Books: The Allcott’s By Jeffrey Allen

Photos © via various sources

Please note this page has been slightly edited for website purposes from the original booklet and is presented to you with kind permission from Jeffery. 

The original booklet is available to download and as an e-book at the bottom of this page in the Links section and will appear slightly different to what you see here but the content is the same.

About The Allcott’s

In Jeffrey’s own words:

“The Allcott family were typical of the many thousands of people who once turned to the canals for their livelihood during the middle and latter part of the Victorian era. Times were especially hard for the poorest people in society, often moving about in order to find better employment or affordable accommodation, whilst the terrifying spectre of the workhouse loomed ever present should they fail to find both. Not surprising then that the canals should offer a viable alternative to life on land, with their boat providing a ready source of income, and a roof over their head. For most people boats were too expensive to have built, so they turned to well established canal carriers such as Pickford’s, Fellows Morton & Clayton and coal merchants such as Samuel Barlow for employment. Most of the canals by now had been absorbed by railway companies, such as the Shropshire Union Canal and the Trent & Mersey. By the time the Allcott’s entered life on the waterways, the great heyday of canal building was over, but they continued, even into the latter years of the 20th century, to play a key role in the economy of the country.” 

About Jeffrey Allen

Jeffrey is my Cousin via my Mom’s long, lost Brother and it was by chance we found each other, call it fate, call it whatever but everything happens for a reason.

On October 21st, 2021 I decided to join the Canal World forum in the hope I could find anything about the Allcott’s and the long boating history that goes with them, stretching back to the 1800’s.

On November 10th, 2021 Jeffrey messaged me believing we were related via his Dad, Oliver Allcott and, I was happy he did and to confirm that we were indeed related.  We have been in touch since.

For a long time, Mom always wondered how my Uncle Oliver was doing in life and would have loved to know all that I know now when she was alive but, sadly, that was never to be.  I did, however, get to show her family photos and documents that I came by in her final months, before me and Jeffrey first got in touch.

Jeffrey didn’t do this booklet for monetary gain, just as a family keepsake and it was never intended for publication.  I, on the other hand, think more people should see the hard work he has put into it and, hopefully, more information can subsequently come from it in the not-so-distant future.  If you think you are related to anyone mentioned in this post then please contact me here.

Regardless if you are family or not, if you are a lover of history and canal life then you will enjoy this book as much as I did.

Front cover is © Jeffrey Allen: Photos © via various sources.

The Allcott’s By Jeffrey Allen

The Allcott’s 

The Story of a Canal Boating Family from Wolverhampton.

Acknowledgements 

A special thank you to my cousins Frank Parker and Janet Terry for supplying me with all the information on the Allcott’s.  Without their kindness and love of family this booklet would not have been possible.

Dedication 

In memory of my grandfather Oliver Allcott, My grandmother Beatrice Violet Allcott, Their daughter Beatrice Mary Allcott, my aunt, And their son, Oliver Allcott, my father. 

Introduction

The Allcott family were typical of the many thousands of people who once turned to the canals for their livelihood during the middle and latter part of the Victorian era.  Times were especially hard for the poorest people in society, often moving about in order to find better employment or affordable accommodation, whilst the terrifying spectre of the workhouse loomed ever present should they fail to find both.  Not surprising then that the canals should offer a viable alternative to life on land, with their boat providing a ready source of income and a roof over their head.  For most people boats were too expensive to have built, so they turned to well-established canal carriers such as Pickford’s, Fellows Morton & Clayton and coal merchants such as Samuel Barlow for employment.  Most of the canals by now had been absorbed by railway companies, such as the Shropshire Union Canal and the Trent & Mersey.  By the time the Allcott’s entered life on the waterways, the great heyday of canal building was over, but they continued, even into the latter years of the 20th century, to play a key role in the economy of the country. 

Family History

Allcott is a surname that existed in Nuneaton, Bedworth, Atherstone and Caldecote since the 17th century.   Allcott derives from an Old English word eauld meaning old, and cot meaning a shelter or cottage; hence ‘a dweller in an old cottage.’   The name has its highest frequency in Herefordshire and the West Midlands.  In Nuneaton for example, it first appears in records of the Quarter Sessions and Indictment Books for the years 1631-96 and the Hearth Tax of 1662.  Albert Allcott was born at Hartshill, North Warwickshire, on the 17th of May 1843 to William and Sarah Allcott.  Sarah (nee Buckler) was born at Bedworth on the 1st of October 1809.  William was a labourer, whilst Sarah looked after their six children: Thomas (b. 20 March 1832), William (born June 15th 1833), David (born 1836), Hannah (born 1837), Sarah (born March 25th 1839) and Eliza (born 1841).  Hartshill is a large village and civil parish in North Warwickshire.  It borders the districts of Bedworth and Nuneaton, which is two and a half miles northwest of the village.  The combined population of Bedworth and Nuneaton by 1863 was in excess of 8,600 people, and many of those were employed in silk ribbon weaving.  Hartshill also borders Ansley to the south-west, where there was a coal mining colliery established in 1874; Mancetter to the north-west, Caldecote to the east, and the parish of Witherley in Leicestershire to the north-east.  The market town of Atherstone is three and a half miles to the northwestHartshill had good communications with the rest of Warwickshire and neighbouring counties.  There was a canal wharf on the Coventry Canal, (14 miles from the Coventry Basin), which served the Jees Granite & Brick Co. Ltd., which also had its own quarry.  William Allcott may have worked for this company as a labourer.  There was also a railway, part of the Coventry and Nuneaton branch line, with a signal box and sidings.  

© Unknown
Hartshill bridge and canal wharf circa 1900: © Unknown
Hartshill Wharf circa 1910: © Unknown

Not long after Albert’s birth, the family moved to Foleshill, where Sarah died in the later part of 1848 aged 39.  By the mid-19th century Coventry was the centre of the ribbon trade, and at one time employed an estimated 30,000 workers, using steam-powered looms as part of a large-scale manufacturing process.  William Allcott Snr. remarried two years later on the 22nd of June 1850 to Rhoda Ball from Nuneaton.  The 1851 Census shows the family still living in Foleshill.  William, and his son William Jnr., now aged 16, were both employed as coal miners, whilst Rhoda was a hand loom weaver, and Hannah, aged 11, was employed as a silk winder.  Ten years later, both Rhoda, and her step-son Albert, now aged 18, were employed as silk weavers, whilst William was working as a day labourer.  William and Rhoda had eleven children together, three boys, Henry (born June 5th 1852), Frederick (born February 28th 1858), and Joseph (born October 28th 1867); and eight girls, Emma (born September 23rd 1849), Matilda (born November 23rd 1854), Ellen (born May 8th 1856), Mary (born February 3rd 1859); all these children were born at Bedworth.  Sometime after the birth of Mary in 1859, the family moved to Nuneaton, where Rose (17th of May 1863) was born, along with Sophia (22nd of May 1872) and Rhoda (31st of July 1869).  Sadly, little Fanny Allcott (born 1861, Nuneaton), died when she was just three years old in 1864.  Rhoda passed away in 1873 aged 47, and a year later William died aged 68.  At least four of their youngest children, Rose, Sophia, Joseph and Rhoda, would not have been old enough to support themselves without their parents or older siblings. 

On the 26th of March 1877 Albert Allcott, now in his mid-thirties, married Elizabeth Franks at the parish church of St Matthew, Lower Horseley Fields, Wolverhampton.  His marriage certificate gives his occupation as a labourer.  He may have worked for the Minerva Iron & Steel Company founded in 1857 by Isaac Jenks, who owned the Beaver Works at Lower Horseley Fields.  The company exported 80% of the UK’s steel to America and had 21 puddling furnaces, 4 mills, and several forges.  At one time the canal carriers Pickford’s had a wharf directly opposite the steel works at Horseley Fields. 

But just four years later at the birth of their son, Albert Charles Allcott, (at Canal Street, in the town of Coseley, Wolverhampton), Albert Snr. is now a ‘boatman.’  Albert Charles was christened on the 8th of January 1882 at St Mary’s Church, Wolverhampton. 

Minerva Works, Horseley Fields 1876: © Unknown
Albert Allcott: © Family photo

Wolverhampton was particularly noted for its iron manufacture, consisting of locks, hinges, buckles, corkscrews and japanned ware; a type of lacquer similar to shellack polish used by furniture makers.  The technique of applying a heavy black lacquer originated from India, China and Japan, where it was used to glaze pottery, but in Europe, the technique was extended to small items of metal. 

Trade directories from the first half of the 19th century show that there were 20 firms of japanners in Wolverhampton, ranging from small family workshops attached to the proprietor’s home to larger purpose-built factories employing between 250 to 300 workers.  It is possible that Albert may have been working as a wharf labourer at Horseley Fields, where there is a junction on the Birmingham Main Line and Wyrley & Essington Canal, eventually leading to his employment as a boatman’s mate.  The main advantage for families living and working on narrowboats was that money was saved on renting a house, but living conditions could be challenging.  The typical cabin size would be around 8ft long by 6ft wide, and 5ft in height.  Space was limited to just a couple of cupboards and a fold-out table.  There was no toilet or running water aboard the vessel.  Drinking water was obtained from pumps sited along the towpath and at canal wharves.  The pay was low and only the skipper of the boat got paid.  This meant the whole family helped to get the boat to its destination as quickly as possible, with children running ahead to open and close lock gates.  The more cargo a boat could carry, the more the skipper got paid.  Typical loads were around 20 – 30 tons for a single boat, but if a second boat was worked, referred to as the ‘butty,’ which was simply pulled along by the lead boat, the skipper would earn twice as much money, as well as having the additional living space of a second cabin. 

A traditional narrowboat interior. The cupboard to the right of the picture has a hinged drop down table, behind which food items were stored. Space was used carefully, with many things, such as plates and pots being suspended overhead or on the walls of the cabin. Possessions were limited to what the family needed in order to work and live aboard the boat: © Unknown

On long hauls, a family might work anything up to 15, sometimes 18 hours a day in order to reduce the journey time.  It was also physically demanding for both men and women, with parents sometimes ‘bow-hauling’ a vessel through lock gates, or ‘legging’ a boat through the damp and murky conditions of a tunnel; literally pushing the boat along with their feet as they lay on their backs at the stern. 

Legging a fully laden canal boat through a tunnel could take several hours of arduous work: © Unknown

It was also incredibly dangerous work, especially for young children, with death by drowning all too common.  Albert Ledward aged 11 was drowned in the Bridgewater Canal in June 1876.  According to the newspaper report in the Runcorn Guardian, the family left Anderton Wharf on a Wednesday afternoon: 

 “… with a pair of narrow boats laden with salt to be discharged at Runcorn, and when near to Bate’s Bridge at Halton, the deceased [Albert Ledward], who had had his supper, got ashore from the second boat to drive the horse, while his brother, nine years old, who had been driving, got on board to have his supper.  It was then half past eleven o’clock, and dark, and as the deceased passed the first boat which he (witness) [the father] was steering, he spoke to him [Albert], and he afterwards heard him speak to the horse.  When they got to the Delf Bridge the deceased came and spoke to him, and he told him to go on and get to the horse’s head, and he did.  He [the father] heard him speak to the horse, and when it got near to the gas works it “shied” at a light, but again went all right until it got opposite the Soapery, when it turned back, and he (witness) called to it to stop, and it did so.  He then called out to the deceased [Albert], and receiving no answer got ashore to look for him.  Not seeing him, he began to feel about in the canal with a boat hook, and there being no person near but his wife, she ran for assistance, and soon brought some men and grapples, and in about half an hour the body of the deceased was found in the canal opposite to the Soapery, and near to the spot where the horse turned.  He could not tell how the deceased got into the canal, for he neither heard any splash nor a scream.”

