Navvies: finally recognised by artist Matthew Rosier.

[celeste]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-63863729?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA


An artwork commemorating the men who dug the Manchester Ship Canal will help to bring them the recognition they deserved, its creator has said.

Navvies, an audio-visual installation at Salford Quays, celebrates the 17,000 men who created all 36 miles (58km) of the nearby canal in the late 1800s.

Artist Matthew Rosier said learning about it had left him in "awe of the scale of the collective effort".

"This scale was not sufficiently recognised within society," he added.

The waterway, which links Manchester to the Irish Sea, took six years to complete and was finally opened in 1894.

It was estimated by the Navvies Union that up to 1,100 men died digging the canal with many more injured.

[Parky]

I’m not being a wet blanket here but this “brings the recognition they deserve” gets right on my threpennys, they weren’t forced in to doing it ,they got paid a wage just like anyone who has worked for a living ,is it because most of the navies were Irish if so let’s have art work about the tarmac gangs on motorways,what next recognition of construction workers who’s deaths are quite high .

[lozflan]

There is a Manchester Ship Canal Group,F/B. great sets of pics,recently posted. They must have taken many of them on a Sunday,no men just steamshovels and trains.
I sailed down it many times and although I didn't dig it [haha] was a Navvie once and never heard that term used,just the actual job you did,on the shovel.