Smethwick: the two levels of the Birmingham Canal Navigations.

There are few contemporary songs and poems about the canals written by boaters. As you will discover on other pages, the canal people were very much a society apart from the general working population. They were peripatetic, though not gypsies; they were remote from society physically because, apart from the wharves, the canals are also. You will have found this if you have ever tried to post a letter whilst on a canal holiday! They were not well educated, even by the not very high standards of working-class education in the 19th century. Although they would in later years send their children to school when at the wharf, this may have been for only a few hours before the boats were loaded and ready and the child would be away. The evidence is that during the 19th century boaters were content to be entertained by the standard songs of the day.

The offerings here are those which I used in 'Along the Birmingham Canals'; there is no pretence that they are exhaustive or representative in any way. Some are recent (i.e. last 30 years) compositions in a nostalgic vein; others refer only incidentally to the canals. There is a short bibliography following the list - again there are thousands of other compilations.