William Gawith's Note Books
 

These pages are transcripts of two notebooks owned by William Gawith, a shipping agent at Barrow-in-Furness. They list over 700 sailing ships which departed Barrow in the period from 1856 to 1872.
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Notebook1 Jan-Jun.1856 Jul-Dec.1856 Jan-Jun.1857 Jul-Dec.1857 1858 1859 1860 Misc. 1861-63 Misc. 1864-65
Notebook 2 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 Green, Chaundy Kennedy Misc. 1863-72

 
William Gawith

William Gawith is described in the Lancashire Directory of 1862 as shipping agent to G B Ashburner and the Stainton and Ulverston Mining Companies. His employer was Alexander Brogden, who was a railway engineer and an owner of iron ore mines, both in Furness and in Tondu, near Porthcawl, Cardigan. Brogden also owned a jetty in Barrow Channel, and it is almost certain that the shipments in these books relate to iron ore shipped from there.

There are 777 shipping departures listed. Some of the ships were from the Furness ports of Barrow and Ulverston, but mainly the ships were from Preston, Fleetwood and New Quay (Cardigan). There was a lesser number from Liverpool, Aberystwyth, Amlwch and Porthcawl. A wide variety of ports are represented with a few ships only, including Annan, Swansea, Caernarvon, Runcorn, Chester, Dublin and some South coast ports.
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The transcription

The two notebooks were auctioned at Ulverston in July 2000. The shipping information in them was transcribed into spreadsheet files by Peter Sandbach from photocopies supplied by the purchaser of the books. Peter is a student of the iron mining industry in Furness. He would like to hear from anybody who has further information on Alexander Brogden. His address is 

Notebook 1

There are 469 ship departures listed. This book contains records of shipments of ore from 1856 to 1865 and five entries for 1870. The following abbreviations occur:

The figures are tons and hundredweights.

Notebook 2

There are 308 ship departures listed. Shipments cover the period 1859 - 72. Upto 1863 the shipments are listed by date and are assigned a consignment number, but no shipper is recorded.  From 1864 shipments are listed by mining company, such as Harrison, Ainslie & Co. and the Kennedy brothers.

The following abbreviations have been used:

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