The incident at Runcorn happened just five years prior to the birth of Albert and Elizabeth’s first child, Albert Charles.  By the time of the 1901 Census, Albert and Elizabeth Allcott had five children living at home, William, Joseph, Minnie, Sarah Jane and Frederick.  The registration took place at Calf Heath, Wolverhampton.  Calf Heath Bridge and Wharf are on the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, which commences at a junction with the River Severn at Stourport, and terminates at Great Haywood by a junction with the Trent & Mersey Canal, once owned by the North Staffordshire Railway Company.  Albert Charles was now 19 years old and living away from home. At the time of the census, he was a canal boatman’s mate aboard the Fancy, moored up at Welshpool Wharf, Montgomeryshire, a Shropshire Union Canal depot.  Fancy entered service in September 1899 for the London Midland & Scottish Railway Company, and it was captained by Thomas Hyde, aged 28 from Barbridge in Cheshire.  Also on board was Thomas’ wife Mary and their baby girl, Jane.  Hyde may have been a relative of John Hyde, an iron merchant at Wrexham who supplied large quantities of pig iron via the Shropshire Union Canal Company to factories in Wolverhampton.  The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company (SURCCo.) was founded in 1854.  The Company owned 23½ miles of railway, which was leased to the North Western Railway Company in perpetuity for a 50% dividend of North Western’s stock.  They had offices in London, Birmingham, Albion Wharf at Wolverhampton, and Chester.  The main line of its canal navigation was the Shropshire Union Canal from Autherley Junction near Wolverhampton to Ellesmere Port near the Wirral, a total of 66½ miles consisting of 46 locks.  Thirty-eight miles into the journey from Autherley is the Nantwich Basin, the birthplace of two of Albert’s sons, William (1884) and Frederick (1895).  Both went on to become boatmen. 

On the 3rd of August 1903 at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, Albert Charles married Mary Ann Goddard, aged 19 from Wolverhampton.  Interestingly, Mary was born at Horseley Fields, where Albert Allcott Snr., married Elizabeth Franks some 26 years earlier.  Mary’s father William was also a boatman, and it is quite possible that William Goddard and Albert Allcott had previously worked together on the same boat or stretch of canal, forming a life-long friendship between the two families, eventually leading to kinship through the marriage of their children.  William’s father, Richard Goddard (1822 – 1883), first appears in the records as a boatman in 1851 at Brook Lane Wharf, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.  In subsequent census’ he is to be found aboard canal boats Lincoln (1861), Emily (1871), and Birmingham (1881). The Goddard’s may have been instrumental in introducing Albert Allcott Snr. to life on the canals.  Ellesmere Port is six miles north of Chester and eleven miles south of Liverpool.  In 1905 the Wolverhampton Corrugated Iron Company built a factory at Ellesmere, employing 300 workers and their families from Wolverhampton.  The company was seeking to exploit its international trade through nearby ports of Birkenhead and Liverpool.  The community that grew up around the factory was affectionately referred to as ‘Wolverham.’  The following year Mary gave birth to their first child, Minnie Allcott, at Ellesmere Port.  Canal boat Snap was given as the family residence, and Minnie was delivered by Harriet Didsbury, midwife, living at no. 6 Porters Row, Whitley, a row of Victorian cottages built in 1833 to house canal workers and their families.  Snap was a SURCCo. boat working the Shropshire Union Canal. Albert Charles and Mary had three more children, Frederick (1905), Sarah Ann (1908) and Albert (1911).  Albert Allcott Snr. was 68 at the time of the 1911 Census.  He may have been retired from the boats as his occupation was not recorded.  Times may have been hard for the family as Elizabeth was said to be a ‘washerwoman,’ and Sarah Jane, aged 17, was a ‘presser’ for a company manufacturing iron brackets.  In those days a typical working-class family budget would have been around 22 shillings a week, with bread, flour and meat alone costing around 8s, more than a third of the household budget.  Rent could be anywhere between 3 to 5s a week.

Their youngest son Frederick was 15 at the time of the census and a boatman’s mate aboard the canal boat Jim, moored at Etruria Locks, Stoke on Trent.  The master was William Mallard aged 32 and his wife Emma and two children James and Mary.  Their niece Elizabeth Clewes aged 18 was the third mate. Jim worked the Trent & Mersey Canal navigation.  Fred’s older brother Joseph, aged 24, was a boat hand on a Shropshire Union Canal boat the Flying Fox.  Flying Fox was registered on the 13th of June 1899 at Chester, reg. 550, and entered service for the SURCCo. in August 1899 fleet no. 529.  As her name suggests, she may well have been a ‘fly-boat.’  Flyboats usually carried smaller loads of high-value merchandise, with a two-man crew working day and night.  A fly boat could travel from Ellesmere Port to Birmingham in little more than 36 hours.  In its heyday, Pickford’s specialised in the fly-boat trade, with 116 boats and 398 horses.  It was an offence enforceable by law not to give their boats right of way at lock gates.  By 1925 Joseph was working for the Midlands & Coastal Canal Carriers Ltd., transporting goods between Stoke-on-Trent and Ellesmere Port.  He is recorded as being on their boat Mermaid, originally a motor boat registered in Wolverhampton, no. 1118.  Its engines were removed in the same year, turning it into a butty.  Joseph was also on a MCCC boat called Diamond, first registered in 1922 at Wolverhampton, (no. 1088).  Since Albert Allcott Snr. was living in Wolverhampton at the time of the 1911 Census, the Albert Allcott mentioned as master of the Winconsin, must refer to his son Albert Charles.  Winconsin was moored at the Anderton Wharf, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, working the Trent & Mersey Canal.  His son Albert Jnr. was born at Rode Heath, Cheshire, (1911), where the Trent & Mersey runs through the middle of the village.  Four years later and Mary Ann gave birth to their fifth child, Oliver Allcott, on the 2nd of June 1915.  The family residence was given as canal boat Sutherland, moored at Hay Basin, Broad Street, Wolverhampton.  Built by Calder Valley Marine, Sutherland belonged to the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company, fleet no. 481, and was ‘gauged’ for the Birmingham Canal Navigations in 1896.  When war raged across Europe in 1914, Frederick Allcott enlisted in the 2nd Battalion of the South Staffordshire Regiment, at Wolverhampton.  Fred was killed in action at Delville Wood, the Somme, after a German counter attack on the 28th of July 1916.  He was just 21.  His personal effects were returned to his family on the 4th of November 1916, along with £5 6d to his father, Albert Allcott Snr.  On the 21st of October 1919, his mother Elizabeth Allcott received a further payment from the army of £9.  Fred’s name can be found on the Common Wealth War Graves Commission memorial at Thiepval, the Somme, and on the Roll of Honour of the London and North Western Railwaymen; because he had been employed as a boatman at Wolverhampton delivering coal to the railways.  Six months after the loss of his son, Albert snr., the first Allcott to have started work on the narrowboats, died on the 13th of February 1917, at no. 2 Southampton Street, Wolverhampton; Elizabeth, his dutiful wife of 40 years, was at his bedside.  By the time of the 1921 Census, held on the 19th of June, Albert Charles was skipper of the canal boat Widgeon, moored at Bunbury Locks, on the Shropshire Union Canal.  Originally built for the Chester & Liverpool Lighterage Co. Ltd., Widgeon joined the SURCCo. in March 1917, fleet no. 776.  It was registered at Chester on the 10th of April 1917, registration no. 812.   

Albert Charles Allcott: © Family photo
Canal boat Widgeon in the 1921 Census: © Unknown

Two years after the census, on the 27th of October 1923, Albert Charles’ eldest daughter Minnie, aged 19, married John Pountney, himself a boatman aged 32.  Canal boat Cardigan was given as the residence of both Minnie and John on their marriage certificate.  Cardigan was a Fellows Morton & Clayton boat, fleet no. 42, built at Uxbridge Docks (West London), and entered service in January 1906, registration no. Uxbridge 401.  

Minnie Pountney (nee Allcott): © Family photo
Location of canal boat Snap, birthplace of Minnie Allcott on the 12th of May 1904: © Unknown

Thirteen years after the death of her husband Albert, Elizabeth Allcott died at no. 9 Barker Street, Wolverhampton, on the 10th of January 1930, aged 73.  She never got to see the marriage of her son Oliver to Beatrice Violet Townsend on the 8th of April 1935.  They were married at the parish church of St Chads, Staffordshire, in the presence of Ernest Williams and Sarah Ann Williams.  Their address was given as 120, Jeffcock Road, Wolverhampton, but as Oliver was, like his father and grandfather before him, a boatman, it is likely that his boat was moored nearby on the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, and that Jeffcock Road was a temporary residence used for the purposes of official registration.  On the 28th of January 1936, Beatrice gave birth to the couple’s first child, Beatrice Mary Allcott.  The address was given as no. 19, Purcel Road, Low Hill, Wolverhampton. Three years later Beatrice gave birth to a son, Oliver Allcott Jnr., this time at 177 Marsh Lane, Bushbury, Wolverhampton, on the 12th of October 1939. 

Marsh Lane Bridge, Wolverhampton, not far from Autherley Junction, a major interchange between the Shropshire Union Canal: © Roger Kidd via Wikimedia Commons and Geograph
The North, and the Birmingham Canal Navigations to the South: © Unknown
A 1938 map shows Marsh Lane adjacent to Marsh Lane Bridge and the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal: © Unknown

By now Oliver Snr. was seriously ill with tuberculosis, and little more than five months after the birth of his son, he passed away on the 9th of February 1940 aged just 24.  He died at 376 Wolverhampton Road, Heath Town, a pseudonymous address of the former New Cross Workhouse, which became a hospital in 1930.  Although officially a hospital, it still performed some of the services of the former workhouse.  The death certificate gives Oliver’s occupation as ‘a Wharf Labourer for Coal Merchant,’ possibly Samuel Barlow.  Two years after the death of his father, Oliver Allcott Jnr. was adopted by Frederick and Laura Allen on the 22nd of January 1942.  Laura (nee Townsend) was the older sister of Beatrice Violet Allcott, so the two-year-old Oliver was being adopted by his own aunt.  The couple were living at no. 147, Durley Dean Road, Selly Oak, Birmingham. 

Beatrice Allcott & Oliver Allcott aged two in 1942: © Family photo
Oliver Allcott's birth certificate: © General Register Office
Oliver Allcott's adoption certificate: © General Register Office

Unlike the Allcott’s, the Townsend family were involved in Birmingham’s enormous metal industry, with the family home, 37 Tower Street, not far from the famous Jewellery Quarter.  In 1921, Laura was a ‘capstan lathe’ operator, putting threads on metal items usually made of brass.  She may have worked for Young’s Ltd at their Ryland Street works, Edgbaston, where her younger brother Albert, aged 14, was employed as an errand boy. 

© Unknown
© Unknown
Adoring mother Beatrice Allcott and her four-year-old daughter Beatrice Mary Allcott. The rudder of a boat is just in view in the bottom right of the photo, probably taken on the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal, with Marsh Lane, Wolverhampton, in the background: © Family photo

Although the canal boating tradition had come to an end for one branch of the Allcott family, it continued for another.  During the Second World War, William Allcott, the eldest son of Albert and Elizabeth Allcott, was working for the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company, transporting cargoes such as coal, steel, timber and grain between London and the Midlands.

According to a manning list of paired boats for September 1944, William was the skipper of Arcas and Malus.  Arcas was built by Harland and Wolff Ltd on the 16th of November 1935, and registered at Brentford, West London, on the 18th of December 1935, no. 558.  She was gauged for the Grand Union Canal on the 20th of October 1936, gauge no. 12582.  Malus (the butty) was built by W. J. Yarwoods & Sons of Northwich in September 1935.  It was delivered on the 4th of October 1935, fleet no. 307 and registered at Coventry no. 535.  She was gauged on the Grand Union Canal on the 24th of October 1936, and given the gauge no. 12412.  Arcas and Malus were part of the company’s expansion program of its Southern Division during the 1930’s and 1940’s.

Malus in its British Waterways livery: © Unknown

William’s family lived near Stowe Hill Wharf, Heyford Lane, in the village of Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire, about 6 miles south of the market town of Daventry. 

Stowe Hill Wharf in the 1940's: © Unknown

The Second World War brought with it hazards all of its own, with thousands of German bombs raining down on Birmingham in Hitler’s effort to destroy Britain’s manufacturing base.  During the war, Eliza Stubbs (nee Goddard) and her husband James were working for Fellows Morton & Clayton and moored up in Birmingham.  Eliza was the sister-in-law of Albert Charles Allcott.  Albert and his future wife Mary Ann Goddard, (Eliza’s sister), were witnesses to the wedding of Eliza and James at Ellesmere Port on the 25th of May 1903. “We were in our barge during an air-raid,” recalled Eliza.  “A German bomb crashed through a warehouse roof right on to our boat.  The bomb cut the boat clean in half and we were trapped in the cabin.  Our son, Jim, with some other people, released us just in time.”  Eliza and James were one of the 622 families then living and working on the waterways, helping to transport an estimated 12 million tonnes of essential goods a year on Britain’s canals. 

