CHAPTER XXXIV
THE REIGN OF A GREAT QUEEN
Many of the changes described in the last three chapters were but partially accomplished in Cheshire, when a young princess of eighteen years became Queen of England. The power of steam was known, but the Cheshire railways were not yet laid, and those who wished to attend the coronation of Queen Victoria had to use the stage or the family coach and take a day and a half over the journey.
Telegraph and telephone were also quite unknown, and the penny post had not yet come into being. That was to follow in the wake of the railways. During her reign all our main roads were lined with telegraph wires, and cables laid at the bottom of the seas sent our messages to the uttermost parts of the earth. The news of distant events, which formerly took weeks or even months to reach us, may now be read in our newspapers within a few hours at most.
Inventions without number followed the discovery of electricity. The shops and warehouses of large towns, railway carriages and ocean liners, and the homes of the well-to-do are lighted with it. Electric launches flit along the shores of the Mersey. Tram-cars are worked by electricity, which also sets in motion the dynamos that work the machinery of mills and workshops. The pressing of an electric button sets free the big ships when they take the water for the first time in the dockyards of Birkenhead.
The wonderful progress made by the engineers of the nineteenth century is seen in the making of the Manchester Ship Canal, the greater part of which lies within the county of Cheshire. For many years Manchester's great ambition was to become a port. The winding and shallow bed of the inland waters of the Mersey could not be navigated by ocean-going vessels, and a ship canal was wanted in order that the bales of cotton might be brought direct from the United States and other cotton-growing countries to the place where the raw material is distributed. Thus time would be saved, as well as the expense of unloading at Liverpool and putting the cargoes on the railways, whose rates were very high.
It was therefore decided to ask Parliament for powers to make a wide and deep canal, capable of carrying ships of several thousand tons burden. The railway and canal companies and the Liverpool merchants who controlled the navigation of the Mersey were afraid that the trade of Liverpool would be injured, and opposed the scheme vigorously. But Parliament was wise enough to see what a boon the canal would be to the cotton towns and the district through which it was to be laid, and passed the bill for its making. In the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria the work was begun.
Many millions of money were required for such a vast undertaking, and more millions were asked for as the work went on. After seven years of perseverance in the face of tremendous difficulties, the canal was opened by the queen.
The canal is thirty-five and a half miles long, and, roughly speaking, two-thirds of it are in Cheshire. The entrance to the canal is at Eastham, where great locks were built. From Eastham to Runcorn, a distance of thirteen miles, the canal is tidal and laid along the foreshore of the Mersey estuary, and protected by an embankment. At Runcorn 'Gap' the canal and the Mersey, which here becomes very narrow, are separated by a concrete wall nearly one mile in length.
The rest of the waterway lies inland. Latchford serves as a port for Warrington, and the locks here always present a busy scene. At Irlam locks the canal enters Lancashire, and its waters are at this point forty feet above sea-level. The canal is fed by the River Irwell, whose waters flow down the canal from Salford to Irlam.
The railways are carried over the canal by lofty bridges, which had to be made very high to allow the masts of ocean ships to pass under them. Bays or sidings, where ships may pass each other, occur at intervals. Wharves and docks have been built at many points along the canal, which some day may be expected to appear one long seaport.