CRT/CAL

The Geoffrey Calvert Collection

The collection mostly comprises glass lantern slides. There are four boxes and the donor Roger Calvert has separated the slides into two groups: the Wagtail Set, showing the boat, mostly taken on various family cruises (14 slides) and the Canal Set, arranged by waterway (102 slides). Some of these latter slides also originate from holiday cruises.

Mid 20th century

CRT/CAL

Calvert, Norman Geoffrey (Mr)

Norman Geoffrey Calvert (Geoff) (1911 - 1984) was a keen canal boater. For many years he was a committee member of the Inland Waterways Association (IWA) North Western Region. He often gave lectures on canal history and current status to local bodies (village halls, scout groups, schools etc.), and this is the origin of most of the slides. His first canal boat, 'Wagtail' was a 27ft. admiralty whaler with cabins attached. She was launched in 1947 at at Egg Bridge near Christleton in Chester. She was moored at Egg Bridge for some years, then moved to Chirk Bank on the Llangollen Canal (then known as the Welsh Canal). Eventually she was moved again to a farm near Stoak, Ellesmere Port. Geoff published an article on here in 1950 (1). Initially, she was unpowered and towed by manpower. or for some family holidays, by a donkey, Jill, who appears in many of the slides. In this mode, she attended the IWA Llangollen Rally in 1952, as well as cruising to Autherley Junction in 1951. She was then fitted with a stern paddle wheel and attended the IWA Macclesfield Rally in 1953, the IWA Skipton Rally in 1955 and the IWA Chester Rally in 1959. Other voyages included Stafford (1957), Oxford (1959) and Sturport (1960) (all from either Chirk Bank or Stoak). She remained in this form until about 1963, when the very thin wood of the hull finally succumbed to the knocks and scrapes of canal navigation, and she was laid up. An article on the development of the various sternwheel configurations was published in 1962 (2). On these voyages, Geoff was accompanied by his wife Mary (1908-2004), his daughter Rosemary and his sons Roger (the author of this biographical history) and Hilary and the Lakeland Terrier Dale. Most of them appear somewhere in the collection. Also appearing is his home built canvas-on-wood canoe 'Roo', in which he and Mary navigated the Dee from Bala to Llangollen and then by canal to Chester in about 1936, and some other home-built canoes from about 1950, two of which are still in service. Geoff the built (from scratch) another sternwheeler, 'Shoveller', which remained in commission until his death in 1984. 'Shoveller' does not features in these slides. Roger Calvert May 2014 References (1) NG Calvert 'An Inland Cruising Boat' in 'The Motor Boat and Yachting', March 1950, p116-117 (2) JR Calvert 'The Development of a Paddle-Wheel for Canal Boat Propulsion' in 'The Journal of the Cambridge University Engineering Society', XXXII, 1962, p36-43. Admin history Norman Geoffrey Calvert (1911-1984) was born in Ormskirk and grew up there and in Southport. He became a lecturer in mechanical engineering at the University of Liveroool in 1937, and moved to Barnston on the Wirral. He built a Canadian canoe, Roo, and encountered the canal at Llangollen when he took Roo down the Dee from Bala in 1939. After wartime he converted an Admiralty whaler, Wagtail, and launched this at Egg Bridge on the Shropshire Union Canal in 1947 or 1948, soon moving this to Chirk on the Llangollen line. This was drawn by a donkey, or bow-hauled, and eventually fitted with a paddle wheel. The boat was moved to Croughton, on the Shropshire Union around 1959, having been refitted and relaunched at the Upper Basin at Ellesmere Port. Later Wagtail was replaced by another self-built boat, Shoveller. The latter boat made many journeys until 1984, including to and on the Thames, but he had also built, restored and operated several boats on Lake Windermere. Geoffrey Calvert was an early member of the IWA, and joined its North West committee, giving "lantern lectures" on canals in the early 1950s. He attended IWA Rallies at Skipton (1955) and Chester (1959). In or around 1966 he pressed for the "Telford" warehouse to be converted to a museum, independently of the later use of the site. N.B. He has been confused with Roger G Robert Calvert (1913-2003), IWA member and author of The Inland Waterways Of Britain (1963), as has N G's son, also Roger Calvert. There is no connection. Joseph Boughey May 2020

4 boxes