© Unknown
Eliza Stubbs (nee Goddard) aboard canal boat Grace, a Fellows Morton & Clayton boat: © Family photo
Newspaper article telling the wartime experience of Eliza and James on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary in 1953: © Unknown

A year after nationalisation took place in Britain, Albert Charles Allcott remarried in 1949 following the death of Mary Ann.  His bride was Sarah Emma Shaw (nee Stubbs), sister of James Herbert Stubbs, who was also Albert Charles’ best man at the wedding.  The reception was held at no. 3, Canal Terrace, Middlewich, Cheshire, the family home of Eliza and James. 

Albert Charles Allcott and Sarah Emma Shaw (nee Stubbs) on their wedding day: © Family photo
A Handwritten note from Albert Charles to Sarah outlining the arrangements for their forthcoming marriage: © Source unknown

The Middlewich Branch of the Shropshire Union Canal runs through the town before joining the Trent & Mersey Canal at Wardle Lock.  In 1826 authorization had been given for the section of canal at Middlewich to join with the Trent & Mersey, linking Chester with the potteries in the Midlands.  The Great Heywood Junction is 19 miles from Stoke-On-Trent, which connects to the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal with Wolverhampton.  Albert died on the 18th of December 1961 at 175 Marsh Lane, Wolverhampton, aged 80.  The boating tradition was carried on in the next generation of the Allcott’s.  According to an article in Narrowboat Magazine, ‘British Waterways Boating’ (Spring 2018), two boats, Purton and Capella, were worked by Joseph and Lucy Allcott in the 1950’s and 1960’s on the Grand Union Canal.  Joseph Allcott was born at Wolverhampton in 1927, the son of William Allcott (b. 1884).  Lucy Elizabeth Jackson was five years older, being born at Northampton in 1922.  They married at Brixworth, Northamptonshire on the 24th of September 1951.  Along with her father Thomas Jackson, Lucy was already employed by British Waterways, a ‘boatwoman’ in her own right. 

Lock gate No. 1 on the Northampton Arm of the Grand Union Canal: © Unknown
Purton and Capella at Buckby Bottom Lock No. 13, Whilton: © Unknown

Purton was built by W.J. Yarwoods & Sons Ltd. with a National DM2 engine and joined the GUCCCo. in September 1936 fleet no. 162.  She was registered at Rickmansworth on the 20th of October 1936, registration no. 104, and gauged for the Grand Union Canal on the 7th of  November 1936, gauge no. 12614. 

Spring issue of Narrowboat Magazine entitled ‘British Waterways Boating’ featuring Purton and Capella: ©Unknown
Purton at lock gate No. 11, with Lucy ashore rolling her sleeves up: © Family photo

Capella (the butty) was built by Harland & Wolf Ltd. and joined the GUCCCo. in December 1935, fleet no. 247.  She was registered at Brentford on the 18th of December 1935, registration no. 572, and gauged for the Grand Union Canal in December 1935, gauge no. 12549. 

Sometime during the 1960’s British Waterways gave Purton a new Lister HA2 engine, and shortened its length to approximately 56ft.  She was eventually sold off in 1987 when the transportation of goods by canal boat finally came to an end.  Joseph was the steerer of Purton from January 1951 to August 1956, but not always with Capella as the butty; others included Ruislip, Asla and Hadfield.  According to the Birmingham Public Health Department records, by March 1957 Joseph was steering a 72ft motor boat called Fulbourne, with Chesham as its buttyFulbourne was built by Harland & Wolf at Woolwich and was completed in March 1937.  She is a steel-hulled motor boat in the ‘Town Class’ of narrow boats, so named because twenty-four of them were named after British towns.  Fulbourne was registered at Rickmansworth and gauged for the Grand Union Canal, no. 12740.  She remained in the GUCCCo. fleet until nationalisation in 1947.  British Waterways fleet lists from May 1958 to January 1959 show that Joseph and Lucy were still on Fulbourne, with Halton as the butty.  During his time on Fulbourne, Joseph carried coal to Apsley, Colne Valley Sewage Works, Croxley and Nash Mill.  They delivered grain to Wellingborough on the River Nene, took spelt from Brentford to Birmingham, and lime juice from Limehouse to Boxmoor.  On one occasion they took the boat to Weston Point on the Manchester Ship Canal to unload a ship, but since the dockers were on strike at the time, they were turned away and had to pick up an alternative cargo elsewhere.  Joseph died aged 61 on the 4th of December 1988.  Lucy passed away eight years later in the June quarter of 1996. 

Fulbourne fully restored to her original GUCCCo. Livery: © Unknown
© Unknown

Postscript

Of the many newspaper reports throughout the canal network from 1881 to 1936, the Allcott’s feature in none of them.  Whilst some boaters were often in trouble with the law for theft, drunkenness, and often cruelty to their animals, (and occasionally to each other), the Allcott’s were a peaceable hardworking family.  The four main canal systems they worked, from Ellesmere Port in the north west, to London in the south east, spanned some 255 miles with a total of 207 locks, but Wolverhampton remained their home base for many years.  With a great sense of pride, it has been my privilege to learn about the Allcott family, the many relatives connected to them, and how they lived and worked on Britain’s inland waterways.  

Jeffrey Allen  

March 23rd, 2022 

© Jeffrey Allen
Albert Allcott and Elizabeth Allcott with family members, taken in the 1940's: © Family photo
Mary Ann Allcott (nee Goddard) and Albert Charles Allcott (right) with possibly Oliver Allcott (centre) with child (either Beatrice Mary Allcott or Oliver Allcott Jnr?): © Family photo
Oliver Allen (Allcott) 1939 - 1986 , whilst on National Service in Cyprus in the 1950's: © Family photo

Oliver Allen (Allcott), October 12th 1939 – July 6th 1986

This booklet has been a journey of discovery.  My father, Oliver Allen, never knew his real parents.  All that he had been told by his adoptive parents Fred and Laura, was that he was born on the 12th of October 1939 in Wolverhampton and that he had been adopted.  He thought his original surname was Parker, and that he may have had a sister.  It was not until the end of last year, 2021, that I finally, by pure chance, found a blood relative whilst searching online, my first cousin Frank Parker.  Through Frank and his sister Janet, the story of the Allcott family slowly began to emerge, and the tragic circumstances which led to my father’s adoption in 1942.  The great irony is, for all those years we lived in Daventry, he was actually surrounded by living descendants of the Allcott family.  Some were living in the town itself, whilst others were working in the neighbouring villages of Weedon Bec and Braunston.  In accordance with his wishes, my father’s ashes were scattered on Screel Hill, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, where we spent many a happy family holiday.  

July 6th, 2022 

Back cover is © Jeffrey Allen: Photo © Unknown

Addendum 

The following is not in the above booklet and some information and photo’s are repeated but there is further information on the Allcott’s.

Canal Boats Worked By The Allcott Family From 1881 – 1944 By Jeffrey Allen  

1877 – 1881

Albert Allcott (born 1843 died 1917) was the first family member to work the canal boats, sometime between the 26th of March 1877 and the 13th of December 1881.  His occupation at the time of the 1861 Census was ‘silk weaver,’ and by the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Franks in 1877, he was a labourer.  They were married at the Parish Church of St Matthew in Lower Horseley Fields, Wolverhampton, where there is a junction between the Birmingham Main Line and the Wyrley & Essington Canal.  It’s possible that Albert was working as a wharf labourer loading the barges before he became a boatman himself.  By the time of his first child, Albert Charles Allcott in 1881, Albert’s occupation is recorded as ‘Boatman,’ with the family residence given as Canal Street in the town of Coseley, Wolverhampton. 

Albert Allcott: © Family photo

1901

FANCY (SURCCo.)  

Shropshire Union Canal

In the 1901 Census, Albert was a mate aboard the FANCY, moored at Welshpool Wharf, a Shropshire Union Canal depot.  FANCY entered service in September 1899 for the LMS Railway, fleet no. 534. Registration no. Chester 555.  

The Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company (SURCCo.) was founded in 1854.  The Company owned 23½ miles of railway, which was leased to the North Western Railway Company in perpetuity for a 50% dividend of North Western’s stock.  They had offices in London, Birmingham, Albion wharf at Wolverhampton, and Chester.  The main line of its canal navigation was the Shropshire Union Canal from Autherley Junction near Wolverhampton to Ellesmere Port near the Wirral, a total of 66½ miles consisting of 46 locks.  Thirty-eight miles into the journey from Autherley is the Nantwich Basin, Cheshire, the birthplace of two of Albert’s sons, William (1884) and Frederick (December 1895).  Frederick was baptised at Lilleshall, Shropshire on January the 18th 1896.  Both men went on to become boatmen. 

Frederick Allcott

1904

Frederick Allcott: © Family photo

SNAP (SURCCo.) 

Shropshire Union Canal 

Given as the family residence at Ellesmere Port, Whitley, on the birth certificate of Minnie Allcott (born 1904 died 1968).

Minnie Pountney (nee Allcott): © Family photo

1911

WINCONSIN & JIM

Trent & Mersey Canal 

In the 1911 Census, Albert was master of the WINCONSIN moored at Anderton Wharf, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.  

At the time of the 1911 Census, Frederick Allcott was 15 years old and worked as a canal boat mate, the master was William Mallard aged 32.  The address was given as Etruria Locks, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire.  Frederick enlisted in the 2nd Batallion, South Staffordshire Regiment, at Wolverhampton.

Rank: Private, Service No. 16384, Frederick was killed in action at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 in the Battle of Delville Wood.  You can read more about Delville Wood here.

He was commemorated on the roll of honour of the London and North Western Railwaymen.  

The Commonwealth War Graves memorial to Frederick Allcott: © The Commonwealth War Graves Commision

You can read more about Thiepval Memorial, France here.

1915

SUTHERLAND (SURCCo.) 

Shropshire Union Canal 

Built by Calder Valley Marine, SUTHERLAND belonged to the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal Company, fleet no. 481, and was gauged for the Birmingham Canal Navigations in 1896.  It was a powered motor boat 17.68 metres (58 ft) long, with a beam of 2.14 metres (7 ft) wide.  It was a long-distance cabin boat in which the steerer plus family (and/or mate) would have been resident, at least when in transit, if not as their home.  It was given as the family’s address on the birth certificate of Oliver Allcott, 2nd of June 1915, Hay Basin, Broad Street, Wolverhampton.  Albert Charles Allcott was the steerer.  Registered with the Canal & River Trust, No. 512465.  

Albert Charles Allcott: © Family photo

1923

CARDIGAN (FM&C)  

Coventry Canal   

Given as the family residence of Minnie Allcott and John Pountney on their marriage certificate, October 27th 1923.  CARDIGAN was moored near the Foleshill Road, Coventry. Possibly a boat of Fellows Morton & Clayton, a nation-wide canal carrying company, fleet no. 42, built at Uxbridge Dock (West London), entered service in January 1906. Registration no. Uxbridge 401.  

1944

ARCAS & MALUS (GUCCCo. paired boats, fleet no. 11) 

Grand Union Canal  

According to a manning list of paired boats for September 1944, William Allcott (born 1884) was working for the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company during WW2 on canal boats ARCAS and MALUS.  The family lived at Stowe Hill Wharf, Heyford Lane, in the village of Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire. (Weedon is 6 miles from the market town of Daventry, where I grew up.  We moved to Daventry in about 1969, living at 109 Hemans Road).  

ARCAS was built by Harland and Wolff Ltd and entered service in November 1935. Registration no. Brentford 558 (West London).  

MALUS (the butty) was built by W. J. Yarwoods & Sons of Northwich in September 1935 for the GUCCCo.  It was delivered on 4 October 1935, fleet no. 307. Registration no. Coventry 535.  She was gauged on the Grand Union Canal on October 24th 1936, and given the gauging number 12412.  She was used for the carriage of cargoes such as coal, steel, timber and grain from London to the Midlands.  In order to remain profitable, boatmen/boatwomen didn’t like to run between jobs without cargo.  To avoid this some on the London run would load up with cocoa or chocolate crumbs before returning to Cadbury’s in the Midlands.  

