As a maritime nation, Britain has a powerful historical connection to the water – a long-standing working association with the sea and ships, and a more general love of messing about in boats on rivers, canals and lakes.

An elite pastime
For centuries the upper classes enjoyed boating as a pastime, many private boat owners becoming skilled oarsmen and sailors. Privileged families might enjoy paddling leisurely around the lake on their country estate, or the pageantry of gliding down the River Thames in a luxurious barge equipped with canopy, musicians and liveried servants. During the 18th century the use of small boats at the seaside or on the river for pleasure began to advance, elegant fishing- or picnic-themed water parties becoming fashionable in the later 1700s.

River transport
At around the same time, Britain’s canals, built primarily for industrial purposes, began to transport paying passengers. Passenger services were launched in 1769 on the Bridgewater Canal, using the Duke of Bridgewater’s own horse-drawn canal boats, and over time this facility expanded to provide scheduled passenger services in efficient, medium-sized ‘packet boats.’ Indeed, before boating became a popular leisure activity, our ordinary Georgian and early-Victorian ancestors are most likely to have used boats as transport, whether travelling in packet boats carrying cargo and passengers between locations, or in local craft that ferried pedestrians across inland rivers and lakes, or between headlands and islands along the coast.

Competitive sport
Earlier generations’ experiences of the water began to shift in the early 19th century when the so-called ‘aquatic sports’ of rowing and sailing developed. These pursuits rapidly became more competitive, with public races attracting many spectators. For serious rowing, oarsmen usually donned warm, stretchy knitted jerseys – functional garments already worn by sailors and fishermen. In 1829 the first Oxford and Cambridge boat race was held at Henley, the Oxford crew dressed in dark blue striped jerseys, canvas trousers and black straw hats. The Cambridge rowers wore white shirts and pink sashes, the more familiar Cantabs light blue reputedly introduced a few years later, in 1836.

At this period genteel ladies were not usually seen rowing in public, for such strenuous physical exertion was considered unseemly, but evidently the wives and daughters of fishermen sometimes engaged in races. One such event, rowed on the Thames, drew a vast crowd and was reported in The Times, 4 September 1833: ‘…the lady who wore a blue bow in her cap as large as a sunflower, and who had her garments tied round her legs with a rope, had the distinguished honour of being declared the victor.’

Punts and skiffs
A growing divergence between working hours and leisure time and progressive interest in outdoor pursuits during the Victorian era led to boating developing into a more widespread activity. Boat-builders started to produce more pleasure craft: for example, during the 1860s flat-bottomed punts manoeuvred using a long wooden pole – vessels originally used as small cargo boats or as anglers’ platforms – began to be built specifically for recreation. Pleasure punting was first practised mainly on the non-tidal River Thames in hired or privately-owned punts, later expanding and becoming especially popular on the rivers of key tourist destinations like the Cherwell and Isis in Oxford, the Cam in Cambridge, at Stratford-on-Avon and on the Lower Thames in Berkshire.

The Bank Holiday Acts of 1871 and 1875 giving many people more paid leave from work prompted a rapid rise in leisure facilities and entertainments. With efficient railway networks now serving much of the country, day-trippers and holiday-makers could travel further afield, exploring more of the country and trying new outdoor activities. As riverside beauty spots and seaside resorts witnessed a surge in weekend and holiday visitors, the 1880s became known as the great age of boating. This was vividly expressed in popular imagery and in literature like Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889) – the humorous account of a two-week boating holiday in a Thames camping skiff, a traditional Thames rowing boat.

Exploring the river networks by sturdy rowing boat or skiff, or taking a punt out on a tranquil Sunday afternoon became much-loved forms of open-air relaxation, appealing to different kinds of people. Ladies now became more involved in boating as a popular activity, often taking the oars or pole, dressed in jaunty serge or jersey costumes shaped by figure-hugging corsets and protruding bustles. Men, meanwhile, released from sober city suits and starched collars, donned loose summer shirts, striped blazers and straw ‘boater’ hats.

A way of life
While boating became a quintessentially English pastime, for households residing close to water, it was a familiar element of everyday life. Apart from the traditional canal people and fishing communities, other families have lived near to natural rivers and lakes, using the water for daily tasks and recreation. Charles Darwin’s granddaughter, Gwen Raverat (née Darwin), recalled in Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood (1952) how she and her siblings were raised during the later 1880s and 1890s at their family home, Newnham Grange on the west bank of the River Cam: ‘We were all able to swim early, and grew up knowing how to manage boats by instinct: row-boats and canoes…We had the best games of pirates in an old square, flat-bottomed boat, which the gardener used when he was cutting weeds in the river; it always needed baling and sometimes sank under our very feet.’

A rowing boat was used regularly by their mother for errands in town and later, when elderly, being an ‘old hand’ at rowing, she often took her small grandchildren out on the river. Meanwhile the Darwin children saved up to buy their own canoe: ‘We used to fish interesting things out of the river; once we caught seven top-hats in one day.’

Boating lakes
For earlier generations it wasn’t always necessary to live near water or to travel far to have a go at boating. Sporting amenities were an important feature of the many municipal parks that became established for public use in Victorian and Edwardian cities and towns, with ornamental ponds or larger boating lakes prominent among the recreational facilities. Groups of young adults, courting couples, small families and adolescents enjoyed taking their turn in the rowing boats for hire. By the early 20th century miniature paddle-wheeled pedal boats or ‘pedaloes’ offered an alternative to conventional rowing boats at some local boating lakes.

Canal holidays
The expanding Victorian railway network that carried passengers for work and pleasure also transported raw materials and manufactured goods. Narrow waterways and slow-paced narrowboats with limited capacity could not compete with fast freight trains and gradually the railways appropriated much industrial canal traffic. However, as canal commerce declined during the mid/late 19th century, a new generation of affluent city workers seeking escape from hectic urban life found themselves drawn to the peaceful, meandering waterways where rural customs prevailed and time seemed to stand still. As early as the 1850s some traditional barge-building companies diversified by producing pleasure craft (called ‘noddy boats’ by established canal workers) for hire and by the turn of the century larger companies ran large fleets of rental boats.

Victorian canal boat excursions were generally a luxurious option, vessels being fitted out with comfortable soft furnishings, even pianos, and with catering and cleaning staff provided to cater for the party’s needs. But some river tourists, influenced by a growing late-19th century nostalgia for a fast-vanishing way of life, desired a simpler, more authentic experience.

Around this time, the Norfolk Broads began to emerge as an ideal destination for those seeking unspoilt, pastoral landscapes dotted with picturesque villages and thatched cottages. As more commercial canal boats fell into disuse in the early-mid 20th century, pleasure boats continued to take over. Boat companies actively promoted the charms of the inland waterways and railway lines advertised their train services to such leisure destinations. British rivers and canals were especially popular for summer holidays when British beaches were closed during the Second World War.

Our ancestors and more recent relatives had widely varying experiences of boating, as we do today. Taking out a punt, rowing boat or barge can be peaceful and relaxing or invigorating and exciting, offering a welcome escape from everyday routine.

Later this year Jayne will continue her occasional series on leisure activities with a look at sea-based boating activities.