Mike Connell, a canal artist based near Birmingham, was so inspired when he read the sad story about George Benbow’s untimely demise at the helm of the narrowboat, Usk in 1887, that he decided to do some illustrations of the Usk at various stages of its life.
Mike explained why he drew the Usk passing through Wappenshall Junction on the Shrewsbury & Newport canal saying,
“I thought it would be fun to do an illustration of the narrowboat at Wappenshall junction before it set off on its fateful journey down the Trench arm of the canal to Hadley Park lock, where the terrible accident happened”.
As dusk was falling on Monday 26th July 1887, the last boat of the day, the Usk, was slipping gently into Hadley Park Lock. The lock is on the Trench arm, just south of Wappenshall Junction, and was unusual as the bottom gates had a guillotine mechanism with the gates going up and down with a counterweight box, rather than swinging side to side. They looked like something from the French revolution.
George Benbow was skipper of the Usk with thirteen-year-old, William Evanson as his crew and it appears that as the boat passed under the lock gate, George did not duck and was hit and killed by the counterweight box.
From that very day, the Usk was doomed, an unlucky, haunted boat that many boatmen would not work aboard, and as the luck did not improve so she was finally abandoned and sank on the Montgomery canal at Crickheath, probably in the 1890s, and there she lay quietly until the restoration of the canal by the Shropshire Union Canal Society unearthed her – a ghostly reminder of a tragedy long ago. And George? Is his spirit still near the boat – its skipper forever – who knows but at least he’s no longer lost or forgotten!
Mike continued,
“I just hope that my drawings will bring the story of poor old George Benbow to a larger audience and quieten his restless spirit”.
