sheet dresses

[stanmapstone]

Railway Economy by Dionysius Lardner, 1850, Google Books.
The clearing-house has agents posted at all points of junctions of the lines of different companies at which traffic is liable to pass from one to another. The duty of these agents is to register the number and quality of each vehicle, which passes from one line to another indicating its owner. they also register the number of the tarpaulins by which wagons are covered, and which do not necessarily constitute a part of the wagon, nor always belong to the same owners.

This implies that each tarpaulin was individually numbered.

Stan

[joboy]

Hi all - that restoration project looks very worthwhile, but hard work, Joe. Beautiful wash basins! I don't think my ancestor would have had much trouble keeping the sun off in Lancashire, though. BUt it now seems that he might have been doing something similar, or perhaps tidying up metal sheets used for carriage building. My son tells me that, and also reckons rail wagons don't (and possibly didn't) have tarps.All very interesting, although nothing definitive - but family history research is often like that I find!

Harlemswife

Hi Harlem,
I guess my memories (60 years ago) of England are as you described regarding the sun but dont forget it really rains here just like at present with great floods in NSW.
Just an extract from Dorothea MacKellar's famous poem;
  I love a sunburnt country,
  A land of sweeping plains,
  Of ragged mountain ranges,
  Of drought and flooding rains,
  I love her far horizons,
  I love her jewel sea,
  Her beauty and her terror -
  The wide brown land for me.
so the canvas roof treatment was really designed for all kinds of weather.
Joe

[Harlem]

Thanks, Stan - tarps return to the list of possibilities!

A lovely poem, Joe, that tells me why people love your land. For me, though - well, home is home, even covered in snow as it is at the moment. Gives us plenty of time to hunt for ancestors on the www

 - and to watch the cricket highlights, if I dare mention it!

Harlemswife

[Skoosh]

Worked in the railway Workshops myself, I remember a store full of these covers, known in Scotland as "Haps" and a couple of machinists kept going repairing them. The carriage roofs though had the tarpaulin stuck down and kind of bituminised!      skoosh.

[sonnyboythethird]

I have been researching the railway wagon sheet shops and think it highly likely that your ancestor was involved in the manufacture and/or repair of tarpaulins. With container traffic and suchlike they aren't used much now, but a century ago there were hundreds of thousands in use. As Stan suggests, they were all individually number to identify the owning company. Whereabouts did your ancestor live? I may be able to identify his workplace.
There is some information about railway tarpaulins that may be of interest here
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/gansg/9-loads/9-tarps.htm

[stanmapstone]

Welcome to RootsChat


Stan

[deebel]

Railway Economy by Dionysius Lardner, 1850, Google Books.
The clearing-house has agents posted at all points of junctions of the lines of different companies at which traffic is liable to pass from one to another. The duty of these agents is to register the number and quality of each vehicle, which passes from one line to another indicating its owner. they also register the number of the tarpaulins by which wagons are covered, and which do not necessarily constitute a part of the wagon, nor always belong to the same owners.

This implies that each tarpaulin was individually numbered.

Stan

http://www.long-eaton.com/sheetstores.asp

[Harlem]

Dear SonnyBoy3

Thank you for your reply. I didn't realise that there was such a science to railway tarpaulins! But I always say the world's experts on everything are to be found on Rootschat, so welcome!

As you can see , I wrote that message five years ago, and I cannot remember who I was working on then. I had some Houghtons in Newton le Willows, which was a railway town, so I have had a quick look through them but cannot find my sheet dresser. I shall have a proper look through my records and find him, but I wanted to acknowledge your message and thank you for your interest.

I shall get back when I have found him!

Thank you again,

Harlemswife

[sonnyboythethird]

Dear Harlemswife,

Going by the location, I think it's highly likely that your ancestor worked at the St. Helens Junction sheet shop, known locally as the sheeting sheds. It stood on the south side of the line, west of the station, accessible from Penlake Lane and via a footbridge over the railway from Monastery Lane. The site was later occupied by the Penlake Industrial Estate, but as far as I can tell from Google Maps, nothing now remains.

St. Helens Junction was one of the bigger sheet shops, employing 182 staff in July 1945. But by the early 1960s, demand for wagon sheets was in decline and St. Helens closed on 31 July 1963, activities transferring to the former Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway works at Horwich. St Helens staff were given the opportunity to transfer to Horwich, but few took up the offer. The building was subsequently sold to N Greening and Sons Ltd.

You will find something of the history and activities of the sheet works here http://www.suttonbeauty.org.uk/suttonhistory/transport/. This tells us that the works was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1874, but obviously it must have been rebuilt to continue for a further 90 years.

So far I have been unable to locate any decent photos of the sheeting sheds. The nearest thing I can find is here http://www.suttonbeauty.org.uk/suttonhistory/sutton_memories17/. In the entry "My Penlake Memories" the end of the sheds are just visible in the background.

I hope this is of interest and shall let you know if I discover anything more.

Cheers,
Phil