MALUS as she is today in its British Waterways colours: © Source unknown
Stowe Hill wharf, Weedon Bec, in the 1940's.  Home to William Allcott and family: © Source unknown

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

Download The Allcotts in PDF format by clicking here.

Read an online e-book version of The Allcott’s here.

Roger Kidd’s page on Geograph – The Marsh Lane image above is the copyright of Roger Kidd.  Here you will find more great work from the photographer Roger. 

Geograph  – The Geograph Britain and Ireland project offers lots of free, good-quality images and aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland, and you can be part of it.

Local History: Narrowboats

Image © Unknown

About Narrowboats

A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom.   The UK’s canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commercial canal traffic gradually diminished and the last regular long-distance transportation of goods had virtually disappeared by 1970.  However, some commercial traffic continued.  From the 1970’s onward narrowboats were gradually being converted into permanent residences or as holiday lettings.  Currently, about 8580 narrowboats are registered as permanent homes on Britain’s waterway system and represent a growing alternative community living on semi-permanent moorings or continuously cruising.

For any boat to enter a narrow lock, it must be under 7 feet (2.13 m) wide, so most narrowboats are nominally 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 m) wide.  A narrowboat’s maximum length is generally 72 feet (21.95 m), as anything longer will be unable to navigate much of the British canal network because the nominal maximum length of locks is 75 feet (22.86 m).  Some locks are shorter than 72 feet (21.95 m), so to access the entire canal network the maximum length is 57 feet (17.37 m).

The first narrow boats played a vital role in the economic changes of the British Industrial Revolution.  They were wooden boats drawn by a horse walking on the canal towpath led by a crew member.  Horses were gradually replaced by steam and then diesel engines.  By the end of the 19th century, it was common practice to paint roses and castles on narrowboats and their fixtures and fittings.  This tradition has continued into the 21st century, but not all narrowboats have such decorations.

Modern narrowboats are used for holidays, weekend breaks, touring, or as permanent or part-time residences.  Usually, they have steel hulls and a steel superstructure.  The hull’s flat base is usually 10mm thick, the hull sides 6mm or 8mm, the cabin sides 6mm, and the roof 4mm or 6mm.  The number of boats has been rising, with the number of licensed boats (not all of them narrowboats) on canals and rivers managed by the Canal & River Trust (CRT) estimated at about 27,000 in 2006; by 2019, this had risen to 34,367.  Although a small number of steel narrowboats dispense with the need for a rear steering deck entirely, by imitating some river cruisers in providing wheel steering from a central cockpit, most narrowboats’ steering is by a tiller on the stern.  There are three major configurations for the stern: traditional stern, cruiser stern and semi-traditional stern.

Narrowboats are Category D boats intended only for navigating rivers, canals and small lakes; but some intrepid boaters have crossed the English Channel in a narrowboat.

Image © RHaworth via Wikipedia

Terminology

The narrowboat (one word) definition in the Oxford English Dictionary is:

“A British canal boat of traditional long, narrow design, steered with a tiller; spec. one not exceeding 7 feet (approx. 2.1 metres) in width or 72 feet (approx. 21.9 metres) in length.”

Earlier quotations listed in the Oxford English Dictionary use the term “narrow boat”, with the most recent, a quotation from an advertisement in Canal Boat & Inland Waterways in 1998, uses “narrowboat”.

The single word “narrowboat” has been adopted by authorities such as the Canal and River Trust, Scottish Canals and the authoritative magazine Waterways World to refer to all boats built in the style and tradition of commercial boats that were able to fit in the narrow canal locks.

Although some narrow boats are built to a design based on river barges and many conform to the strict definition of the term, it is incorrect to refer to a narrowboat (or narrow boat) as a widebeam or as a barge, both of which are definable by their greater width. In the context of British inland waterways, a barge is usually a much wider, cargo-carrying boat or a modern boat modelled on one, certainly more than 7 feet (2.13 m) wide.

Another historic term for a narrow boat is a long boat, which has been noted in the Midlands and especially on the River Severn and connecting waterways to Birmingham.

Usage has not quite settled as regards (a) boats based on narrowboat design, but too wide for narrow canals, or (b) boats the same width as narrowboats but based on other types of boats.

Narrowboats may have ship prefix NB.

Size

The key distinguishing feature of a narrowboat is its width, which must be less than 7 feet (2.13 m) wide to navigate British narrow canals.  Some old boats are very close to this limit (often built 7 feet 1+12 inches or 2.17 metres or slightly wider), and can have trouble using certain narrow locks whose width has been reduced over time because of subsidence.  Modern boats are usually produced to a maximum of 6 feet 10 inches (2.08 m) wide to guarantee easy passage throughout the complete system.

Because of their slenderness, some narrowboats seem very long.  The maximum length is about 72 feet (21.95 m), which matches the length of the longest locks on the system.  Modern narrowboats tend to be shorter, to permit cruising anywhere on the connected network of British canals, including on canals built for wider, but shorter, boats.  The shortest lock on the main network is Salterhebble Middle Lock on the Calder and Hebble Navigation, at about 56 feet (17.07 m) long.  However, the C&H is a wide canal, so the lock is about 14 feet 2 inches (4.32 m) wide.  This makes the largest go-anywhere-on-the-network narrowboat slightly longer (about 58 feet or 17.68 metres) than the straight length of the lock because it can (with a certain amount of shoehorning) lie diagonally.  Some locks on isolated waterways are as short as 40 feet (12.19 m).  Where it was possible to avoid going through locks, narrow boats were sometimes built a little larger.  Wharf boats or more usually ‘Amptons, operated on the Wolverhampton level of the Birmingham Canal Navigations and were up to 89 feet in length and 7 foot 10.5 inches wide.

Hire fleets on British canals usually consist of narrow boats of varying lengths from 30 feet (9.14 m) upwards, to allow parties of different numbers or varying budgets to be able to hire a boat and get afloat.

The Development Of Traditional Working Boats

The first narrowboats played a key part in the economic changes of the British Industrial Revolution.  They were wooden boats drawn by a horse walking on the canal towpath led by a crew member, often a child.  Narrowboats were chiefly designed for carrying cargo, though some packet boats carried passengers, luggage, mail and parcels.

The first canals to feature locks in the now standard size were the canals designed by James Brindley and approved by Parliament in 1766, including the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal and Trent and Mersey Canal.  Although construction took many years, the lock size became standard for many canal-building projects.

Boatmen’s families originally lived ashore, but in the 1830’s as canals started to suffer competition from the burgeoning railway system, families (especially those of independent single boat owners/skippers) began to live on board, partly because they could no longer afford rents, partly to provide extra hands to work the boats harder, faster and further, partly to keep families together.  As late as 1858, a Household Words article states that “the Grand Junction Canal company did not allow the boatmen’s families on board.” The crew of the non-stopping flyboat in the article (skipper, two crew and a youth) is said to be typical.

The rear portion of the boat became the boatman’s cabin, familiar from picture postcards and museums, famous for its space-saving ingenuity and interior made attractive by a warm stove, a steaming kettle, gleaming brass, fancy lace, painted housewares and decorated plates.  Such descriptions rarely consider the actual comfort of a (sometimes large) family, working brutally hard and long days, sleeping in one tiny cabin.  However many shore-bound workers endured harder indoor trades in less healthy conditions and in worse accommodation, where the family was separated for long hours rather than being together all day.  The lifestyle afloat, by definition itinerant, made it impossible for children to attend school.  Most boat people were effectively illiterate and ostracised by those living on the bank, who considered themselves superior.

As steam and diesel progressively replaced the tow-horse in the early years of the 20th century, it became possible to move even more cargo with fewer hands by towing a second, un-powered boat, referred to as a butty, buttyboat or butty boat.  Although there was no longer a horse to maintain, the butty had to be steered while being towed.  So that the butty boatman could lengthen or shorten the towline as needed, the towline wasn’t tied off on the bow, instead travelled over the buttyboat through permanent running blocks on stands or retractable middle masts and managed in the stern.  On a wide canal, such as the Grand Union Canal, the pair could be roped side-to-side (breasted up) and handled as a unit through working locks.

Cargo-carrying by narrow boat diminished from 1945 and the last regular long-distance traffic disappeared in 1970.  However, some traffic continued into the 1980’s and beyond.  Two million tonnes of aggregate were carried on the Grand Union (River Soar) between 1976 and 1996, latterly using wide beam barges.  Aggregate continues to be carried between Denham and West Drayton on the (wide) Grand Union Canal and on the tidal estuary of Bow Creek (which is the eventual outflow of the Lee & Stort Navigation).

A few people are doing their best in the 21st century to keep the tradition of canal-borne cargo-carrying alive, mostly by one-off deliveries rather than regular runs, or by selling goods such as coal to other boaters.  Enthusiasts remain dedicated to restoring the remaining old narrow boats, often as members of the Historic Narrow Boat Owners Club.  There are many replicas, such as Hadar, ornately painted with traditional designs, usually of roses and castles.  Boats not horse-drawn may have a refurbished, slow-revving, vintage semi-diesel engine.  There are some steam-driven narrow boats such as the ex-Fellows Morton & Clayton steamer President.

Image © Mike Fascione via Wikipedia
Image © G-Man via Wikipedia

Painted Decoration

By the end of the 19th century, it was common practice to paint roses and castles on narrow boats and their fixtures and fittings.  Common sites include the doors to the cabin, the water can or barrel and the side of the boat along with ornate lettering giving the boat’s name and owner.  This tradition did not happen in all regions, the Chesterfield Canal being one waterway where narrow boats never bore such decorations.

The origin of the roses and castles found on canal boats is unclear.  The first written reference to them appears to be in an 1858 edition of the magazine Household Words in one of a series of articles titled “On the Canal”, showing that the art form must have existed by this date.  For some time, a popular suggestion was that it had some form of Romani origin; however, there does not appear to be a significant link between the Romani and boating communities.  Other suggestions include the transfer of styles from the clock-making industry (in particular the decoration on the face), the japanning industry or the pottery industry.  There is certainly a similarity in style and a geographical overlap, but no solid proof of a link.  There are similar styles of folk art in Scandinavia, Germany, Turkey and Bangladesh.

In the 18th century, similar Dutch Hindeloopen paintwork would only have been a sailing barge journey away from the Thames.  There is also an article in the Midland Daily Telegraph on July 22nd 1914 that credits the practice of painting of water cans, at least, to a Mr Arthur Atkins.

While the practice declined as commercial use of the canals dwindled, it has seen something of a revival in recent times with the emergence of leisure boating.  Narrowboat decorations with roses and castle themes are a common sight on today’s canals, although these may utilise cheaper printed vinyl transfers in place of the traditional craft of hand-painted designs.

Image © Laurence White via Wikipedia

Modern Narrowboats 

The number of licensed boats on canals and rivers managed by the Canal & River Trust (CRT), a charitable trust, formerly British Waterways, was estimated at about 27,000 in 2006.  By 2014 this number had risen to over 30,000.  There were perhaps another 5,000 unlicensed boats kept in private moorings or on other waterways in 2006.  Most boats on CRT waterways are steel (or occasionally, aluminium) cruisers popularly referred to as narrowboats.

Modern leisure narrowboats are used for holidays, weekend breaks, touring, and as permanent or part-time residences.  Usually, they have steel hulls and a steel superstructure, but when they were first developed for leisure use in the 1970’s glass reinforced plastic (fibre-glass) or timber was often used above gunwale height.  Newer narrowboats, say post-1990, are usually powered by modern diesel engines and may be fitted inside to a high standard.  There will be at least 6 feet (1.8 m) internal headroom and often or usually similar domestic facilities as land homes: central heating, flush toilets, shower or even bath, four-ring hobs, oven, grill, microwave oven, and refrigerator; some may have satellite television and mobile broadband, using 4G technology.  Externally, their resemblance to traditional boats can vary from a faithful imitation (false rivets, and copies of traditional paintwork) through interpretation (clean lines and simplified paintwork) through to a free-style approach which does not try to pretend in any way that this is a traditional boat.

They are owned by individuals, shared by a group of friends (or by a more formally organised syndicate), rented out by holiday firms, or used as cruising hotels.  A few boats are lived on permanently: either based in one place (though long-term moorings for residential narrowboats are currently very difficult to find) or continuously moving around the network (perhaps with a fixed location for the coldest months, when many stretches of the canal are closed by repair works or stoppages).

