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25-486: Rawson may refer to: Places [ edit ] Argentina Rawson, Chubut , the capital of Chubut Province Rawson Department, Chubut Rawson Department, San Juan Villa Krause , also named Rawson, the capital city of the department Australia Rawson, Victoria United States Rawson, North Dakota Rawson, Ohio Other uses [ edit ] Rawson (surname) Rawson Stakes ,

50-693: A horse race in Australia a barley variety a boarding house at Cranbrook School in Sydney, Australia Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Rawson . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rawson&oldid=1241051081 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Place name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

75-560: A man but a steam shovel ." Being a navvy labourer became a cultural experience unto its own during the 19th century. Most accounts chronicling the life of a navvy worker come from local newspapers portraying navvies as drunk and unruly men, but fail to provide any mention that families were formed and raised despite the navvy's travelling demands. The navvies working on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway were paid daily and their pay reputedly went on ale , leaving little for food. When

100-409: A mud-walled fortress existed on the site. Settlers dwelled in the fortress various months while they explored the surroundings and built permanent houses. It has been posited that the fort was built in 1853 by non-Indigenous hunters who entered the area to hunt feral cattle . The fortress was known by various names by the settlers. One name was Yr Hen Amddiffynfa meaning "Old Fortress", another

125-498: A newsletter and charity work. The construction tycoon Sir Samuel Morton Peto encouraged religious services for his workforce, as well as providing some social services to the navvy populations. Many of the navvies employed to build the railways in England during the early part of the 19th century lived in squalid temporary accommodations referred to as " shanty towns ." Due in part to constructing through rural areas, and, in part,

150-460: A partial depopulation of the town with many choosing to resettle in Trelew. Trelew was temporarily made capital of Chubut in 1903 as Rawson recovered from the floods. This fuelled a rivalry between the towns, which was further compounded by differences in their ethnic make-up as Rawson was more Catholic and had a higher proportion of Argentines, Italians and Spanish relative to Trelew. Rawson regained

175-637: A riot broke out between the two nationalities in one navvy shanty town, causing local magistrates to arrest 12 individuals. Though, this is not necessarily indicative of relations between the English and Irish in all navvy gangs. Over time, housing arrangements progressed positively, with the structures being built with more care, and even attached land being offered for use so navvies and their families could grow their own food. In addition to their nomadic living arrangements, navvies confronted varying degrees of dangerous work environments that depended both on

200-563: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Rawson, Chubut The city is named after Guillermo Rawson (1821–1890), Argentine Minister of the Interior, who supported the Welsh settlement in Argentina . Rawson is located about 1,360 km (850 mi) south of Buenos Aires , some 20 km (12 mi) from Trelew , and it

225-607: Is served by the Almirante Marco Andrés Zar Airport in Trelew. It lies on both sides of the Chubut River . The city has a fishing port, Puerto Rawson , on the Atlantic coast, 5 km (3 mi) down the river. Rawson was the first town founded by the Welsh immigrants who sailed on the clipper Mimosa in 1865 to establish a national colony. At the time of founding remains of

250-541: The bardic name Gutyn Ebrill and established the Patagonia Gorsedd of Bards . This bridge was destroyed by a flood ten years later, and was replaced by an iron bridge in 1917. In 2001 a decision was made to rename the iron bridge as Puente del Poeta (poet's bridge) in honor of Griffiths. A plaque was installed at the bridge with information on Griffiths. Rawson was flooded in 1899 and 1901. While there had been floods before, these floods caused

275-591: The 1840s, but were not considered cost effective until much later in the 19th century, especially in Britain and Europe where experienced labourers were easily obtained and comparatively cheap. Elsewhere, for example in the United States and Canada, where labour was more scarce and expensive, machines were used. In the States the machine tradition became so strong that "[...] the word navvy is understood to mean not

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300-462: The Enquiry of 1846, which eventually led to the need for the formation of and evaluation by a Select Committee on Railway Labourers 1846. The natural tension between locals and outsiders sometimes bred distrust of the navvies. Occasionally, this strain between the two would result in violence such as riots, or death. One such instance occurred at Sampford Peverell in 1811. John Chave, a local who

325-634: The Irish were only about 30% of the navvies. By 1818, high wages in North America attracted many Irish workers to become a major part of the workforce on the construction of the Erie Canal in New York State and similar projects. Navvies also participated in building canals in Britain, and by the 20th century, they were the predominant workforce. The construction of canals in Britain

