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BEE

Craft

Fleet No

Built at

Hull

Cost

Type

BEE

 

 

Wrought Iron

 

Steam boat

Owners

Address

Source for

First Date

Grand Junction Canal Co

 

 

1861

Steamer Registrations

Owner

Place

PH No

As

Date Inspected

Date Registered

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steamer Gaugings

Owner

Place

Gauging Number

Notes

Date

 

 

 

 

 

Boiler

 

 

Engine

 

 

Steamer

History

 

Involved in Blisworth Tunnel accident  (see below)

 

Sold in Grand Junction Canal Co auction  (Lot No 116) £6.16.6 (6½ gns), lying Wenlock Basin. Probably without machinery

 

 

6.9.1861

 

11.10.1876

Fate

 

Date

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Documents on File

See separate file  “Inquest Reports on Bee accident 6.9.1861”

The following précis report gives the boat name as “Wasp”.  This should be “Bee”

Extract from The Northwich Guardian Saturday 14th September 1861 (Page 3 Col 5). 

“FRIGHTFUL ACCIDENT IN A CANAL TUNNEL – A dreadful accident occurred on Friday night, in a tunnel on the Grand Junction Canal, near Blisworth.  A barge, called the Wasp, fitted with a small screw propeller, was on its way from Birmingham to London, having another boat in tow.  In the first boat were two men, named Gower and Jones, engine drivers, and one or two other men employed on the Canal.  They were passing through the tunnel, and stopped at a place called a “stanks”, which is a number of piles driven in to afford a standing place for some workmen engaged in repairing the tunnel. Here they took in a carpenter named Edward Webb.  They proceeded on their way, and soon afterwards met in the tunnel two other boats, which were being worked by “leggers”.  They became entangled, but were by some exertion – on whose part cannot now be ascertained – set free.  The boat which the steamer was towing was however loosed from it, and was left behind.  The smoke from the engine flue became dreadfully dense, and very6 much affected the “leggers”, so much so that they could not work.  On board the steamboat its effect was such that it suffocated two men, one of whom fell into the water.  A third man in the company’s employ was so overpowered that, on arriving at the mouth of the tunnel, he too fell overboard;  the water, however, restored him to partial consciousness, and he managed to climb on  board the boat again and shut off the steam.  When the boat arrived at the lock, the young carpenter was found lying dead in the hold, one of the boatmen was missing, and the two engine-men were lying near the furnace awfully burned.  The following is a list of those who were killed and injured:- Dead: Wm. Webb, carpenter, of Stoke Bruerne; Edward Broadbent, boatman, of Braunston, living at Birmingham.  Injured: Joseph James, engine driver,  severely burned;  Wm Gower, engine driver, severely burned;  John Chambers, boatman of Warwick, injured by immersion and partial suffocation.

 

 

GJCC Minutes (PRO)

 

PRO RAIL 830/16

 

27.9.1861

140.  The chairman reported that on the 6th inst an accident had occurred on board one of the Company’s steam boats in the Blisworth Tunnel, by which two men, Webb and Edward Broadbent had been suffocated and two men severely burnt and that every possible attention had been given to the men injured who were now in the Northampton Infirmary and that the sum of £45 had been given by the Company to the widows of the deceased persons.