"Navvies": Builders of English Canals and Railroads in Dept. 56 Villages

One of my most popular historical blogs is from Feb. 25, 2011, entitled "Abington Canal Series."  I re-posted this article just below today's blog, should you wish to reference it after reading about "Navvies":  Builders of English Canals and Railroads!
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"English Navvies and the Iron Horse, Acton Grange,"
Birtles, Warrington, from Salford Local History Library,
published: www.transportarchive.org.uk/ getobject.php?rnum=T2176&searchitem=&mtv=&pnum=

The canal and railroad building-spree that gripped England in the early 19th century contributed to the rise of the industrial age by providing a safe, efficient, and economical means to transport raw materials to factories and to distribute the manufactured products to cities.

New Jobs and New Ways of Life:  The men who built the canals and railroads spawned a new and distinct subculture in Victorian society.  This is a story of the builders of canals, and how they lived.

Navvies near Sheffield, Yorkshire,
Digitally repaired by Andre Hallam,
Published by Brett Payne, "Photo-Sleuth."

Navvies:  Colorful Guys who Built the Big Stuff:  Building canals and railroads was hard, dirty, dangerous work performed by men called "navvies," or laborers, who worked during England's Industrial Revolution on large-scale civilian projects.

Dept. 56, Christmas in the City,
"Keeping Sidewalks Clear," 808830
Surrounded by dirt, this figure would
look like the men in the photo above. 

Since workers such as these frequently had a say in plotting routes of canals and railroads, they became known as navigators, or "navvies."  Most of their work, though, was physical.  They used pick axes, shovels, and back-breaking strength to dig canal ditches and shape rail tip slopes, and dry acerbic wit to dampen the hardness and isolation of their existence.Department 56 Christmas in the City Village Keeping Sidewalks Clear Accessory Figurine

If you would like to see some dramatic images of canal-building, with a wonderful musical accompaniment by author and musician Foster Brown, click on this YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcDJ5hmTkpo  You can find information about Foster Brown at www.FosterBrown.net.

Navvies in front of their hut in Leicester, circa 1897.
Leicestershire Co. Council,
Pub. by Railwayarchive.org

Often working in sparsely-populated and inaccessible locations, navvies were housed in temporary buildings, dormitories, or shoddy huts, which distanced them from local residents and culture.  Our own Villager Charles John Buffam (Boz) Dickens himself described one of these huts in "All Year Round," Vol. 74:

...poor thin edifices of a single storey, facing the Canal...as higgledgy-piggledy as the Canal banks in the neighborhood...Disorder and dirt were rampant.  And the walls of the room were loosely papered with fragments of fifty different patterns, which from they grime might have been rescued from a Runcorn Ashpit.(1)

Dept. 56, Dickens Village,
"Fagin's Hide-A-Way," 56.55522

Fagin hardly lived better, and his Dickens' Village house could stand as a Navvie home:Dept. 56 Dickens Village Oliver Twist Fagin's Hide-a-way 55522

Dept. 56, Dickens' Village,
"Constables," 56.55794

Most often "navvies" were single men or living away from their families.  Their living conditions were so bad that it was difficult to stay clean or prepare food in a normal manner.  Because of this transitory lifestyle, they did not integrate with surrounding towns.  This isolation from conventional society brought on violence, heavy drinking, and lack of conventional morality, which further isolated them. It was a vicious cycle, and the police were frequently called in.  When navvies completed their work and left the area, local communities celebrated.

Yet Dickens had kind words for the men, and gave hope for an improvement in their lives:

Navvies...big ruddy fellows, most of them, walking advertisements of the virtues of honest open-air toil....And yet, I daresay, when the "Ship Canal" job is over, the tenants of this dismal camp will settle down elsewhere and form as neat a home as need be.  The transitory does not stimulate like the permanent. (2) 

Dept. 56, Dickens' Village,
"Keeping the Streets Clean," 56.58532,
Surrounded by dirt, these would work well in
a construction scene with "navvies."

Navvie Names:  Their names for themselves belied their humor, and said a lot about them.  "Lank" would hail from Lancashire, or was lanky.  "Yorkie," from Yorkshire;  "Moonrakers" were Wiltshire men; "Taff," a Welshman.  A "Punch" was a man from Suffolk, named after their big horses, or sometimes the name just referred to a wide-shouldered squat man, like "Punch and Judy."  A common nickname was "Scan," short for "Scandalous...a name so common it's a mystery how so many navvies managed to scandalize so many others as to earn it."  (Read that again if you didn't get it the first time.)  (3)Keeping the Streets Clean #56.58532

From http://www.victorianweb.org/history/work/sullivan/4.html
Notice the "pantry" and the metal tea bottles.

Navvie Language--Colorful as the Men Themselves:  To the "navvie," food was called "tommy," and it was purchased in a "tommy-shop,"
and wrapped in red and white fabric called a "tommykerchief."  The "tommy" was carried to work in a straw bag called a "pantry."  Tea was the "navvie's" drink, made onsite in a "drum," which was any biscuit tin or basket with a handle.  Making tea was "drumming up," and the tea was carried by the "navvie" in a metal tea bottle.  A "nipper" was a boy who "drummed up." (4)

Dept. 56, Christmas in the City,
"Bucket Lunch," 799984
Notice how similar he is
to the men in the photo above.

Department 56 Christmas in the City provides a perfect fill-in for a lunching "navvie," the "Bucket Lunch."Department 56 Christmas in the City Bucket Lunch 799984

According to a "navvie," to "welsh" or to "slope" was to do a "midnight flit," or sneak away without paying your debts.  The worst sort of "sloping" was for one "navvie" to steal from another, though that was not wide-spread.  "Sloping" was considred dangerous, since you never knew when you would meet up with your victim again. "Slopers" were not considered "navvies," but rather "...moochers (that) have no business working with decent men, and bringing disgrace on our respectable class.  I wish every (sloper) was back and starving where they came from." (5)

Gang of navvies near Haddenham,
Buckinhamshire, from
www.railwayarchive.org.uk/stories/getobjectstory.php?rnum=L2202&enum=le123&pnum=0&maxp=8

Dept. 56, Dickens' Village,
"London Gas Worker," 56.58576
Surrounded by dirt, a good representation
of man in a navvie costume.

Navvie Dress:  The most common clothes for navvies were knee-breeches or long sturdy woven pants, vests, white shirts, and thick-soled shoes.  Apparently in the early railway period, navvies dressed more gallantly, with "scarlet waistcoats, glowing neckerchiefs, velveteen coats, white felt hats with the brims turned up, breeches buttoned at the knees, high-laced boots.  The "navvies" above, and the Dept. 56 worker to the left, however, seemed more sensibly attired. 6)London Gas Worker Dept. 56 Dickens Village D56 Dv


References:  (1) http://books.google.com/books?id=1N4RAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=charles+dickens+canals+navvies&source=bl&ots=VwHNBIRyKF&sig=z63ImNMTF4eJqYBPpdTFSCXweR0&hl=en&ei=yZu1Ta-iOsffiALbq7ivBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false  (2)  See #1 above.  (3), (4), and (5) http://www.victorianweb.org/history/work/sullivan/4.html