Sandys, however, did not succeed in carrying out the intended navigation between the cities of Hereford and Bristol as he proposed. He attempted to make the Wye navigable by locks and weirs on the pound-lock system, which did not suit its rapid current. The enterprise was accordingly abandoned, after a trial of several years.
In 1688 the project of making the Wye navigable was revived. It was now proposed to abandon the pound-lock system, to purchase and remove all the mill-weirs and fishing-weirs between Hay, in Herefordshire, and the sea, and to deepen the channels of the shallow streams. The weir-owners rose in opposition to these proposals, and for several years the subject was the occasion of a bitter controversy. When the Bill was applied for in 1695, the city of Hereford, and thirty-two parishes in the county, petitioned in its favour; while the towns of Ross and Monmouth, and thirteen parishes, petitioned against it. The Bill, however, ultimately became law,[30] and although, owing to the uncertainty of its depth and current, the Wye was never adapted for regular navigation, it was so far improved that throughout the eighteenth century it was of great service to the county of Hereford.[31]
One of the earliest to advocate river improvements in Britain was Andrew Yarranton, an original genius, who had ideas and plans quite a hundred years in advance of his times.[32] He occupied himself with many different projects designed to effect improvements in means of communication, and in developing the resources of the country generally. At one time serving as a soldier, at another engaged in the manufacture of iron; now planning how to provide employment for the poor, and again studying how to bring about more economical processes of husbandry, Yarranton made a special hobby of the improvement of navigation, undertaking surveys of the principal rivers in the West of England at his own cost, and urging upon the people the importance of opening up the facilities of communication thereby available to them.
In 1665 Yarranton proposed to the burgesses of Droitwich to deepen the small river Salwarp, so as to connect that town, now an important centre of the salt industry, with the river Severn. He was offered terms to carry out his plans, but the offer does not appear to have been good enough.[33]
In 1666 Yarranton proposed to make the river Stour navigable between Stourport and Kidderminster, and to connect it with the river Trent by a navigable canal. He carried out this work so far as to make the river navigable from Stourbridge to Kidderminster; but his scheme was not completely adopted for lack of means. He says that he “laid out near 1000l.,” and “carried down many hundred tons of coal,”[34] although, on account of the novelty of his enterprise, it was greatly ridiculed. At a later date Yarranton proposed to connect the Thames and the Severn by means of an artificial cut, “at the very place where, more than a century after his death, it was actually carried out by modern engineers.”[35]
Although the proprietors in what was called the “Old Quay Company” had obtained an Act of Parliament in 1733 for improving by weirs and cuts the rivers Mersey and Irwell, between Runcorn and Manchester, the first association incorporated for making a regular navigable canal in England was not till more than twenty years later, six centuries after the first canals in Italy and Flanders, and a hundred years subsequent to some of the chief canals of France being in operation. It is but fair to add that England carried the movement further than most other countries.
It is unnecessary to enter into the history of the development of the navigable resources of the rivers of the United Kingdom during the last two centuries, even if it were possible, which, of course, it is not in a work of this description. The dates when the several principal navigation works were undertaken will be found set out in Appendix I. But we may, nevertheless, bestow some consideration upon the principal steps that have brought about the remarkable facilities that England, Scotland, and, to a less extent, Ireland, respectively enjoy at the present time in the matter of internal transport. The Clyde, the Tyne, the Tees, the Wear, and other prominent English rivers have been transformed from shallow brawling streams, some of them easily fordable at all states of the tide, into magnificent waterways, capable of bearing on their bosoms the largest vessels afloat. This work has necessarily involved great engineering capacity, a large expenditure, and a judicious administration of their powers and resources by the public bodies through whom it has been carried to completion.
The Mersey.
On the Liverpool side of the Mersey there are sixty docks and basins of the ordinary type, having a total water area of 368 acres and 25 miles of quay berthing. On the Birkenhead side, there are 164½ acres of docks, with 9½ miles of quayage, three graving docks, having a total length of 2430 feet, and every facility for loading and unloading ships.
The total expenditure incurred on this enormous provision for shipping has been upwards of twenty millions, and the total annual revenue of the Mersey dock estate is about a million and a half sterling.