Hertfordshire Barge Builders

A search for Hertford and Bargebuild* or "Barge Builder" using Resource File Viewer 3.02 helped to identify the following individuals.

George STALLEY, Crane Mead, Amwell End, Great Amwell, Bargebuilders Appren,

James WEBB, Star St, Ware, Barge Builder

William WEBB, Star St, Ware, Barge Builder

Thomas MARTIN, River Street, Ware, Barge Builder

George WHEELER, Bonds Field Cottages, Star St, Ware, Barge Builder

William MOCKFORD, Baldock Street, Ware, Journeyman Barge Builder

Arthur H. BAKER, Baldock Street, Ware, Bargebuilder

John LAMBERT, Bourne, Ware, Barge Builder

Joshua PATEY, Bourne, Ware, Journeyman Barge Builder

James CHAPLIN, Crib Street, Ware, Barge Builder

John PATEY, 7 High Oak Rd, Ware, Journeyman Barge Builder

James WEBB, Ware Union Workhouse, Musley, Ware, Bargebuilders Lab

James HITCH, The Dock, South Rd, Bishop Stortford, Bargebuilder Employing 3 Men

William MARKWELL, Wharf Rd, Bishop Stortford, Bargebuilders Labourer

George DORRINGTON, South Street, Bishop Stortford, Navigation Carpenter (Barge Builder)

Charles & Emma WRIGHT, Bartholomew Rd, Bishop Stortford, Barge Builder

January 2004

PATTY, Ware Barge Builders, 19/20^th centuries

Tony Patey (tpatey @t studygroup.com) writes: John Patey was my grandfather; Joshua, I think, was his brother. Most of the Patey clan died while I was young, and my father, Henry Richard, rarely spoke about his father because John died when my father was just 10, and I could tell the shock and grief lasted all his life.

Briefly, my father was an "only", and his mother's name was Hannah (nee Irons). My father was born in May, 1904, and within a few years' the family moved to Islington, London. Motor transport was hitting the barge trade, and granddad must have thought there was work around the Lea in London. They then moved to Southampton, where my father saw the Titanic go off. John died in 1914, and was buried in Ware cemetary, Watton Road. My father and his mother stayed in Ware. My father eventually started a printing business called the Star Press in Bowling Road in the mid 1930s. He retired in 1970, sold the business (now called Pegasus), and died in Hertford Hospital in January, 1976. My grandmother died in 1954 or 5. They are buried in Ware Cemetery.

The interesting thing about the Ware barge-builders is that they all had the title of Men of Ware. It was a special honour given to them by Charles II because the Ware bargees were the only people who dared to go into London during the plague - and kept the population alive, literally! They (and their descendants, so I'm one too) can go into the Thames without a lighterman, and could knock on the door of any pub along the Lea at any time of day or night, and demand a drink! (I think Edith Hunt's History of Ware details this) I'm a tutor at a Cambridge college; if you want any further details let me know.