350-572: The capital status soon thereafter. Rawson experiences a borderline cold desert ( Köppen BWk )/ cold semi-desert ( BSk ) climate with hot summers, cool winters and low precipitation year-round. Navvies Navvy , a clipping of navigator ( UK ) or navigational engineer ( US ), is particularly applied to describe the manual labourers working on major civil engineering projects and occasionally in North America to refer to mechanical shovels and earth moving machinery. The term

375-558: The initials LMR stamped upon them. This reduced the problems of drunken navvies and eliminated the local farm labourers freeloading from the food caravans. Tokens and a description of their use can be found in the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester . In the mid-1800s some efforts were made by evangelical Anglicans led by Elizabeth Garnett to administer to the perceived religious needs of navvy settlements, with preaching,

400-428: The local inhabitants of the regions the navvy worked in, when they arrived. In many cases, though, as time passed, the local establishments benefited from navvy business, which strengthened relations, and even forged friendships with an occasional local helping teach reading and writing to some navvies. Many slang terms were used as a method of communication among navvies, which facilitated bonding amongst them, as it

425-479: The navvies negative reputation, two-thirds of the railway construction sites had housing erected specifically for the navvy. Initially, the housing "huts" were constructed quickly and meant to be temporary. As a result, little thought was given to comfort, let alone sanitation, which was actually a prominent issue for everyone during the Victorian era . Shanties "were clearly unhealthy places in which to live, and it

450-463: The terrain, and the locals' reception of them. Due to limited safety protocols, navvies were frequently injured or killed on the job. For each mile of rail laid, there was an average of three work-related deaths, which was even higher when working on sections that required tunnelling. The particularly high incidence of navvy mortality during the construction of the Woodhead Tunnel prompted

475-612: The workers were unfit to work, monies were subtracted from their wages and meal tokens were issued. These tokens could be handed in at meal caravans for a bowl of soup and a portion of bread. At first the token was a slip of paper called a "flimsy" because of its thickness. In today's terms it would be similar to a grade called " bank paper " . As these tokens could be copied by the forgers , the Liverpool and Manchester Railway supplied its contractors with six-sided food tokens that were surrendered for meals. These were cut from brass and had

500-575: Was Caer Antur meaning "Fort Adventure". Henry Libanus Jones had called it "Fuerte Paz" in his 1861 Explanatory notes on two maps of Patagonia . Between 1885 and 1890 many Italians settled in Rawson. Initially many Italians worked as railway navvies but in time many moved to work in trade. The first bridge over the Chubut in Rawson was built of wood in 1889 by the carpenter and Welsh-language poet Griffith Griffiths (1829–1909), who wrote under

525-504: Was coined in the late 18th century in Great Britain when numerous canals were being built, which were also sometimes known as "navigations". A study of 19th-century British railway contracts by David Brooke, coinciding with census returns, showed that the great majority of navvies in Britain were English. He also stated that "only the ubiquitous Irish can be regarded as a truly international force in railway construction," but

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550-412: Was frequently used for a laugh, or as a method of asking for someone to watch your back, while you sneaked a smoke break, or went off for a drink. Much of the terminology appears to be fluid, relying primarily on rhyming with the intended meaning. One example provided by Daniel William Barrett, in his book, Life and Work Among The Navvies , contains the following navvy slang; "'now, Jack, I'm goin' to get

575-414: Was not uncommon for a navvy community to be overtaken by cholera, dysentery or typhus ." In addition to these unhygienic living conditions, navvies shared housing, some even sleeping on floors. The majority of navvies were Englishmen, with 30% of the group being Irish. While this ratio varied from navvy shanty town to shanty town, sleeping arrangements were segregated. In at least one documented instance,

600-457: Was regionally well known for living in a "haunted house," was approached by a group of drunk navvies. The encounter left Chave feeling threatened, so after proceeding home with the navvy group in tow, he used a gun to shoot a warning shot into the crowd, which hit and killed one of the group members causing a riot to ensue. The death was later deemed a justifiable homicide . As newspapers reported on similar conflicts, anticipated tensions grew for

625-622: Was superseded by contracts to construct railway projects from 1830 onward, which developed into the railway manias , and the same term was applied to the workmen employed on building rail tracks , their tunnels , cuttings and embankments . There were 250,000 navvies employed during the apex of British railway expansion efforts. Navvies working on railway projects typically continued to work using hand tools, supplemented with explosives (particularly when tunnelling, and to clear obdurate difficulties). Steam-powered mechanical diggers or excavators (initially called 'steam navvies') were available in

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