A support infrastructure has developed to provide services to the leisure boats, with some narrowboats being used as platforms to provide services such as engine maintenance and boat surveys; while some others are used as fuel tenders, that provide diesel, solid fuel (coal and wood) and Calor Gas.

Image © Per Palmkvist Knudsen via Wikipedia

Types

On almost all narrowboats steering is by tiller, as was the case on all working narrow boats.  The steerer stands at the stern of the boat, aft of the hatchway and/or rear doors at the top of the steps up from the cabin.  The steering area comes in three basic types, each meeting different needs of maximising internal space; having a more traditional appearance; having a big enough rear deck for everyone to enjoy summer weather or long evenings; or protection outside in bad weather.  Each type has its advocates.  However, the boundaries are not fixed, and some boats blur the categories as new designers try out different arrangements and combinations.

Traditional Stern

Many modern canal boats retain the traditional layout of a small open, unguarded counter or deck behind the rear doors from which the crew can step onto land.  It is possible to steer from the counter, but this is not very safe, with the propeller churning below only one missed step away.  The tiller extension allows the steerer to stand in safety on the top step, forward of the rear doors.  On a working boat, this step would have been over the top of the coal box.  On cold days, the steerer can even close the rear doors behind themselves, and be in relative comfort, their lower body in the warmth of the cabin, and only their upper body emerging from the hatchway and exposed to the elements.  In good weather, many trad-stern steerers sit up on the hatchway edge, a high vantage point giving good all-around visibility.  On trad boats, the bow well-deck forms the main outside viewing area, because the traditional stern is not large enough for anyone other than the steerer to stand on safely.  Internally, trads may have an engine room forward of a traditional boatman’s cabin, or an enclosed engine tucked away out of sight and the increased living space this brings.  

Image © Jongleur100 via Wikipedia

Cruiser Stern

The name for this style arises from the large open rear deck resembling that of the large rear cockpits common on glass-fibre (glass-reinforced plastic or GRP) river cruisers which in turn derives from elliptical sterns used on cruisers and larger warships in the 20th century.  At the stern, a cruiser narrowboat looks very different from traditional boats: the hatch and rear doors are considerably further forward than on a trad, creating a large open deck between the counter and rear doors, protected by a railing (perhaps with built-in seating) around back and sides.  The large rear deck provides a good al fresco dining area or social space, allowing people to congregate on the deck in good weather and the summer holiday season.

In winter (or less than perfect weather in summer) the steerer may be unprotected from the elements.  The lack of an enclosed engine room means that engine heat does not contribute to keeping the boat warm and there may be wasted space above the deck area.  A cruiser stern allows the engine to be located under the deck, rather than in the body of the boat.  Although this may make access to the engine more of a nuisance (due to weather considerations) the whole deck can usually be lifted off in whole or in sections, allowing the operative to stand inside the engine bay, the cruiser stern has a major advantage that the engine is located entirely outside the living space.  In this configuration also, it is common to find that the engine bay contains batteries, isolator switching, fuel tanks and seldom-used kit, spares and equipment. 

Image © Norman Rogers via Wikipedia

Semi-Traditional Stern

A semitraditional stern is a compromise to gain some of the social benefits of a cruiser stern while retaining a more traditional design and providing some protection for the steerer in bad weather or in cooler seasons.  As with the cruiser stern, the deck is extended back from the hatch and rear doors, but in this case, most of the deck is protected at the sides by walls which extend back from the cabin sides – giving a more sheltered area for the steerer and companions, usually with lockers to sit on.  The engine is located under the deck, much like a cruiser, again allowing a separation between the cabin and the engine bay, with the steps down to the cabin being located past the false sides of the semi-trad social area.

Image © Mark Ahsmann via Wikipedia

A Butty Stern

A butty boat is an unpowered boat traditionally with a larger rudder with (usually) a wooden tiller (known as an elum, a corruption of helm) as the steering does not benefit from the force of water generated by the propeller.  The tiller is usually removed and reversed in the rudder-post socket to get it out of the way when moored. A few butty boats have been converted into powered narrowboats like NB Sirius.  The term butty is derived from the dialect word buddy, meaning companion.

Centre Cockpit

While the vast majority of narrowboats have tiller steering at the stern, a small number of steel narrowboats dispense with the need for a rear steering deck entirely, by imitating some river cruisers in providing wheel steering from a central cockpit.  This layout has the advantage (as many Dutch barges) of enabling an aft cabin to be separate from the forward accommodation.

Image © PBS via Wikipedia

National Organisations

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The narrowboat interior image above is unknown copyright and was taken from here.

The modern narrowboats for leisure cruising image above is the copyright of photographer Roger Haworth and you can find more great work from him by clicking here.

The historic working narrowboats image above is the copyright of photographer G-Man and you can find more great work from him by clicking here.

The Horse-drawn narrowboat image above is, as far as I know, the copyright of photographer Mike Fascione.

The narrowboat decoration image above is the copyright of photographer Laurence White.

The modern narrowboats on the Kennet and Avon Canal image above is the copyright of photographer Per Palmkvist Knudsen.

The traditional stern narrowboats image above is the copyright of photographer Jongleur100 and you can find more great work from him by clicking here.

The cruiser stern narrowboat decoration image above is the copyright of photographer Norman Rogers.

The semi-traditional stern image above is, as far as I know, the copyright of photographer Mark Ahsmann.

The narrowboat with a centre cockpit image above is the copyright of photographer PBS.

All the above images were found on Wikipedia with the exception of the Narrowboat interior one.

Books: Glinda Of Oz By L. Frank Baum

1920 first edition front cover: © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking on the link in Blog Posts below.

About Glinda Of Oz

Glinda of Oz is the fourteenth Land of Oz book written by children’s author L. Frank Baum, published on July 10, 1920.  It is the last book of the original Oz series, which was later continued by other authors.  Like most of the Oz books, the plot features a journey through some of the remoter regions of Oz; though in this case the pattern is doubled: Dorothy and Ozma travel to stop a war between the Flatheads and Skeezers; then Glinda and a cohort of Dorothy’s friends set out to rescue them.  The book was dedicated to Baum’s second son, Robert Stanton Baum.

Original Manuscript

The printed text of the book features one significant change from Baum’s manuscript.  In the manuscript, Red Reera first appears as a skeleton, its bones wired together, with glowing red eyes in the sockets of its skull.  The printed text makes Reera the Red first appear as a grey ape in an apron and lace cap — a comical sight rather than a frightening and disturbing spectre.  The change was most likely made by Baum at the suggestion of his editors.  Other changes in the manuscript, made by an unknown editor at Reilly & Lee, are relatively trivial and do not always improve the text.

The submerged city of the Skeezers in this book may have been suggested to Baum by the semi-submerged Temple of Isis at Philae in Egypt, which the Baums had seen on their trip to Europe and Egypt in the first six months of 1906.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Princess Ozma and Dorothy travel to an obscure corner of the Land of Oz, in order to prevent a war between two local powers, the Skeezers and the Flatheads.  The leaders of the two tribes prove obstinate and are determined to fight in spite of Ozma and Dorothy.  Unable to prevent the war, Dorothy and Ozma find themselves imprisoned on the Skeezers’ glass-covered island, which has been magically submerged to the bottom of its lake.  Their situation worsens when the warlike queen Coo-ee-oh, who is holding them captive and who alone knows how to raise the island back to the surface of the lake, loses her battle and gets transformed into a swan, forgetting all her magic in the process, and leaving the inhabitants of the island, with Ozma and Dorothy, trapped at the bottom of the lake.  Ozma and Dorothy summon Glinda, who, with help from several magicians and magical assistants, must find a way to raise the island to the surface of the lake again, and liberate its inhabitants.

Read more about Glinda Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.    

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The image shown at the top of this page is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.  

Books: The Magic Of Oz By L. Frank Baum

1919 first edition front cover image © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking here.  

About The Magic Of Oz

The Magic of Oz is the thirteenth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum. Published on June 7, 1919, one month after the author’s death, The Magic of Oz relates the unsuccessful attempt of the Munchkin boy Kiki Aru and former Nome King Ruggedo to conquer Oz.

The novel was dedicated to “the Children of our Soldiers, the Americans and their Allies, with unmeasured Pride and Affection.”

Release

The upsurge in sales that had greeted the previous Oz book, The Tin Woodman of Oz, in 1918 also affected The Magic of Oz, which sold 26,200 copies.  The Oz books in total sold almost twice as many copies in 1919 as in 1918, and 1918 had been an exceptionally good year.  The high sales were most likely influenced by the death of Baum earlier in 1919.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

At the top of Mount Munch lives a group of people known as the Hyups.  One of their numbers, a Munchkin named Bini Aru, discovered a method of transforming people and objects by merely saying the word “Pyrzqxgl”.  After Princess Ozma decreed that no one could practise magic in Oz except for Glinda the Good Witch and the Wizard of Oz, Bini wrote down the directions for pronouncing “Pyrzqxgl” and hid them in his magical laboratory.

When Bini and his wife are at a fair one day, their son Kiki Aru, who thirsts for adventure, finds the directions and afterwards transforms himself into a hawk and visits various countries outside the land of Oz.  When he alights in the land of Ev, Kiki Aru learns that he needs money to pay for a night’s lodging (versus Oz, where the money is not used at all) and changes himself into a magpie to steal a gold piece from an old man.  A sparrow confronts the then-human Kiki Aru with knowledge of the theft, and Kiki says that he did not know what it was like to be wicked before, he is glad that he is now.  This conversation is overheard by Ruggedo, the Nome who was exiled to the Earth’s surface in Tik-Tok of Oz, and he sees through Kiki Aru’s power a chance to get revenge on the people of Oz.

Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into birds and they fly over the Deadly Desert into the Land of Oz.  They enter Oz as animals to escape detection by Glinda and to recruit an army of conquest from the country’s wild animal population.  When they first appear in the Forest of Gugu in the Gillikin Country, Kiki changes himself and Ruggedo into Li-Mon-Eags (fictional creatures with the heads of lions, the bodies of monkeys, and the wings of eagles as well as having the tails of donkeys) and lies that they’ve seen the people of the Emerald City plan to enslave the animal inhabitants of the Forest.  Ruggedo claims that the Li-Mon-Eags will transform the animals into humans and march on the Emerald City and transform its inhabitants into animals, driving them into the forest.  Ruggedo proves their power (for Kiki’s the only one who knows “Pyrzqxgl”) by having Kiki transform one of the leopard king Gugu’s advisors, Loo the unicorn, into a man and back again.  Gugu offers to meet with the leaders of the other animal tribes to decide on this matter of invasion.

Dorothy and the Wizard arrive with the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger in the Forest of Gugu during this council of war with a request for monkeys to train in time for Ozma’s upcoming birthday party.  Ruggedo recognizes his old enemies and inspires Kiki to begin transforming people and animals left and right — including Ruggedo, whom Kiki turns against by transforming him into a goose, a transformation that the Nome most fears because as a goose he might lay an egg.  (In Baum’s universe, all eggs are a deadly poison to nomes.)

The Wizard, whom Kiki transformed into a fox, follows the Li-Mon-Eag with his magic bag, the transformed Kiki, deep into the forest where he begins transforming monkeys into giant human soldiers.  However, Kiki makes them so big that they cannot move through the trees.  The Wizard, however, heard how to correctly pronounce “Pyrzqxgl” and first stops Kiki and Ruggedo by transforming them into a walnut and a hickory nut.  Then the Wizard resumes his rightful form and changes Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and Gugu back to their forms, and he agrees to change the soldiers back into monkeys.  The Wizard recruits several of the grateful monkeys and shrinks them down to bring them back to the Emerald City and train.

On arriving there, Dorothy and the Wizard are dispatched to a magic island where Cap’n Bill and Trot went to get a magic flower for Ozma’s birthday.  However, the island itself causes anything living that touches it to take root there, and that is how the sailor and his friend are found when Dorothy and the Wizard arrive.  The Wizard uses “Pyrzqxgl” to change Cap’n Bill and Trot into honeybees which narrowly avoid being eaten by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger.  When they are human again, Cap’n Bill retrieves the flower by strapping a wood plank onto his good leg, walks with that and his wooden leg onto the island, and retrieves the flower.

