> > It could have been, but I think it could also refer to a haulier on > the canals > I have never heard the boatmen referred to as hauliers. Coal boats were still running on the Tame Valley Canal when I was a a child, carrying coal from Hamstead Colliery into Birmingham and to the power station at Ocker Hill in the opposite direction. My grandmother's house backed onto the canal. But I am not sure what a "hauler" would have been doing down the pit. Working in seams that were too shallow for the ponies, perhaps? Ron S