This photograph shows Ferryman Walter Watkins with his granddaughter Josephine Navy Carling.
Donor : Malcolm Hardy
Location
For centuries the Ferry was the quickest way to travel between the Headland and Middleton. The earliest written record of a ferry at Hartlepool dates back to 1600. At its peak it carried thousands of workers to the shipyards at Middleton.
In 1918, Hartlepool Corporation bought the ferry rights from the Hartlepool Ferry & Harbour Company for £500.
It finally closed in the 1950s, when more convenient ways of travelling made it redundant.
More detail »
This photograph is of George Watkins.George used three chriatian names , one of those being Walter. He also had two familly names. Born 1849 in Sunderland he was apprenticed 1865-69 as a merchant seaman to Joseph Hill of Hartlepool on the brig"Safeguard"on voyages to the Baltic including St. Petersburg, taking coal out and bringing timber back.From at least 1876 he lived at 19 Charles Street where he died in 1919
More detail »This photograph shows Ferryman Walter Watkins with his granddaughter Josephine Navy Carling.
More detail »