Back at the Emerald City, Ozma and her friends celebrate her birthday (though without quite the pomp and fanfare from The Road to Oz) and then decide how to deal with the evil magicians transformed into nuts.  The Wizard uses “Pyrzqxgl” to change them back to Kiki Aru and Ruggedo and make them thirsty enough to drink the Water of Oblivion, which will make them forget all that they have ever known.  The now-blank slate Kiki Aru and Ruggedo will live in the Emerald City and learn to be good and kind.

Read more about The Magic Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.   

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The 1919 first edition front cover image shown at the top of this page is © John R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz. 

Books: The Tin Woodman Of Oz By L. Frank Baum

1918 first edition front cover image © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking here.   

About The Tin Woodman Of Oz

The Tin Woodman of Oz is the twelfth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum and was originally published on May 13, 1918.  The Tin Woodman is reunited with his Munchkin sweetheart Nimmie Amee from the days when he was flesh and blood.  This was a back-story from Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The book was dedicated to the author’s grandson Frank Alden Baum.

Context And Reception

The Tin Woodman of Oz provides the backstory for Oz itself; it was not always a fairyland and became one by being enchanted by the Fairy Queen Lurline, who left a fairy behind to rule it.  In Glinda of Oz Ozma says that she herself was that fairy, though in The Marvelous Land of Oz we are told of her restoration to a throne long held by her ancestors.

In any event, this novel marks a clear maturation of Ozma’s character, now said to appear significantly older than Dorothy (in Ozma of Oz they appeared the same age) and a fairy working her own innate magic.

Baum’s Oz books had entered a trend of declining sales after 1910.  The Tin Woodman of Oz reversed this trend; its first-year sales of 18,600 were enough to make it a bestselling success.  Significantly, the sales of earlier Oz titles also rebounded from previous declines, many selling 3000 copies that year, and two, The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) and the previous year’s The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), selling 4000 copies. Baum earned $6,742.52 from his Oz books that year.  In 1918 the average annual salary of a clerical worker was $940.  Even Baum’s non-Oz-related early works were affected by the upsurge: John Dough and the Cherub (1906) sold 1,562 copies in 1918.

The reason for this reversal of fortune is harder to specify.  The psychological shock of the trench-warfare carnage of World War I may have inspired a wave of nostalgia for a simpler time, with Baum’s books representing a lost age of innocence.

A new edition of the book was illustrated by Dale Ulrey in 1955.  She illustrated a new edition of The Wizard of Oz for Reilly & Lee the following year, but sales did not warrant her continuing to provide new illustrations.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow are regaling each other with tales at the Woodman’s palace in the Winkie Country when a Gillikin boy named Woot wanders in.  After he is fed and rested, Woot asks the Woodman how he came to be made of tin.

He relates how the Wicked Witch of the East enchanted his axe and caused him to chop his body parts off limb by limb because he was in love with her ward, Nimmie Amee.  Each chopped limb was replaced by the tinsmith Ku-Klip with a counterpart made of tin.  (Since Oz is a fairyland, no one can die, even when the parts of their body are separated from each other unless those people are witches and someone drops a house onto them. )  Without a heart, the Tin Woodman felt he could no longer love Nimmie Amee and he left her.  Dorothy and the Scarecrow found him after he had rusted in the forest (an event-related in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) and went with him to the Emerald City where the Wizard gave him a heart.  Woot suggests that the heart may have made him kind, but it did not make him loving, or he would have returned to Nimmie Amee.  This shames the Tin Woodman and inspires him to journey to the Munchkin Country and find her.

The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Woot journey into the Gillikin Country and encounter the inflatable Loons of Loonville, whom they escape by popping several of them.  They descend into Yoop Valley, where the giantess Mrs. Yoop dwells, who transforms the travellers into animals for her amusement, just as she has already done to Polychrome, the Rainbow’s Daughter.  Woot steals a magic apron that opens doors and barriers at the wearer’s request, enabling the four to escape.  Woot, as a green monkey, narrowly avoids becoming a jaguar’s meal by descending further into a den of subterranean dragons.  After escaping that ordeal, Woot, the Tin Woodman as a tin owl, the Scarecrow as a straw-stuffed bear, and Polychrome as a canary turn south into the Munchkin Country.

They arrive at the farm of Jinjur, who renews her acquaintance with them and sends them to the Emerald City for help.  Dorothy and Ozma arrive and Ozma easily restores the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman to their rightful forms.  Polychrome takes several steps to restore to her true form.  However, Ozma discovers that the Green Monkey into which Woot is transformed has to be someone’s form; it cannot be destroyed.  Polychrome suggests as a punishment for wickedness that Mrs. Yoop the giantess be made into the Green Monkey, and Ozma thus succeeds in restoring Woot to his proper form.

The Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, Woot, and Polychrome resume their quest and come upon the spot where the Tin Woodman had rusted and find another tin man there.  After they oil his joints, he identifies himself as Captain Fyter, a soldier who courted Nimmie Amee after the Woodman had left her.  The Wicked Witch of the East had made Fyter’s sword do what the Woodman’s axe had done—cut off his limbs, which Ku-Klip replaced with tin limbs.  He does not have a heart either, but this does not bother him.  However, he can rust, which he does one day during a rainstorm.  Both woodmen now seek the heart of Nimmie Amee, agreeing to let her choose between them.

The five come to the dwelling of the tinsmith Ku-Klip where the Tin Woodman talks to himself—that is, to the head of the man (Nick Chopper) he once was.  The Tin Woodman and the Tin Soldier also find a barrel of assorted body parts that once belonged to each of them, but some, like Captain Fyter’s head, are conspicuously missing.  Ku-Klip reveals that he used Fyter’s head and many body parts from each of them (which never decayed) to create his assistant Chopfyt.  Chopfyt complained about missing an arm until Ku-Klip made him a tin one, and he departed for the east.

The companions leave Ku-Klip and continue east themselves to find Nimmie Amee and find themselves crossing the Invisible Country, where a massive Hip-po-gy-raf helps them across in return for the Scarecrow’s straw.  Reluctantly, he gives it and consents to being stuffed with available hay, which makes his movements awkward.  They rest for the night at the house of Professor and Mrs. Swynne, pigs whose nine children live in the Emerald City under the care of the Wizard.

They leave the Swynnes and arrive at the foot of Mount Munch on the eastern border of the Munchkin Country.  At its summit is a cottage where a rabbit tells them Nimmie Amee now lives happily.  The Tin Woodman and Tin Soldier knock and are admitted by Nimmie Amee, who is now married to Chopfyt.  She refuses to leave her domestic life, even to become Empress of the Winkies (which she would become as the Tin Woodman’s wife), saying “All I ask is to be left alone and not be disturbed by visitors.”  The four return to the Emerald City and relate their adventures.  Woot is allowed free rein to roam where he pleases, Captain Fyter is dispatched by Ozma to guard duty in the Gillikin Country, and the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow return to his palace in the Winkie Country where the story began.

Read more about The Tin Woodman Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The 1918 first edition front cover image shown at the top of this page is © John R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.  

Books: The Lost Princess Of Oz By L. Frank Baum

1917 first edition front cover image © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking here.      

About The Lost Princess Of Oz

The Lost Princess of Oz is the eleventh canonical Oz book written by L. Frank Baum.  Published on June 5, 1917, it begins with the disappearance of Princess Ozma, the ruler of Oz and covers Dorothy and the Wizard’s efforts to find her.  The introduction to the book states that its inspiration was a letter a young girl had written to Baum: “I suppose if Ozma ever got hurt or losted [sic], everybody would be sorry.”

The book was dedicated to the author’s newborn granddaughter Ozma Baum, child of his youngest son Kenneth Gage Baum.

Ruth Plumly Thompson borrowed the plot of this novel for her 1937 Oz book Handy Mandy in Oz. The Frogman and Cayke’s dishpan re-appear in Jeff Freedman’s 1994 novel The Magic Dishpan of Oz.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Dorothy has risen from bed for the day and is seeing to her friends in the Emerald City and notices that Ozma has not awakened yet.  Dorothy goes into Ozma’s chambers only to find she is not there.

Glinda awakens in her palace in the Quadling Country and finds her Great Book of Records is missing. She goes to prepare a magic spell to find it- only to see her magic tools are gone as well.  She dispatches a messenger to the Emerald City to relay news of the theft.  Receiving the news, the Wizard hastily offers his magic tools to assist Glinda, however, these are missing as well.  Glinda, Dorothy, and the Wizard organize search parties to find Ozma and the missing magic.  Accompanying them are Button-Bright, Trot, and Betsy Bobbin. Dorothy and the Wizard’s party begins to search the Winkie Country to the west of the Emerald City.

Meanwhile, in the southwestern corner of the Winkie Country on a plateau belonging to the Yips, and Cayke the cookie cook has had her diamond-studded gold dishpan stolen.  The self-proclaimed adviser to the Yips, a human-sized dandy of a frog called the Frogman, hears Cayke’s story and offers to help her find the dishpan.  When they have gotten down the mountain, Cayke reveals to the Frogman that the dishpan has magic powers, for her cookies come out perfect every time.

Dorothy, the Wizard, and their party enter the previously unknown communities of Thi and Herku.  The citizens of Thi are ruled by the High Coco-Lorum (really the King, but the people do not know it) and repeat the same story about the Herkus: they keep giants for their slaves.  In the Great Orchard between Thi and Herku, the party enjoys a variety of fruits. Button-Bright eats from the one peach tree in the orchard.  When he reaches the peach’s centre he discovers it to be made of gold.  He pockets the gold peach pit to show Dorothy, Betsy, and Trot later – despite warnings from the local animals that the evil Ugu the Shoemaker has enchanted it.

In the city of Herku, Dorothy and the Wizard’s party are greeted by the emaciated but jovial Czarover of Herku, who has invented a pure energy compound called zosozo that can make his people strong enough to keep giants as slaves.  The Czarover offers them six doses to use in their travels and casually reveals that Ugu the Shoemaker came from Herku.  Ugu found magic books in his attic one day because he was descended from the greatest enchanter ever known and learned over time to do a great many magical things.  The Shoemaker has since moved from Herku and built a castle high in the mountains.  This clue leads Dorothy and the Wizard to think that Ugu might be behind all the recent thefts of magic and the ruler of Oz.  They proceed from Herku toward the castle and meet with the Frogman, Cayke the Cookie Cook, and the Lavender Bear the stuffed bear who rules Bear Center.  Lavender Bear carries the Little Pink Bear, a small wind-up toy that can answer any question about the past put to it.

When the combined party arrives at Ugu’s castle, Button-Bright is separated from them and falls into a pit.  Before they rescue him, the Wizard asks the Little Pink Bear where Ozma is and it says that she is in the pit, too.  After Button-Bright is let out of the pit, the Little Pink Bear says that she is there among the party.  Unsure what to make of this seeming contradiction, the party advances toward the castle.  Sure enough, Ugu is the culprit and the castle’s magical defences are techniques from Glinda and the Wizard.  Upon overcoming these, the party finds themselves standing before the thief himself.

Ugu uses magic to send the room spinning and retreats.  Dorothy stops it by making a wish with the magic belt.  She uses its power to turn Ugu into a dove, but he modifies the enchantment so he retains human size and aggressive nature.  Fighting his way past Dorothy and her companions, Ugu the dove uses Cayke’s diamond-studded dishpan to flee to the Quadling Country.

Once the magic tools are recovered, the conquering search party turns their attention to finding Ozma.  The Little Pink Bear reveals that Ozma is being carried in Button-Bright’s jacket pocket, where he placed the gold peach pit. The  Wizard opens it with a knife, and Ozma is released from where Ugu had imprisoned her.  She was kidnapped by Ugu when she came upon him stealing her and the Wizard’s magic instruments.

The people of the Emerald City and Ozma’s friends all celebrate her return.  Days later, the transformed Ugu flies in to see Dorothy and ask her forgiveness for what he did.  She offers it and offers to change him back with the Magic Belt, but Ugu has decided that he likes being a dove much better.

Read more about The Lost Princess Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.   

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The 1917 first edition front cover image shown at the top of this page is © John R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.  

Books: Rinkitink In Oz By L. Frank Baum

1916 first edition front cover image © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking here.   

