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Although not much remains of it today, but if you pass through Gosty Hill Tunnel you will see a 'lay by' and the collapsed brickwork of what was the house for the Gosty Hill tunnel tug. Whilst today almost all of the Coombeswood Tube works which lay at the southern end of the tunnel has been demolished it was once a major user of canal boats both for transhipping tubes to the nearby Hawne Basin railway interchange or for the supply of raw materials from the Bilston Iron works which was part of the same owning group of Stewarts and Lloyds Co Ltd. They also sourced coal from Holly Bank Colliery who had a wharf at Lane Head on the Wyrley and Essington Canal.
Less obvious today was the Coombeswood Colliery which lay beyond the tube works on the towpath side of the canal, at the time our story starts this was part of the Noah Hingley iron works empire and was no doubt producing coal for use at the Hingley ironworks at Netherton. Again Hingley's possessed a fleet of joey boats and son at the beginning of the 20th century we had a considerable amount of traffic passing through Gosty Hill tunnel. Of course the use of tugs on canals was nothing new even then, one of the earliest steam powered boats the paddle steamer 'The Charlotte Dundas' was used to pull boats along the Foth and Clyde Canal back in 1803. Whilst it operated successfully there was concern from the canal company of damage from wash to the canal's banks and it soon fell into disuse.As far as the narrow canals are concerned, probably the earliest powered boats were the steam tugs that used to pull trains of boats, such as on the Shropshire Union Canal and those used to replace 'legging' through tunnels such as Preston Brook on the Trent and Mersey Canal; Blisworth and Braunston on the Grand Junction Canal and Wasthill on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. On the Bridgewater Canal were the 'little' Packets which operated as tugs.
Of the powered narrow boats more familiar were the steam propelled boats of Fellows Morton and Clayton such as 'President' but they were proceeded by those operated by the London and Staffordshire Co and Fellows and Morton. We will see later that both the Packet Boat and the FMC steamer had their part to play. If you have seen' President' as I am sure most of you have, you will be aware of the amount of space taken up by the boiler, engine and fuel supply, thus the next stage in our history is the use of the internal combustion engines which provided for a much more compact power plant to drive the boat along.
James Pollock & Sons was formed in 1875 as Consulting engineers and Naval Architects by James Pollock an engineer with a wide experience of ships and and ship building. However it is his son Walter who is involved in our story. Walter was born in 1873, he joined his fathers firm as an apprentice, then held positions with various works and shipyards during which he designed a number of tugs and coastal craft. He returned to his fathers firm in 1900 becoming a director the following year. Pollock's continued to specialise in the design of tugs and following a visit to Sweden to the works of J C.G Bolinder Mekiniska Verkstads Aktiebolag in Stockholm, in 1909 Walter began to use Bolinder engines in Pollock designed vessels. They also became the United Kingdom agent. Bolinder's had been formed in 1844 by Jean and Carl Gerhard Bolinder to produce agricultural machinery but their output included wood burning stoves, presumably a popular product in a country like Sweden with extensive forests and its situation in northern Europe!
It was Carl's son Erik August born in 1863 who would transform the company through improvements in the works machinery and it was he who recognised the commercial benefits of oil engine production and development.
Production of four stroke parafin engines started in 1893 and in 1902 the manufacture of vertical heavy oil two stroke marine engines began. These were the classic 'hot bulb' type where a bulb, pre heated for starting was used to provide ignition of the fuel, the engine having a low compression.