Tue 8 Dec 1789
Meeting at the King’s Head Inn, Cirencester
Tonnage on pig iron, pig and sheet lead, settled at four shillings per ton provided that it is carried the full distance of the navigation and can be carried further to Wallbridge without further cost.
Clerks and wharfingers to be appointed and to give security for behavior.
That a master or head wharfinger be appointed to superintend under wharfingers, clerks, servants, and watchmen. Also to collect money and dues for the company. The residence of such head wharfinger to be at Brimscombe Port.
Wharfingers to attend their respective wharfs during the business hours. Also, to attend personally the unloading and loading of coal, goods, wares and merchandise, the weighing, housing and delivery thereof.
Wharfingers to keep correct entries in the books kept at each wharf.
Wharfingers to report every boat owner, master of a boat, watchman, and every other person not conforming to the regulation for orderly conduct and preserving the works from injury.
Also to report persons as do commit depredations upon the company’s property.
Wharfingers to report watchmen deficient in their duty.
Every watchman to sign an agreement with the head wharfinger that he agrees to serve the company diligently and to faithfully give a weekly account to the said wharfinger of the height of the water daily upon the sills of the locks in the course of his watch and of all injuries done to the navigation and works, and by whom, at what time and date.
He shall keep himself sober and if absent from his watch without leave will forfeit three shillings per day. Two months notice to be given.
The head wharfinger to pay watchmen weekly, and provide him a house to live in.
Each watchman to be provided with a copy of the byelaws and an amount of his walks and the distance of his watch. Each watchman to keep the canal, towing paths, fences, canal banks, feeders, drains, Watergates, styles, quicksets (hedge) walls, rails, gates, watercourses, roads, wharfs.
A mason and carpenter to be retained in the service of the canal.
A tonnage book to be kept at each wharf. Another book at each wharf called the Housage book for regulating the entry of all merchandise inward and outward. (Illustration of layout follows.)
Entries to be made immediately.
No gratuities to be made to company employees.
Tables of rates of wharfage in every warehouse.
Wharfingers to investigate ungauged boats or unknown boats.
Ordered that upon any boat being sunk in or upon this navigation masters should give a wharfinger a note agreeing to make good to the company any expense or damage to the company.
Wharfingers and watchmen to attend from the 10th April to the 10th October from 5 o’clock am until 6.00pm. The navigation to be locked up at all other hours (the tunnel excepted).
Boatmen not to break open locks or use violence out of hours or forfeit forty shillings.
Any loading or part of loading not to be discharged upon banks of aqueducts or in lock chambers. Forfeit of forty shillings for every offence.
Stone and rubbish not to be thrown into the canal, sheep not to be washed, horses, cattle sheep, or swine not to graze the towing path or throw or send any dog or other animal into the canal. Forfeit twenty shillings.
No boat to be willfully unmoored or set adrift. Planks or timber not to be floated on the canal so that banks might be injured. Twenty shillings forfeit.
No boatman to steer more than one boat at a time or have any other boat in tow. No person under eighteen to steer, take management of the boat or work locks. Forfeit ten shillings.
Rates of wharfage for all merchandise lying on a wharf longer than 24hrs and also for the use of the crane, weighing, and housing be according to the following Table of Wharfage rates.
All goods to be placed five feet from the water’s edge upon pain of forfeiting forty shillings.
That all boats using the Thames and Severn canal Navigation be gauged by the proper and usual instruments by fixing six of them upon every such boat , viz two upon each side of the head of the boat, two upon each side of the boat in the middle, two upon each side in the stern part: that every boat gauged have plates let into each side of the Thames boats, and into each end of the Severn boats denoting by notches and figures, the number of tons, halves of quarters when loaded such boat does carry, beginning with one ton up to her full loading and that every boat when so gauged be entered in a register kept for that purpose, only according to the following form given.
That every boat when gauged, be examined and discharged of her furniture and it be put down in the register in what state she is in when gauged: that is to say: Whether false bottom or no false bottom, Whether a fireplace or none, Whether tarpaulins or no tarpaulins, Whether boards, planks, pieces of timber or none or what number.
