Water trades on the lower River Tyne in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Abstract

This thesis examines the community of water related tradesmen who worked in Newcastle upon Tyne and along the lower river Tyne during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Much of the published literature on the subject is confined to the study of the keelmen and the coal-carrying keels. The thesis re-examines the history of this community using a number of relatively unexplored sources. These include using the records of All Saints parish to examine the composition and dynamics of the population, re-examining the objective evidence for inward migration, particularly from Scotland and the Borders. A further study includes a detailed examination of probate inventories belonging to merchants and tradesmen working in Newcastle, and other communities along the Tyne, for evidence of working boat and ship ownership. These revealed a network of coal owners, merchants and hostmen controlling the coal trade locally, and a spectrum of water tradesmen, including keelmen and watermen, together with other groups including wherrymen and shipwrights. The study revealed an interweaving of the ownership of both ships and river craft, demonstrating the key role of shipwrights, not just as builders of ships and keels, but also as owners of significant quantities of these craft themselves, many of which they rented to hostmen. An examination of Newcastle Port Books showed not only the size of the coal trade, but also the enormous breadth of the non-coal trade into and out of Newcastle, one of the consequences of the growing wealth of Newcastle as a trading centre stimulating the consumption of a wide range of foodstuffs and luxury items. The thesis ends by examining the diary of an apprentice hostman who worked in Newcastle from 1749 to 1756, which highlights many of the changes occurring in Newcastle and the coal trade, and reinforces many of the observations made in the thesis.