Ed M

An amazing find. However the boat MARGARET that I'm researching is a lot younger than 1900. Probably built 1944.

Yes the knees have Harts hill stamped on them

Bill, Yes she did look very sad, that's where she was when I bought her. No-one at the yard knew what the boat had originally been. So far my best guess is that the boat was originally the MARGARET. It is only a guess... because any proof of this theory has so far eluded me! I don't even know if the MARGARET was a Harris motor boat (similar to BEN).

Two rivets to the right (i.e. forward) of the leg you can see in this picture how the rivets change in type. This is just a newer gunwale angle that has been riveted on, and not a different section of a different boat!

I bought the dredger SUSAN in 1996. My earlier pictures show SUSAN at work at Stretton Wharf on the Oxford Canal later that year. The pictures show the Harris Bros back end. A commonly held view is the rest of the boat was a different boat. This is not true. The dredger was built using the back 35ft of the same boat. I bought the boat back last year with the plan to rebuild it as a motor boat. This work is being done now. And in taking the boat apart it became absolutely clear that the dredger was built from the back 35ft of the same boat. These pictures show the back of the boat last year. Recesses had previously been cut out of the sides of the boat in four places for the dredger legs. It had been the view that these recesses were joins between three separate boats. It is not. The same rivets can be seen ether side of the legs. And the same riveted bottom continues through the boat. The question I am asking is which Harris motor boat was it?

I don't know if the MARGARET was a boat built by Harris Bros. But here are pictures of a Harris motor boat that was made into Matty's dredger. My theory is that this boat was originally the MARGARET. Unfortunately it is no more than a theory unless anyone can come up with something to support it! Any thoughts??

Sorry Peter if you didn't know I'm Ed Mortimer. You are right... I do have an old hull!! And it is the back 35ft of a Harris motor boat. So, a similar boat to the BEN. Laurence already knows that I have a theory that my boat might be the MARGARET. But I really didn't want to "come clean" because I didn't want to make this suggestion. I wanted someone else to suggest it! Because, to quote Laurence, I want to be "dealing with facts not fiction". I bought the boat more than twenty years ago from Dewsbury and Proud in Coseley. The boat at that time had been converted into a dredger. I did sell the boat as a dredger, and have more recently bought it back. I am now in the process getting the boat converted back to a motor boat. hence my desire for an identity! So, back to the thread, could the boat MARGARET be another motor boat (similar to BEN) built by Harris Bros, in Netherton?

It would be very nice to prove or abandon the idea put forward by Laurence that MARGARET was a Josher motor. So your analysis would be a good idea. I too was puzzled by the lightness of this boat, appearing to be much lighter than a Josher or a Grand Union boat. Because the boat was gauged as a carrying boat for The Reliance Coal Supply Company I would have thought the boat would have been a conventional motor boat, not powered by an outboard. What happened to The Reliance Coal Supply Company? Did it become part of the NCB on Nationalisation? And if so does this explain how MARGARET became part of the SWD boat fleet?

Following on the theory put forward by Laurence. Can anybody think of any Josher that was in the South Western Division of BW? The boat would also have to be one that FMC had already sold by 1944 (to The Reliance Coal Supply Company), and not one transferred on Nationalisation.

There are lots of boats called "Margaret" including the hostel boat and the potteries boat. But the "Margaret" I am asking about is a metal motor narrowboat gauged in Birmingham in 1944. I'd agree with Laurence that it quite likely could be one of the second hand FMC motors. If so, then which one??? However, for me the off putting bit about saying "Margaret" was a Josher motor is that the listed length (69'1") and long hold length are not Josher dimensions. I know the gauging measurements are often a bit out, I just think that listing the boat as 1'5" shorter than a Josher makes the boat unlikely to have been a Josher. Any thoughts?

Does anyone know anything about the narrowboat "Margaret" (BCN 2189). This was a full length metal narrowboat gauged in 1944, so surely must still exist?? Length 69'1" Beam 7'1/2" Gauged BCN2189 on May 10th 1944. Owners: The Reliance Coal Supply Company. Wednesbury. I suppose the boat could be an older boat re-gauged in 1944, or was the boat newly built in 1944? Any ideas?