About Rinkitink In Oz

Rinkitink in Oz is the tenth book in the Land of Oz series written by L. Frank Baum.  It was published on June 20, 1916, with full-colour and black-and-white illustrations by artist John R. Neill.  It is notable that most of the action takes place outside of Oz, and no character from Oz appears in the book until its climax; this is due to Baum’s having originally written most of the book as a fantasy novel unrelated to his Oz books over ten years earlier, in 1905.

The book was dedicated to the author’s newborn grandson Robert Alison Baum, the first child of the author’s second son Robert Stanton Baum.

Reissue

In 1939, Rinkitink in Oz was one of six Oz books specially reissued by Rand McNally in a condensed, small-format junior edition for young readers, as a promotion for the MGM film of The Wizard of Oz.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Prince Inga is the son of King Kitticut and Queen Garee, who rules the island kingdom of Pingaree.  Kitticut tells Inga that years earlier when armies from the neighbouring islands of Regos and Coregos attempted to invade and conquer Pingaree, they were repelled by Kitticut himself with the aid of three magic pearls.  The blue pearl gives its bearer superhuman strength, the pink pearl protects him from any harm, and the white pearl speaks words of wisdom.

The jovial fat King Rinkitink of Gilgad arrives in Pingaree on royal holiday and remains as Kitticut’s guest for several weeks.  Rinkitink usually rides Bilbil, a surly talking goat.  One day invaders from Regos and Coregos arrive again and seize King Kitticut before he can reach his magic pearls.  All the people are carried into slavery, except Inga and Rinkitink who escape along with Bilbil.  Inga resolves to free his people with the aid of the magic pearls.  Keeping the pearls secret from Rinkitink, he hides them in his shoes and the three sail to Regos.

The wicked King Gos of Regos and his army are easily defeated by the strength and invulnerability of Inga, and they flee to the neighbouring island of Coregos, ruled by the equally wicked Queen Cor.  Inga and Rinkitink sleep in the palace, but the next morning both shoes along with the pink and blue pearls they contain are accidentally lost.  The shoes are found by a poor charcoal-burner, who takes them home to give to his daughter Zella.  Queen Cor arrives on Regos and captures the now powerless Inga and Rinkitink, and brings them back to Coregos.

Zella, wearing the shoes but unaware of the power they convey, travels to the palace on Coregos to sell honey to Queen Cor.  Inga sees her and, recognizing her shoes, trades shoes with her.  Again possessing the pearls, he overpowers Cor who escapes and flees to Regos. Inga frees the enslaved people of Pingaree, who sail back home.  However, his parents are still captives of Gos and Cor, who take them to the neighbouring country of the subterranean Nomes and pay the Nome King Kaliko to use his magic to keep them captive.

Inga, Rinkitink and Bilbil arrive in the Nome Kingdom.  For safety, Rinkitink carries the pink pearl which confers invulnerability.  The Nome King refuses to release Inga’s parents because of his promise to Cor and Gos, although he claims to bear no animosity toward the travellers.  Rinkitink and Inga sleep in the Nome King’s palace that night, but in the morning Kaliko attempts to kill both of them by various devious traps.  Both escape by means of the power of the pearls they carry.

In Oz, Dorothy learns of these events and travels to the Nome Kingdom with the Wizard of Oz to confront Kaliko.  She forces him to release Inga’s parents.  Reunited with Inga, they all travel to Oz.  The Wizard discovers that Bilbil is actually Prince Bobo of Boboland who has been turned into a goat by a cruel magician.  He and Glinda are able to restore him to human form, which also cures his disagreeable disposition.

Inga, his parents, Rinkitink, and Bobo return to the rebuilt island of Pingaree. Soon afterwards, a boat arrives from Gilgad to take Rinkitink back home.  Rinkitink objects that he does not want to return to his royal duties, but eventually is persuaded to return, accompanied by his friend Prince Bobo.

Read more about Rinkitink In Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.   

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The 1916 first edition front cover image shown at the top of this page is © John R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.  

Books: The Scarecrow Of Oz By L. Frank Baum

1915 first edition front cover image © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

About The Scarecrow Of Oz

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking here.   

The Scarecrow of Oz is the ninth book set in the Land of Oz written by L. Frank Baum.  Published on July 16, 1915, it was Baum’s personal favourite of the Oz books and tells of Cap’n Bill and Trot journeying to Oz and, with the help of the Scarecrow, overthrowing the cruel King Krewl of Jinxland.  Cap’n Bill and Trot (Mayre Griffiths) had previously appeared in two other novels by Baum, The Sea Fairies and Sky Island.

Background

The novel is dedicated to The Uplifters of Los Angeles. The Lofty and Exalted Order of Uplifters, a select subgroup of the elite Los Angeles Athletic Club, was a social and fraternal organization of prominent southern California businessmen and public figures.  Baum had been active in the group since he first moved to Los Angeles in 1909 and served among the Excelsiors, the group’s governing board.  He also wrote and acted in their shows and he played the bass drum in their band.

A small group of Uplifters were the key investors in The Oz Film Manufacturing Company, organized to make movies of Baum books and stories.  The investors put up $100,000; Baum was named president and received a block of stock in the company in payment for the cinema rights to his works.  The company’s first project was a film of The Patchwork Girl of Oz; and its second project, released in October 1914, was His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz, produced at a cost of $23,500, and with a cast (according to the not-always factually reliable Baum) of 130.

Baum hoped that the movie would be a success, and provide a big publicity boost to the Scarecrow novel to follow in 1915.  Things did not quite work out as the optimistic author hoped; the film did not earn enough to cover its costs.  The first edition of the novel sold around 14,300 copies, only a couple hundred more than its predecessor, Tik-Tok of Oz—though in the long run, The Scarecrow of Oz would be one of the more popular instalments in the Oz series.

Like Tik-Tok, Scarecrow contains a significant romantic element—the Rose Princess and Private Files in the former, and Gloria and Pon in the latter—that was not typical of the earlier Oz books.  Perhaps this was a factor in the books’ limited reception.  In adapting his children’s stories for stage and film versions, Baum had to compromise between appealing to children and to adults.  His films suffered with audiences because of this conflict in audience expectation.  Perhaps this confusion affected the sales of the books as well, to some degree.

Although the journey of an American child to Oz had long been a favourite plot for Baum, this work represented its last appearance: no more children would be inducted into Oz for the duration of his work on the series

The Ork, voiced by Peter MacNicol, appeared in an episode of The Oz Kids.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Cap’n Bill, a sailor with a wooden peg-leg, and his friend, a little girl named Trot, set out from California on a calm day for a short ride in their rowboat.  A freak whirlpool capsizes their boat and pulls them underwater, where they are carried by mermaids (referred to but not seen) to a cave.  They are soon joined by a flying creature called an Ork.  Passing through a dark tunnel out of the cave, the three arrive at an island inhabited by a grim man calling himself Pessim the Observer.  Cap’n Bill and Trot reduce their size by eating magic shrinking-berries, and the Ork carries them away from the island to the land of Mo, where they eat another type of magic berries and resume their normal size.

They meet the Bumpy Man, who specializes in serving sugar and molasses and has some of their appearance too.  After dining on Mo rain (lemonade) and Mo snow (popcorn), they run into Button-Bright, the boy from The Road to Oz who has gotten lost again.  Cap’n Bill calls down some of the native birds (who, like all birds in fairy countries, can talk back) and offers them the growing berries to make them large enough to carry himself, Trot, and Button-Bright to the land of Oz.  When they make it across the desert, Button-Bright, Cap’n Bill, and Trot are set down in a field and the Ork leaves them to find his own country, which he got lost from on a routine flight.

The place Button-Bright, Cap’n Bill, and Trot have arrived in, Jinxland, is cut off from the rest of Oz by a range of high mountains and a bottomless crevice.  The kingdom has had a turbulent recent history.  The rightful king of Jinxland, King Kynd, was removed by his prime minister Phearse, who was in turn removed by his prime minister Krewl who now rules over the land.  An unpleasant but wealthy citizen named Googly-Goo seeks to marry King Kynd’s daughter, Princess Gloria; however, she is in love with Pon, the current gardener’s boy, who is the son of the first usurper Phearse. King Krewl and Googly-Goo hire a witch named Blinkie to freeze Gloria’s heart so that she will no longer love Pon.  Cap’n Bill happens on this plot, and to keep him from interfering, Blinkie turns him into a grasshopper.  She then freezes Gloria’s heart. Googly-Goo proposes to her, but now that her heart is frozen, she does not love anyone at all, including Googly-Goo, whose proposal she scornfully declines.

The Scarecrow is at Glinda’s palace in the Quadling Country and learns about these events from reading Glinda’s Great Book of Records, a magical volume that transcribes every event in the world at the instant it happens.  The Scarecrow wants to help Cap’n Bill, Button-Bright, and Trot, and Glinda sends him to Jinxland with some of her magic to aid him.  The Scarecrow travels to Jinxland and joins forces with Trot, Cap’n Bill (who is still a grasshopper), and the Ork, who flies off to his homeland for reinforcements.  The Scarecrow attempts to depose Krewl and is captured, with Googly-Goo suggesting the Scarecrow be burned, but then the Ork arrives just in time with fifty other Orks, who attack the Jinxlanders and turn the tables on Krewl.  The victorious party then arrives at Blinkie’s and makes her undo her magic on Cap’n Bill and Princess Gloria by using a magic powder to shrink her in size.  When she has undone her evil spells, the Scarecrow stops Blinkie’s shrinking, but she remains at a small size and loses all her magic powers.

Gloria takes the throne of Jinxland and elevates Pon to be her royal consort, and the Scarecrow, Button-Bright, Cap’n Bill, Trot, and the Orks return to the Emerald City for a celebration.

Read more about The The Scarecrow Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.   

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The 1915 first edition front cover image shown at the top of this page is © John R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.  

Books: Tik-Tok Of Oz By L. Frank Baum

1914 first edition front cover image © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking here.   

About Tik-Tok Of Oz

Tik-Tok of Oz is the eighth Land of Oz book written by L. Frank Baum, published on June 19, 1914.  The book has little to do with Tik-Tok and is primarily the quest of the Shaggy Man (introduced in The Road to Oz) to rescue his brother and his resulting conflict with the Nome King.

The endpapers of the first edition held maps: one of Oz itself, and one of the continents on which Oz and its neighbouring countries belonged.  These were the first maps printed of Oz.

Commentary

In 1913, Baum’s long-delayed and heavily-adapted stage version of Ozma of Oz, re-titled The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, was produced in Los Angeles, with moderate success.  The music was composed by Louis F. Gottschalk, Baum’s favourite composer, who would also be the dedicatee of the Tik-Tok novel a year later.  Baum adapted some of the material from the stage production for the novel.  As in Ozma of Oz, a shipwreck precipitates the heroine into her adventure, and the quest of the Shaggy Man for his brother, who was named Wiggy in the play, is another attempt to rescue a prisoner of the Nome King.  The picking of Ozga is a motif found in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz.

The book has several continuity errors with earlier books in the series, particularly The Road to Oz.  Whereas Polychrome met the Shaggy Man in that book, this point is neglected by Baum in Tik-Tok.  Also, whereas the Shaggy Man merely needs to carry the Love Magnet on his person for it to work in The Road to Oz, in this book it is necessary for him to remove it from his pocket and physically show it to those he wishes to love him.

Tik-Tok of Oz was more modestly produced than earlier Oz books, with twelve colour plates instead of sixteen.  Its first edition sold a little over 14,000 copies — a respectable figure, but 3,000 fewer than The Patchwork Girl of Oz had done the year before.  Baum’s books were facing stiff new competition — from his own earlier books.  The reprint house M. A. Donohue & Co. had purchased the rights to several early Baum works from Bobbs-Merrill, and was marketing cut-rate editions.  People were less willing to pay the usual $1.25 for a new Oz book when the original Wizard of Oz was selling for $0.35.

Tik-Tok of Oz also contained the first map of Oz and its neighbouring countries, which proved to be a very popular feature.  Unfortunately for the principle of consistency, this initial map of Oz was drawn backwards, with the Munchkin Country in the left and the Winkie Country in the right, with the compass rose reversed to keep the Munchkin Country in the east and the Winkie Country in the west.  Subsequent maps from the publisher corrected the compass rose, but not the locations.  This may explain why Ruth Plumly Thompson reversed the locations from Baum’s — in her books the Munchkin country is west; and her Winkies East (see for instance Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz but also in several other books).  James E. Haff and Dick Martin ultimately corrected these in new maps designed for The International Wizard of Oz Club.  A squarish map that largely follows Haff and Martin appears in The Dictionary of Imaginary Places.  The presence of a Davy Jones Island on this map indicates that the inclusion of the character Davy Jones, a wooden whale, as a decoration on the map, was misinterpreted by the book’s recartographers, as no such place appears in any Oz books up to that book’s publication.

