Wigan Album

I don't think you'd find any self-respecting local who worked the boats in this area calling himself a bargee. The caption-writer of whichever publication this came from was probably a southerner - perhaps influenced by the Harry H Corbett film 'The Bargee'.
Local barges were usually called boats or flats (from the days when some of the boats on the local broad canals were sea-going coastal sailing boats called flats - the Sankey, the Bridgewater, and the Liverpool end of the Leeds and Liverpool were built to accommodate them). The men who worked them called themselves boatmen or flatmen.

In my school holidays in the 1950,s,I used to go from Westwood power station to Plank lane pit with a man who navigated a coal barge!His name was Hugh Markland and he worked for many years for Britsh Waterways on what was known locally as a coal barge.
I don't think H and S would allow it now,but it was very exciting at the time.

Has anyone on this site visited the Narrow Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port? It is a wonderful place & you can find out about narrow boats & the people who worked on them.

Quite right Rev Long!!
My grandfathers birth certificate has his fathers profession as "Canal Coal Boat Captain" They were a proud lot those boat people.

Plenty "Bargees" used to come to Crook Tip to load up.Long before TV was being transmitted, never mind Harry Corbett.
He wasn't even heard of then. one of 'em used to moor up opposite Horton St. Martland Bridge. A chap called Meadows. He bent () the railings at the side of the road, so he could get straight onto his barge in a morning..

Plenty of barges, Art, and plenty of people working them - but, as I said, they'd not have described themselves as 'bargees'. Your Meadows might have been a descendant of the one lodging with this canal boat family:

1851 Census : Liverpool (Vauxhall District)
Canal No. 6

Thomas Hartley, 37, Boatman born Liverpool
Alice Hartley, 37, born Legitt (?)
James Hartley, 11, Scholar, born Legitt
Ellen Hartley, 1, born Legitt
James Meadows, Lodger, 41, Boatman

My grandparents were canal people My grandfather was the "Hostler" in the stables in Pottery Road. for the Leeds and Liverpool Canal co Horses were changed to travel the Wigan locks His father and brothers ( Prescotts)were Barge captains as were my grandmother,s ( Glover)I have located relations on various census's from Liverpool to Blackburn, my mother was one of 11 children brought up in a canal cottage next to the stables. I have not heard the term " Bargee" The barges of the L & L were 13.5 ft wide or so as to "Narrow boats" the only ones I remember came in pairs bringing H P sauce to a small warehouse they had near Seven Stars Bridgs