The Mapping Museum research project was created to look at the increase in the number of museums in the UK. As part of this project, Tony Lewery was interviewed about the National Waterways Museum.

Explore more about the Mapping Museum project here and read Lewery's interview below:

Interview summary

Name of person being interviewed: Tony Lewery

Location of interview: National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port

Date of Recording: 13 May 2019

Recording Length: 02:10:14

Name of interviewer: Dr Toby Butler

Description: The National Waterways Museum (originally The Boat Museum) is devoted to the history of canals, inland navigation, and the lives of the people who worked on the canals, with a particular focus on working boats and the skills and trades involved in building, maintaining and servicing the canal transport network.

Summary of main points in interview: Tony Lewery was co-founder of the Boat Museum. He explains that the idea for the museum arose from the need to preserve regional canal boats, particularly wooden ones. He describes the other co-founders and the early idea to site the museum at Preston Brook, where two canals meet and wide- and narrow-beam barges could be accommodated. He explains his interest in folk art that stems from his time attending art college in Brighton.

He went on to specialise in boat-painting, signwriting and boat carpentry, and moved to Preston Brook. He bought a wooden boat and ran it as a horse-drawn excursion boat. Lewery worked on wooden hotel boats and painting narrowboats and got to know people including boat owner Peter Froud, Edward Paget Tomlinson from Liverpool Museum, journalist Harry Arnold, and David Owen from Manchester Museums. He discusses their establishment of a Society and their aim to preserve several boat types to cover the history of boat-building in the northwest of England, and in the process pass on skills in boat-building and repair. The aim was keep boats afloat and in use so visitors could better appreciate them.

The Preston Brook site fell through; in the end a huge derelict site in Ellesmere Port proved most practical as it could accommodate a large number of boats. Lewery describes the early weekend work parties to convert the buildings; where the boats came from and the volunteers; and the rewards of learning new skills. He discusses historical and organisational change on the waterways and how the collecting policy expanded to leisure craft. He describes the early museum displays and some of the boats that were donated, and the costs involved in restoration and maintenance.