"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!
______________

"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

Characters in My Christmas Village

Every year in December, amid the shopping and wrapping, cooking and cleaning, and entertaining and being entertained, I am careful to carve out one Saturday morning, just after Thanksgiving.  Latte in hand, I settle into our living room early in the morning.  I carefully slit open the tape of one of my Christmas boxes, and then, with the pop and sparkle of a Disney parade, a gaggle of eccentric and lovable friends march back into my life. One by one I greet them as they puff out of their boxes and clamor up into my Dickens Village.

Dept 56, Town Crier & Chimney Sweep,
56.55697

First, there is Village Mayor Major Minor, who has a proclivity to make proclamations in the town green, and while he is a bit pompous, on rare occasions he has something important to say.  I do question whether the frequency of his insight rises to the level of intent, or merely reflects the random occurrence of luck.  Nearby, coming out of White Horse Bakery, is Owner Milly Flower, cradling a batch of Banbury Cross buns in her apron.  Milly is the salt of the earth, overworked, overwrought, and kind and generous to the core.  She is searching frantically for the Banbury Cross recipe to share with you.

Dept 56, A Christmas Beginning,
56.58568

Village Arborist, Hefner Pine, shoulders the responsibility to cut and deliver Christmas trees to every family in the Village, and he does it with the brilliance, efficiency, and understanding incumbent on one who holds a Sierra Club card in his back pocket.  Mr. Ashley Brush, the local Chimney Sweep is elderly and bent, and his job is always difficult.  He is gruff, as one would expect from someone in such sooty clothes who works many hours, and yet, it is Mr. Brush who feeds the village cats, and it is Mr. Brush who is the favorite among the children.  There are many more of these characters, to whom I will introduce you in the course of this blog.  I will also provide you histories of some of the interesting aspects of Victorian culture, so you can better understand these friends.

Over the years, as I executed my annual construction of an English Victorian village, I began to realize the power I was wielding. I am like Plato writing The Republic, Thomas More envisioning Utopia, Thoreau re-imagining Walden Pond.  I may make my village whatever I want, for whomever I wish to invite.  If I want a stream, I shall create water.  If I want a railroad to link my town with the outside world, I shall install a track.  If I want my villagers to nibble Banbury Cross buns, I shall invite Milly Flower to make them.  If I want Dr. Watts to have broadband access, Dr. Watts shall have cable.

Dept 56, Constables
56.55794

Furthermore, I decided that my Dickens Village shall have no catastrophes, like fires or earthquakes, and therefore no Fire Station and no firefighters are necessary …  Likewise, the atmosphere of my village can sustain no citizens with criminal proclivities; therefore I do not require a police station or policemen.  Oh, yes, Sheriff Dudley Dunnit is on staff, but his services are mostly to organize heavy snowfall removal, or to help Milly Flower recover her spilled buns…Dudley is on the right in the picture, along with his dog Ferocious.  The other two gents are retired now, living on big pensions, causing alot of talk in the village right now.

Dept 56, Seton Morris Spice Merchant
56.58308

This year it occurred to me that the animals of the village deserve a Merry Christmas also, and therefore the proprieter of Giggleswick Mutton and Ham went south for better weather, though my own Christmas dinner did feature Chutney Chicken, prepared with spices from Seton Morris, Spice Merchant.  

I hope you come on a visit with me and my cast of characters regularly.  Comments and ideas, in the spirit of Christmas, are most welcome on this blog.  Grinches may be deleted.  Please mark the blog site as a “favorite” so it is easy for you to find: www.christmasvillagefun@blogspot.com

Please email me if you would like to chat about anything Christmas, Village, or historical at my email:

christmasvillagefun@gmail.com