BW127
Anderton Carrying Company & Anderton Company Ltd
Description
Records of Anderton Carrying Company & Anderton Company Ltd: goods invoices 1839-1848, boat registration certificate 1921, photocopy from "Anderton Dock Book" 1922-1938.
Date
1839-1938
Reference code
BW127
Access Status
These records are available immediately for research
Administrative / Biographical history
The Anderton Company was a re-naming of Alexander Reid & Company, carriers of pottery raw materials and finished products between Liverpool and the Potteries. All their goods were transshipped at Anderton.
The re-naming took place in 1836, by which point the company was already fairly established. Narrow boats were used on the canals and flats on the river. The Bridgewater trustees bought it in 1848 and ran it successfully until W H Boddington and Edward Pamphilon bought it in 1876. Twenty two years after, it passed to a limited company run by Boddington's son Henry.
The Boddington family's control of the company was relinquished in 1954. Anderton merged with the Mersey, Weaver & Ship Canal Carrying Company, but remained the Bridgewater's agents and continued to have 'Bridgewater Navigation Route' prominently displayed on their boats. At its height, there were 175 boats, all painted black with a red and white border and white lettering. Decorative painting peaked in the 1930s with William Hodgson's roses designs. The majority of the boats were named after counties, towns and rivers.
The company had a boatyard at Middleport, Burslem for building and repairing the fleet. It still specialised in pottery traffic, but also carried coal, flour and gravel. Motor boats first appeared in the fleet in the 1920s, although the last of the horse boats for short-hauls were not retired until the 1950s. The British Transport Commission bought the company in 1958, and disposed of most of the fleet.
For further information on the Anderton Carrying Company & Anderton Company Ltd see Edward Paget-Tomlinson's 'The Illustrated History of Canals & River Navigations'.
System of arrangement
It has not been possible to ascertain any original structure of record-keeping from the small number of records held for this company. The fonds has therefore been arranged in chronological order.