Derby's Deadly Canal Lock

Time and Place: NarrowBoat, Winter 2024

Bobby Cowling

Bobby Cowling explores the history of a particularly hazardous part of the lost Derby Canal

Unusual hazards So, what made White Bear Lock and its environs so dangerous? Well, first and most obvious is its location in the heart of the growing town, with the alluring features of a very long river bridge and a lock. In an age when children were allowed to roam free, many were drawn to the site. And in this, the local newspaper didn’t help. In spite of reporting the recent cases of a six-year-old girl drowning after slipping from a lock gate at the location, and a nine-year-old boy being rescued, during a hot spell in the summer of 1933, the Derby Daily Telegraph celebrated the lock being used by children as “an excellent open-air bath”. It even pointed out its “good cold name in [hot] weather”, along with the “crowd of people [leaning] over the bridge to watch them” and published an accompanying photo. Mrs Beckett commented in 1944, “I do wish parents would warn their children and forbid them to play beside the water, as a c…