This Society is building a digital collection of video recordings holding interesting content regarding the people, places and vessels once found on the canals and rivers of Yorkshire. Some of these recordings have been loaned by enthusiasts who want to preserve and publish material about the heritage of an industry which once underpinned the industrial success of the county but today has all but disappeared. We have had them professionally digitised and then returned the originals to their owners.
In addition, some copyright owners have placed their works on YouTube making them available for public viewing with restriction. We are pleased to offer those videos for you to view through our website. If you have suggestions for videos which should be included in our library please get in touch through the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Our growing portfolio of videos relating to Yorkshire’s waterways may be accessed by choosing a topic below and clicking the button:
British Pathe News : Five Ships Launched Sideways (1938)
This short 44 second black and white recording was filmed at Richard Dunston Limited, Thorne, Yorkshire. The yard had built five motor barges for the same owner which were launched together.
Notice the very limited width of the waterway which explains why launches were always conducted sideways.
British Pathe News:Three TugsLaunched Sideways (1931)
British Pathe News cameras were at Richard Dunston’s shipyard in Thorne, Yorkshire on 11 April, 1931 to record the launch of three steam tugs, one after the other. They had all been ordered for the same owner so were launched together.
We acknowledge that copyright images are being shown for which no explicit permission to publish has been given to this Society. Many of the digital images shown had originally been produced with the knowledge and permission of the now defunct Yorkshire Waterways Museum from original photographs deposited there for public display. Following the closure of that organisation in 2019 and the break up of their collection those original photographs have disappeared and have effectively been lost to the public.
Through an incredible stroke of good fortune digital copies of those images were donated to this Society in 2022 allowing our volunteers to finally achieve the wishes of those photographers and collectors who had made the original donations.
If you are the copyright holder and would like to contact the Society please use the form below.
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