The 1993 novel Queen Ann in Oz is a sequel to Tik-Tok of Oz.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Queen Ann Soforth of Oogaboo, a small monarchy separated from the rest of Oz’s Winkie Country, sets out to raise an army to conquer Oz.  Seventeen men eventually make up the Army of Oogaboo (sixteen officers and one private); they march out of their valley. Glinda the Good, protector of Oz, magically rearranges the path through the mountains and Queen Ann and her army march out of Oz into a low-lying, befogged country.

Betsy Bobbin, a girl who is a year older than Dorothy Gale, and her loyal mule Hank have washed ashore during a storm.  They arrive at a large greenhouse that is the domain of the Rose Kingdom, where the roses tell them that no strangers are allowed.  Just as the Royal Gardener (apparently the only human allowed in this flowery kingdom) is about to pass a sentence on Betsy and Hank, the Shaggy Man falls through the greenhouse’s roof, and charms the Gardener into sparing all of their lives with his Love Magnet.  The flowers, not having hearts, are unaffected by the Magnet, and force the travellers to leave, taking with them the newly plucked Rose Princess Ozga, a cousin of Ozma, the ruler of Oz.

The Shaggy Man relates how Ozma sent him here via the Magic Belt because he wanted to find his brother, who went digging underground in Colorado and disappeared.  He surmised that the Nome King, ruler of the underground Nome Kingdom, captured him.  They meet up with Polychrome the Rainbow’s Daughter, and they rescue Tik-Tok from the well where the Nome King had tossed him.  Once Tik-Tok is wound up, he accompanies Betsy, Hank, the Shaggy Man, Ozga, and Polychrome to their chance encounter with Queen Ann and her army.  In a rage, Queen Ann orders them to be seized and bound, but Private Files — the only private in this army of generals, colonels, and majors — refuses to bind innocent girls.  He resigns his commission on the spot.  When Queen Ann learns of the riches to be found in the Nome King’s underground kingdom, she calms down and accepts the services of Tik-Tok as her new private.

The Nome King (who has recovered from having drunk the Water of Oblivion in The Emerald City of Oz) is aghast at this group coming toward his underground kingdom.  Since no one can be killed in Oz, the Nome King seeks to discourage them, first by taking them through the Rubber Country, and then disposing of them by dropping them through the Hollow Tube, a conduit leading to the other side of the world.

There the party enters the jurisdiction of the immortal called Tittiti-Hoochoo, the Great Jinjin, who vows to punish the Nome King for using the Hollow Tube.  He sends Tik-Tok and the others back with his Instrument of Vengeance, a lackadaisical dragon named Quox.  Quox and his riders bound from the other end of the Tube into an army of Nomes and narrowly evade them.  Queen Ann and the Army of Oogaboo fall into the Slimy Cave when they enter the Nome Kingdom; the Shaggy Man and his companions are captured by the Nome King.  Ann and her army escape the cave while the Nome King amuses himself by transforming his captives into various objects.  Quox arrives, bursting through the main cavern.  The Nome King sees the ribbon around Quox’s neck and forgets all the magic he ever knew.  The Nome King is driven out of his kingdom when Quox releases six eggs from the padlock around his neck.  The eggs, poisonous to Nomes, follow the Nome King to the Earth’s surface and confine him there.

The new Nome King, the former chief steward Kaliko, vows to help the Shaggy Man find his brother, whom he knows is in the Metal Forest.  The Shaggy Man meets his brother in the centre of the Forest, but the brother was cursed with a charm of ugliness by the former Nome King.  A kiss will break a charm.  First Betsy, a mortal maid, tries to undo the spell, then Ozga, a mortal maid who was once a fairy.  Finally, it’s the fairy Polychrome’s kiss that restores the Shaggy Man’s brother to his former self.

There is a banquet of rejoicing in the Nome Kingdom, and the former Nome King earnestly pleads to be let back into the underground lair (“No Nome can really be happy except underground”), which Kaliko allows on condition that he behave himself.  Once on the surface again, Polychrome ascends her rainbow and Ozma uses the magic belt to bring Tik-Tok back to Oz and send Queen Ann, the Army of Oogaboo, Files, and Ozga back to Oogaboo.  The Shaggy Man only agrees to return when his brother, Betsy, and Hank are allowed to enter Oz too.

Upon being welcomed in Oz, Hank, the Cowardly Lion, the Hungry Tiger, and the Saw-Horse debate who is the best mistress — Betsy (for Hank), Dorothy (for both the Lion and the Tiger), or Ozma (for the Saw-Horse).  The three girls are listening and laugh at a silly quarrel, which the animals realize is silly too.  In addition, Dorothy finally gets to hear her dog Toto speak — for all animals can in the Land of Oz.  Finally, Betsy decides to stay in Oz forever.

Read more about The Tik-Tok Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.   

Blog Posts

Notes And Links

The 1914 first edition front cover image shown at the top of this page is © John R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.  

Books: The Patchwork Girl Of Oz By L. Frank Baum

1913 first edition front cover image is © John. R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia

You can download this book and the thirteen other fantasy books in the Oz series by L. Frank Baum via Project Gutenberg by clicking here.   

About The Patchwork Girl Of Oz

The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum is a children’s novel, the seventh in the Oz series.  Characters include the Woozy, Ojo “the Unlucky”, Unc Nunkie, Dr. Pipt, Scraps (the patchwork girl), and others.  The book was first published on July 1, 1913, with illustrations by John R. Neill.  In 1914, Baum adapted the book to film through his Oz Film Manufacturing Company.

In the previous Oz book, The Emerald City of Oz, magic was used to isolate Oz from all contact with the outside world.  Baum did this to end the Oz series but was forced to restart the series with this book due to financial hardship.  In the prologue, he reconciles Oz’s isolation with the appearance of a new Oz book by explaining that he contacted Dorothy in Oz via wireless telegraphy, and she obtained Ozma’s permission to tell Baum this story.

The book was dedicated to Sumner Hamilton Britton, the young son of one of its publishers, Sumner Charles Britton of Reilly & Britton.

Background And Analysis

In reference to The Patchwork Girl of Oz, one of Baum’s letters to his publisher, Sumner Britton of Reilly & Britton, offers unusual insight into Baum’s manner of creating his Oz fantasies:

“A lot of thought is required on one of these fairy tales.  The odd characters are a sort of inspiration, liable to strike me at any time, but the plot and plan of adventures takes me considerable time…I live with it day by day, jotting down on odd slips of paper the various ideas that occur and in this way getting my materials together.  The new Oz book is at this stage….But…it’s a long way from being ready for the printer yet.  I must rewrite it, stringing the incidents into consecutive order, elaborating the characters, etc.  Then it’s typewritten.  Then it’s revised, re typewritten and sent on to Reilly and Britton.”

The same correspondence (November 23–7, 1912) discusses the deleted Chapter 21 of the book, The Garden of Meats.  The text of the chapter has not survived, but Neill’s illustrations and their captions still exist.  The deleted chapter dealt with a race of vegetable people comparable to the Mangaboos in Chapters 4–6 of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz.  The vegetable people grow what Baum elsewhere calls “meat people,” apparently for food; Neill’s pictures show plants with the heads of human children being watered by their growers.  This is thematically connected with the anthropophagous plants in Chapter 10 of Patchwork Girl.  Frank Reilly tactfully wrote to Baum that the material was not “in harmony with your other fairy stories,” and would generate “considerable adverse criticism.”  Baum saw his point; the chapter was dropped.

At least at one point in his life, Baum stated that he considered The Patchwork Girl of Oz “one of the two best books of my career”, the other being The Sea FairiesThe book was a popular success, selling just over 17,000 copies—though this was somewhat lower than the total for the previous book, The Emerald City of Oz, and marked the start of a trend in declining sales for the Oz books that would not reverse until The Tin Woodman of Oz in 1918.

The Plot

SPOILER ALERT: Skip this bit if you haven’t read the book and are planning to do so!

Ojo, known as Ojo the Unlucky, lives in poverty with his laconic uncle Unc Nunkie in the woods of the Munchkin Country in Oz.  They visit their neighbour, the magician Dr. Pipt who is about to complete the six-year process of preparing the magical Powder of Life, which can bring inanimate objects to life.  Pipt’s wife has constructed a life-sized stuffed girl out of patchwork and wishes her husband to animate her to serve as an obedient household servant.  They also meet another of Pipt’s creations, Bungle, an extremely vain talking cat made of glass.  The Powder of Life successfully animates the patchwork girl, but an accident causes both Pipt’s wife and Unc Nunkie to be turned to stone.  Dr. Pipt tells Ojo that he must obtain five ingredients to make a compound to counteract the petrifaction spell.

Ojo and the patchwork girl, who calls herself Scraps, along with Bungle, embark on a journey to obtain the magic ingredients: a six-leaved clover, the wing of a yellow butterfly, water from a dark well, a drop of oil from a live man’s body, and three hairs from a Woozy’s tail.  Scraps exhibits a wild, carefree personality, and is prone to a spontaneous recitation of nonsense poetry.  After several adventures, they meet a Woozy, a blocky quadruped who agrees to let them have three hairs from its tail.  But they are unable to remove the hairs, so they take the Woozy along with them.

The party is captured by large animate plants, but they are rescued by the fortuitous arrival of the Shaggy Man.  He leads them to the Emerald City to meet Princess Ozma but warns Ojo that picking a six-leaved clover is forbidden by law in Oz.  Along the way, they meet the Scarecrow, who is quite smitten with Scraps, as she is with him.  Just outside the Emerald City, Ojo sees a six-leaved clover by the road and, believing himself to be unobserved, picks it.  When they arrive at the city gates, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers approaches them and announces that Ojo is under arrest.

Brought to trial before Ozma, Ojo confesses and Ozma pardons him and allows him to keep the clover.  Dorothy and the Scarecrow join Ojo and Scraps as they continue their search for the remaining ingredients. Along the way, they meet Jack Pumpkinhead, the playful but annoying Tottenhots, and the man-eating 21-foot-tall giant Mr. Yoop, before reaching the subterranean dwellings of the Hoppers, who each have just one leg, and the neighbouring Horners, who each have one horn on their head.  The two groups are on the verge of war due to a misunderstanding, but Scraps reconciles them.  A grateful Horner leads the group to a well in a dark radium mine, and Ojo collects a flask of water from it.

The group continues to the castle of the Tin Woodsman who rules the Winkie Country, since yellow butterflies are most likely to be found in that yellow-dominated quadrant of Oz.  While talking to the Tin Woodsman, Ojo notices a drop of oil about to drip from his body, and he catches it in a vial.  He explains that he now has all the ingredients except one.  But when he describes the last one, the Tin Woodsman is horrified at the idea of killing an innocent butterfly and forbids them from doing so in his realm.  Ojo is devastated, but the Tin Woodsman proposes that they all travel back to the Emerald City to ask Ozma’s advice.

Ozma tells them that Dr. Pipt has been practising magic illegally and has therefore been deprived of his powers.  But the petrified Unc Nunkie and Pipt’s wife have been brought to the Emerald City and as they all watch, the Wizard of Oz restores them to life.  Ojo and Unc Nunkie are given a new house to live in near the Emerald City and the Tin Woodsman calls Ojo “Ojo the Lucky”.

Read more about The Patchwork Girl Of Oz here.

The above articles were sourced from Wikipedia and are subject to change.   

Blog Posts

Links

The 1913 first edition front cover image shown at the top of this page is © John R. Neill and is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Project Gutenberg – Project Gutenberg is an online library of free e-books and was the first provider of free electronic books.  Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, invented e-books in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of them and related content today.

The Wonderful Wiki of Oz – Official website.  A wonderful and welcoming encyclopedia of all things Oz that anyone can edit or contribute Oz-related information and Oz facts to enjoy.

The Oz Archive on Facebook – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Twitter – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on Instagram – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.

The Oz Archive on TikTok – Archiving and celebrating the legacy of Oz.