Coal for the Sugar Works

Picturing the Past: NarrowBoat, Spring 2025

Christopher M Jones

Chris M. Jones investigates an image showing coal traffic passing through Maghull

Like every other city, Liverpool needed large supplies of coal to feed its industries and one of the carriers involved in this traffic was Richard Williams & Sons Ltd. The business could trace its commercial history back to 1846 and advertised itself as barge-owners and carriers, coal factors and merchants supplying coal, nuts and slack in the west Lancashire district, and also timber merchants. This undated image shows the company’s Leeds & Liverpool longboat Tom, loaded with small coal, being towed by a diesel-powered motor passing beneath Red Lion Bridge at Maghull, with St Andrew’s Church in the distance. Another motor can be seen just ahead through the bridge-hole. The company’s coal was most likely loaded at pits such as John Pit Colliery, whose loading wharf was at Crooke to the north-west of Wigan, and Maypole Colliery at Abram, with its coal wharf on the Leigh Branch of the L&L, both fed by their respective colliery railways. The main customer f…