Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Caroline Yarnall

1834 –11/12/1910

Wife of bargee who herself became a barge captain

• Melanie Hilton

Unmarked grave Caroline Yarnall (née Dale) (c.1834-1910)

Caroline was born c.1834 in Tipton, Staffordshire, a town on the Birmingham Canal. Her exact year of birth is uncertain and varies depending on which census return is consulted.

Her parents were Jane and Joseph Dale. He was a canal boatman and in 1841 they were all with Caroline’s grandfather Joseph Dale, a boatman, and her sister Elizabeth, in Tipton.

Caroline married William Yarnall in Staffordshire in 1851.

On 2 April 1871 they were moored at Fradley junction near Lichfield which is situated at the point where the Trent and Mersey canal is joined by the Coventry Canal. “Fradley was a major junction on the Victorian canal network. Both the Trent & Mersey and the Coventry Canal companies built houses and cottages for their workers, while two warehouses, complete with hoists, were erected at Junction Row alongside the Swan public house.” (Wikipedia.) It remains a very busy location for barges and pleasure craft, at the half way point on a major flight of locks. On board were William and Caroline and 8 children: Alice (1852), Sarah (1854) George (1856), Julia (1859), Jane (1862), William (1866), Mary (1868) and Thomas who was just 4 days old. One assumes that the main boat was towing a “butty boat” to accommodate them all.

In April 1881 they were on the boat “Gamborough” and moored at Blisworth at one end of the Blisworth tunnel on the Grand Junction canal. This is the 9^th longest canal tunnel in the world at 2,813m. With them were several other boats, all presumably waiting to tackle the tunnel which was wide enough for two boats to pass but which had no towpaths. The barges would have to be “legged” through, by bargees lying on wooden planks on either side of the boat and “walking” along the sides of the tunnel to propel the vessel. It must have been exhausting work. Sarah, Jane, Julia and Mary were on board with their parents.

Two more sons were born to the couple, although the only census on which they can be traced has their ages obliterated. Joseph the elder, and James, were born at “Taplock at Hatton”, Staffs. (This is probably the top lock of this flight of locks.)

William died on the boat “Handsworth” in Birmingham in January 1891.

In 1901 Caroline gave her age as 64 and her occupation as “Captain of [a] barge” moored at Boxmoor. On board with her were her sons Joseph who was Mate, and James who was a “boat hand”, and Tom Walton, another boat hand.

Caroline died 11 December 1910 on the canal boat “Portugal” on the Grand Junction canal in Berkhamsted, aged about 76.