfortunes. Initially he found work at the Cleveland Iron Co but, following an accident which saw him lose thumb and forefinger, he set up in business as a local coal salesman. Bad debts forced him to close this venture down and over a period of several years he moved from one job to another, finally returning to boat-building to produce and repair skiffs and narrowboats on the Montgomery Canal. It was here that he was befriended by a Mr Blower who proposed they set up a boatyard in the Chester area, only to select an unsuitable site and then see Blower run off with all his money.

To add insult to injury, his attempts to start up the Stanney Boat Dock in Ellesmere ended in failure and Harry became bankrupt. The relative prosperity of his brother J.J. in Canada must have rankled. He then had a long-awaited stroke of good fortune when he found work repairing two passenger boats at Dee Basin in Chester. A few years passed and in 1913 he rented the Dee Basin slipway, founding J.H. & W.S. Taylor & Sons in 1914. As he was still an undischarged bankrupt, the business was set up in his son Wilf’s name.

Just as J.J. turned to building Canadian seaplane floats during WWI, Harry and Wilf built Admiralty craft, with their capacity increased when brother Frank returned from a spell in Canada working for J.J. The business traded from Dee Basin for seven years until the Shropshire Union Railway & Canal Co vacated Tower Wharf in 1921, at which time Taylor’s was able to rent the graving dock, 90ft of the yard and Dandy’s Shed. A by-product of the sale of SUR&CC was an influx of work for Taylor’s, with the railway boats needing repair and new liveries – a line of work which took advantage of Harry’s artistic abilities. Sadly, these additional contracts did not translate into profit and Harry continued to struggle financially, at times selling his paintings and furniture, before suffering an early death from cancer in 1924 at the age of 58.

Harry’s son Wilf and grandson Horace continued to operate the Chester business, building a narrowboat steamer called Sentinel and a chain ferry. Following these commissions, new orders dried up and Horace was obliged to find outside work to keep the family afloat. During these difficult times, the one consistent source of business income was the construction of small salmon boats for the local River Dee fishermen plus, in 1935, two 19ft recreational cruisers. These cruisers didn’t result in more immediate orders, but they enabled Wilf and Horace to remain active in the small boat market, building Admiralty cutters and lifeboats during WWII.

The boom years

After the war, Wilf continued the business and it was during the ten years leading up to his death in 1960 that Taylor’s was at its most productive. The emerging leisure industry on the canals, led in part by Rolt’s book Narrow Boat, offered scope for the construction of a new line of wooden cruisers. These including Teal 1, which was later renamed Amaryllis and can today be found as a land-based exhibit at the National Waterways Museum Ellesmere Port. The company also produced numerous coastal launches and the particularly fine-looking 29ft yacht Nicola.

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After Wilf’s death, the business converted to a limited company with Arthur Howard, his apprentice, becoming a director alongside Wilf’s sister Edna and her husband. This structural change maintained the Taylor family connection with the venture until it was sold in 1972 to Bithell Boats.

During the period 1950 to 1984, Taylor’s, in its various guises, built 17 of its distinctive canal cruisers, mostly designed by Wilf Taylor and all bearing what became the trademark Taylor look.

Back to Lindy Helen

The list of boats built by J.H. Taylor & Sons reveals that Lindy Helen was one of two boats which made their way into Ted Smout’s Chirk-based hire fleet. It appears that Lindy Helen was bought outright, and Barbara Joan was bought by a Mr Tole and then rented to Smout.My online musings about Lindy Helen and Taylor’s Boatyard tend to put me in the crosshairs for any Google searches on the subject, and as a result I get regular updates on the boat’s fortunes. Its move to London for a full and very faithful refit; its subsequent move to the remote Fenland waterways; its relocation to liveaboard life on the Kennet & Avon Canal as a centre of a mini drug empire in 2017; its neglect and decline in the Midlands; its latest refurb back into a hire-boat and recent offer for sale. And before you ask, no, I am not going to buy her. My heart would love to own this 32ft slice of classic inland waterways history, but my head tells me that antique wooden craft need far more attention in terms of time and effort than I am prepared to expend. I am quite content to watch this genuine lady of the waterways go about her business from a distance. However, I have become a closet Taylor’s of Chester boat spotter. I rejoice each time I come across an example of the craftsmanship which went into this distinctive and enduring fleet of wooden pleasure craft, lovingly constructed by a boat-building dynasty with a dash of new world spice thrown in for good measure.

A more detailed history of J.H. Taylor & Sons can be found in Waterways Journal Volume 13.