In 1758 the Duke of Bridgwater got his first Act of Parliament, which awakened a general ardour for similar improvements among the landowners, farmers, merchants, and manufacturers of the kingdom, and although there was not a Louis XIV. nor a Colbert to encourage them, engineers were found fully equal to Riquet, so that England, though late, began to make good use of the resources she possessed in her inland provinces.
The history of the Bridgwater canal may fairly be said to occupy, in relation to the annals of internal navigation, much the same place that the Liverpool and Manchester Railway does in relation to the development of the railway system. It is necessary to review some of the circumstances connected with this enterprise in order that the actual position of transport at that time may be understood.
Although an Act of Parliament had been obtained many years previously for the purpose of making the Mersey and the Irwell navigable from Liverpool to Manchester, the facilities thereby provided were defective and unsatisfactory in the extreme. The freight charged for water transport between the two towns was 12s. per ton, when the navigation was available, but this was not always at command. Boats could not pass between the lowest lock and Liverpool without the assistance of a spring tide. There were many fords or shallows in the Irwell, over which boats could not pass at all “except in great freshes, or by drawing extraordinary quantities of water from the locks above.” The consequence was that most of the traffic between the two towns was carried on by road, at a much higher cost for rather over thirty miles. The new navigation, although it promised to reduce this charge to 6s. per ton, to abridge the distance by nine miles, to provide wharfage that was not already available, and to give transportation facilities at all times, was strongly denounced and opposed. It was argued that the canal would cut through and separate the land in the possession of several gentlemen along the proposed line of route, that a great number of acres would be covered with water and for ever lost to the public, that the canal could confer no advantage not already secured by the Irwell and the Mersey, that the taking from those streams of the water required for the canal would greatly prejudice, if it did not totally obstruct, the old navigation in dry seasons, and that the property of the old navigation should not be prejudiced without full compensation being made to the proprietors.[42]
A letter written in 1767,[43] at Burslem, states that “gentlemen come to see our eighth wonder of the world—the subterraneous navigation, which is cutting by the great Mr. Brindley, who handles rocks as easily as you would plum-pies, and makes the four elements subservient to his will. He is as plain a looking man as one of the boors of the Peake, or one of his own carters, but when he speaks all ears listen, and every mind is filled with wonder at the things he pronounces to be practicable. He has cut a mile through bogs, which he binds up, embanking them with stones which he gets out of other parts of the navigation, besides about a quarter of a mile into the hill Yelden; on the side of which he has a pump, which is worked by water, and a stove, the fire of which sucks through a pipe the damps that would annoy the men who are cutting towards the centre of the hill.”
The Bridgwater Canal has had a very remarkable career. It was sold by Lord Ellesmere to the Bridgwater Navigation Company for 989,612l., including plant valued at 150,000l. In 1886, the Bridgwater Navigation Company sold the canal to the Manchester Ship Canal Company for 1,710,000l. The Bridgwater Canal was followed, after a few years, by a number of similar undertakings.
We cannot pretend in this chapter to write the history of the canal movement; but we may, nevertheless, rapidly pass in review some of the prominent features of that movement, the better to illustrate the development of canal navigation, and to show how it came to be such as it is.
About the year 1769 we find that the counties of Lancashire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, Leicestershire, and Warwickshire, were greatly exercised concerning the proposal to cut a canal between the Mersey and the Humber by way of Harecastle, Stoke, Burton, and Wilden, near which latter place it was intended to effect a junction with the Trent. Branches were proposed to Birmingham, Lichfield, Tamworth, and Newcastle-under-Lyme. The canal, it was expected, would develop the trade in white flint ware, “which is as strong and sweet as Indian porcelain;” in the noted quarries of Swithland slate, in Leicestershire, “a beautiful and durable covering for houses;” in limestone, “on which the village of Breden, in Leicestershire, is situated;” and “in that sort of iron ore, commonly called ironstone, proper for making cold-short iron, and which, when mixed with the red ore from Cumberland, makes the best kind of tough or merchant iron.”[44] It is somewhat curious, at this time of day, to find that the facilities which it would offer for the exportation of corn were put forward as one of the principal arguments in favour of the new navigation.[45]
The Hull and Liverpool Canal.
In the year 1755, the Liverpool Corporation authorised a survey to be made with a view to the construction of a line of navigation between Liverpool and Hull. Brindley made a survey of the same route three years later, and he, in turn, was followed by Smeaton. Brindley’s plans were ultimately adopted. He proposed to complete the canal “as far north as Harecastle, purchase the land, erect locks, make towing paths, build bridges, and defray every expense, except that of obtaining the Act of Parliament, for 700l. per mile,” but beyond Harecastle it was estimated that the works would cost 1000l. a mile.[46] Brindley proposed to make the canal 12 feet wide at the bottom, and three feet deep on an average, with a depth of 30 inches at the fords. The boats designed to be worked on the canal were 70 feet long, 6 feet wide, drawing 30 inches of water, and carrying 20 tons. Their cost was stated at 30l. each.[47]
It is interesting to record that when the proposal to construct a canal from Liverpool to Hull was under consideration, about the middle of the last century, one of the arguments used in its favour was that it would enable American iron to be brought cheaper to the manufacturing towns from the ports of Liverpool and Hull, and so contribute to lessen the consumption of foreign European iron, “to the great profit of this nation in general, and our own ironworks in particular”; while it was even suggested that, in order to develop this branch of business between our then American colonies and the mother country, a bounty should be offered on the import of American pig-iron, thereby contributing to “clear the lands in America,” and “to preserve the woods in England.”