Ordered that every boat shall have on board if the owner choose when gauged: Two deal planks, barrow, bedding and shafts, jury masts, sails, and two shovels, or be allowed for them if gauged without; when found on board 10cwt or in proportion for any part.
If gauged with hearth or fire, it shall be registered, and if taken from on board after gauging the boat owner shall be allowed tonnage for it – 3cwt
If put onboard a boat after the proprietor shall allow the owner of such boat for tonnage-3cwt
If a false bottom put down until regauged in the same manner- 10cwt
To be allowed for each tarpaulin not less than four yards square so that the whole allowance do not exceed - 5cwt.
The state of the boat and furniture to be registered and copies given to owners that pay for a copy.
A copy of the register to be kept at each wharf and any fraud in changing or altering indexes be discovered.
Clerks and wharfingers, to gauge with care. If any faults found to pursue the direction of the act of parliament to recover penalties incurred.
No boat to pass along the canal if not gauged. Any master or owner neglecting to be gauged will forfeit forty shillings.
Byelaw allowing boats exceeding 20 tons to pass locks if loaded during the months of plentiful water to be repealed.
No boat of less than 60 tons to pass through the locks between Brimscombe Port and Inglesham between 1st May and 1st November in every year. Penalty of five pounds for every offence except if loaded with salt, and the boat be 60 feet long and 12 feet wide.
And that from 1st November to the 1stMay no boat of less burthen than 40 tons do pass any lock under the penalty of five pounds.
Every empty boat should give way to loaded boats: and every loaded boat going from Cirencester or Siddington in each line of the canal shall give way to every loaded boat coming towards Cirencester or Siddington upon pain that the master of such boat, for every offence shall forfeit the sum of forty shillings.
In order to protect locks, stop gates, and tunnel from damage boats must have two inches of clearance between the bottom of the boat and the sill of locks, stop gates or tunnel. Every offence- forty shillings.
No boats to navigate the canal stern foremost, or without a rudder on the stern.
No boat to be haled (hauled) along the canal without a person at the helm; nor without the hauling line being affixed to the mast to prevent the boat running or beating against bridges banks.
No boat to pass along the canal with less loading than 20tons unless the said boat shall have a false rudder hung to the lower part of her real rudder of at least four feet long and 18 inches deep to be affixed and used at all times when the boat has less loading than 20 tons. Every offence twenty shillings.
That every boat shall stop at a post to be fixed 40 yards distance from every lock and thence to be shafted gently into the lock; and every master of a boat or vessel shall, before he opens the gates of any lock examine the paddles and see that the lock is fit to receive the boat and in moving the boat into the chamber of the lock the master of the boat shall be provided with a piece of wood or lever, which he shall put between the lock wall and the side of the boat to prevent boat striking the lock or lock gates. Forty shillings for every offence.
Gates left open longer than necessary for a horse or man to haul the boat through fined ten shillings.
When the boat is not moving it should be hauled to the side and moored by securing both ends of the boat. And keep her there so moored as not to inconvenience the passage of the said canal or towing paths or the loading and unloading of other boats and vessels. Forty shillings fine for each offence.
Every boat coming to a wharf should be unloaded as soon as maybe upon pain of forfeit forty shillings.
Every boat cleared of it’s loading and not taking on another loading within 24 hours must move or be removed from the wharf to make way for other boats. Forty shillings for every offence.
No passengers to be allowed unless permission obtained in writing from wharfingers
No person to be in charge of a boat if in liquor. Watchmen or wharfingers to detain them until sober. Forty shillings forfeit.
There follows a table of prices for carrying timber, corn, hides with horn tips, staves, barrels of oil, pitch, tar, turpentine, rosin, cheese, deal planks, oak planks, guns, brooms, baskets, mill stones, marble and millstones.
Extracts from the Act of Parliament including the sections 30, 53, 55, 68, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 84 to be amended accordingly.
The orders to be printed.
The orders for introducing trade to be referred to the committee for consideration during January, February, and March next.
Committee in London to enter agreements with persons for a term of years not exceeding ten years.
The committee to also consider securing a wharf and warehouse in London for the use of traders on the canal.
