aims was to investigate which navigations remained well used commercially and which did not. He has taken as his primary source the census returns for 1871, but has also made extensive use of a wide range of secondary sources, particularly the works of Charles Hadfield. The sheer volume of data gathered from the 1871 census is impressive, and includes not only boats and their occupants but the inhabitants of canal-side communities together with details of the many mills, boat-builders’ yards, collieries, quarries and so on which lined the banks. Rather than devote a chapter to each individual canal, Dr Trinder has grouped the waterways of the Midlands into nine regions. This approach allows the economic and social relationship between a number of connected waterways to be examined. Of particular interest are the junctions and intersections between canals and river navigations and estuaries where canal boats mingled with larger river and even sea-going vessels and their crews. The limitations and difficulties of using census data are clearly explained, and yet much can be ascertained about the nature of canal-boat life both on board and in canal-side communities. The chapters on the different regional networks follow a similar structure. The analysis of each waterway begins with a summary of its history and a description of its main features. It thenmoves on to the census data, looking at the number of boats and their occupants, as well as who was living in the nearby houses. The analysis reveals that there were a great number of boat people living in canal-side communities, far more than the number sleeping on boats. Further interesting details are given on the proportion of men to women and the percentage of families with more than two children under the age of ten sleeping on board. Of particular note is Dr Trinder’s observation that between 70 and 80 per cent of girls ceased to live on board when they entered their teenage years, whereas for children under the age of ten the number of boys and girls was about even. He found this to be true on all major canals and took it as an indication of the care taken by boat parents in the upbringing their daughters, giving the lie to the assumptions of many commentators of the day that incest among the floating population was rife. George Smith of Coalville bears much of the responsibility for spreading this notion. Although a tireless campaigner on the subject of life aboard, and instrumental in bringing about the Canal Boat Acts of 1877, much of what he claimed about the immorality and illiteracy of the boat people was exaggerated, untrue and not supported by any evidence at all. The cargoes carried and the origins of boats give an indication of trade routes and the health of the waterway. For example, Dr Trinder found that coal, the main cargo on the Midlands network, was carried to the south of England in boats which were based in the south and which travelled north to collect the coal and bring it back. On the Severn and associated canals there was extensive two-way traffic with coal coming south and grain and timber carried north. Canals also remained important to the iron industry of the Black Country. In his final chapter, Dr Trinder draws his analysis together to arrive at a set of reflections and conclusions about boat culture, expressed through boat names and decoration as well as the custom of living aboard or ashore; the demographic structure of the boat population; the importance of canal communities; predominant traffics, and which waterways were still busy and economically important as opposed to those that were in decline. His final conclusion is that boat people should be regarded as an ordinary ‘segment of the English working class, neither particularly heroic or exceptionally vicious’. The pages are generously illustrated with a wealth of colour photographs, presumably taken by Dr Trinder himself on his many explorations of the Midlands network. They depict many of the canal features described and are complemented by a few black-and-white historical images of canal life. There are also a number of simple but very useful maps. This extremely wellresearched and very readable book will be of interest to industrial historians and canal history enthusiasts alike.

中文翻译：

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早期铁路 6：第六届早期铁路年度会议的论文

目的是调查哪些导航在商业上仍然得到很好的使用，哪些没有。他将 1871 年的人口普查数据作为主要资料来源，但也广泛使用了范围广泛的二手资料，尤其是查尔斯·哈德菲尔德 (Charles Hadfield) 的作品。从 1871 年的人口普查中收集到的大量数据令人印象深刻，不仅包括船只及其居住者，还包括运河边社区的居民以及许多工厂、造船厂、煤矿、采石场等的详细信息。排成一排的银行。特林德博士并没有为每条运河专门开辟一章，而是将中部地区的水道分为九个区域。这种方法允许检查许多相连水道之间的经济和社会关系。特别令人感兴趣的是运河与河流航行和河口之间的交汇处和交叉点，运河船只与更大的河流甚至远洋船只及其船员混合在一起。清楚地解释了使用普查数据的局限性和困难，但可以确定很多关于船上和运河边社区运河船生活的性质。关于不同区域网络的章节遵循类似的结构。对每条水道的分析首先是对其历史的总结和对其主要特征的描述。然后转到人口普查数据，查看船只数量及其乘员，以及谁住在附近的房子里。分析显示，运河边社区居住的船民数量远远超过在船上睡觉的人数。关于男女比例以​​及有两个以上 10 岁以下儿童在船上睡觉的家庭比例，还提供了更多有趣的细节。特别值得注意的是特林德博士的观察结果，70% 到 80% 的女孩在进入青春期时就不再住在船上，而对于 10 岁以下的儿童，男孩和女孩的数量几乎相等。他发现所有主要运河都是如此，并将其视为船父母在抚养女儿时所采取的谨慎态度的表现，从而否定了当时许多评论家关于流动人口乱伦盛行的假设。Coalville 的 George Smith 对传播这一概念负有很大责任。虽然在船上生活的主题上孜孜不倦，尽管他对 1877 年的运河船法案的实施起到了重要作用，但他关于船民不道德和文盲的大部分言论都是夸大其词、不真实的，而且根本没有任何证据支持。运载的货物和船只的起源表明了贸易路线和水路的健康状况。例如，特林德博士发现，中部网络上的主要货物煤炭是由位于英格兰南部的船只运送到英格兰南部，然后向北行驶以收集煤炭并将其带回。在塞文河和相关的运河上，有广泛的双向交通，煤向南，粮食和木材向北运。运河对黑国的钢铁工业也很重要。在他的最后一章中，特林德博士综合分析得出一系列关于船文化的反思和结论，通过船名和装饰以及船上或岸上的生活习惯表达；船舶人口的人口结构；运河社区的重要性；占主导地位的交通，以及哪些水道仍然繁忙且具有重要的经济意义，而不是那些正在下降的水道。他的最终结论是，船民应该被视为普通的“英国工人阶级的一部分，既不是特别英勇，也不是特别恶毒”。这些页面都配有大量彩色照片，大概是特林德博士本人在他对米德兰兹网络的多次探索中拍摄的。它们描绘了所描述的许多运河特征，并辅以一些关于运河生活的黑白历史图像。还有一些简单但非常有用的地图。这本研究充分、可读性强的书将引起工业历史学家和运河历史爱好者的兴趣。