The celebrated canals of China have been assigned an unknown antiquity, but trustworthy representations have led authorities to conclude that they are scarcely older than the works in the Deccan. At all events, they date from less than 900 years ago, a century subsequent to the first irrigation of Valentia. In Spain, the Moors constructed canals to connect inland places with rivers, particularly the Guadalquiver, and connecting Granada with Cadiz. They also introduced, when they conquered that country, their own system of irrigation, with the customs and laws relating thereto, which are followed at the present hour without material change.
Cresy has pointed out that Pliny’s correspondence with the Emperor Trajan proves the importance attached to the subject of waterways. “The consul in a letter points out such designs as were worthy the glorious and immortal name of Trajan, ‘they being no less useful than magnificent.’ He describes an extensive lake near the city of Nicomedia, upon which the commodities of the country were easily and cheaply transported to the high road, and thence were conveyed on carriages to the sea coast at great charge and labour. To remedy this inconvenience, he recommends that a canal should be, if possible, cut from the lake to the sea, observing that one had already been attempted by one of the kings of the country, but whether for the purpose of draining the adjacent lands, or making a communication between the lake and the river, was uncertain. These useful works, in common with all others, fell into decay with the decline of the Roman empire. During the disastrous period which succeeded, until the time of Charlemagne, Europe is deficient in any examples of similar undertakings: this sovereign commenced the projects of uniting the Rhine to the Danube, and of opening a new communication between the German Ocean and the Black Sea.”
The Romans were great canal-makers. They were, indeed, as their extant works in Italy, Spain, and other countries show to this day, very capable hydraulic engineers. But in Roman times, canals were constructed for irrigation and water-supply purposes, rather than for purposes of navigation. It was not until some centuries after the decline of the Roman power that navigation canals began to attract attention. Previous to the time when locks, sluices, and other works of engineering art became general, canals could only be carried through comparatively level territories. Hence we not unnaturally find that some of the earliest canals for navigable purposes were constructed in Holland, where the configuration of the ground is specially adapted to their construction.
Mr. Vignoles, in his address to the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1870, remarked that, when the success of canals in the Low Countries attracted the attention of Europe, a sort of mania arose in France for inland navigation. Most of these were rendered abortive, and became abandoned, “from uncertainty in the supply of water on account of irregular rainfall, and from the pre-existing monopolies of the millers, who appear at all times and places to have been, as they still are, the natural enemies and thorns in the sides of the hydraulic engineer.” Navigation on the upper branches of rivers rapidly ceased, but concessions for canals in France were then given, the Canal de Briare being the earliest, and next the Languedoc Canal, though neither was finished until about forty years after their first imperfect commencement. So early as the twelfth century, large canals had been cut in Flanders, though the great canal from Brussels to the Scheldt was not completed until 1560. This, however, was about a century before Louis XIV. had finished the earliest canal in France.
Probably the first canal constructed in England was the Exeter Canal, a comparatively short waterway, completed in 1572. But the regulation and canalisation of rivers had been attempted long before that time. The improvement of the navigation of the Thames was undertaken in 1423; of the Lea, in 1425; of the Ouse (Yorkshire), in 1462; of the Severn in 1503; of the Stour (Essex), 1504; of the Humber, in 1531; and of the Welland, in 1571.
During the seventeenth century, again, many similar works were undertaken. The Colne, the Itchin, the Wye, the Avon, the Medway, the Wey, the Bure, the Foss Dyke, the Witham, the Fal and Vale, the Aire and Calder, and the Trent were all more or less canalised during the period between 1623 and 1699.
In the next century, projects for river improvement and canal navigation proceeded apace. In 1700, the rivers Avon and Frome were regulated. In the following twenty years improvements were carried out on the Dee, the Lark, the Derwent, the Frant, the Stour, the Nene, the Kennett, the Wear, the Weaver, the Mersey and the Irwell. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal was commenced in 1720, the Stroudwater Canal in 1730, and the Bridgwater Canal in 1737.
From this date, until 1794, canal navigation was extended rapidly, while Acts of Parliament were obtained for the improvement of the Ley, the Avon, the Cart, the Blyth, the Hebble, the Stort, and the Clyde. Between 1763 and 1800 upwards of eighty different canal projects were put forward, and most of them were completed. The Trent and Mersey, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire, the Droitwich, the Coventry, the Birmingham, the Forth and Clyde, the Oxford, the Monkland, the Leeds and Liverpool, the Chesterfield, the Bradford, the Ellesmere, the Market Weighton, the Bude, Sir John Ramsden’s, the Gresley, the Dudley, the Stourbridge, the Basingstoke, the Bedford, the Thames and Severn, the Shropshire Union, the Andover, and the Cromford Canals were all undertaken between 1767 and 1790. The following ten years, however, may be regarded as the heyday of canal-making in England. In 1791 the Hereford and Gloucester, the Leicester, the Manchester, Bolton and Bury, the Leominster, the Melton Mowbray, the Neath, and the Worcester and Birmingham Canals were commenced. Eighteen more canals were undertaken in 1793, and twelve others in 1794.
The same year that witnessed the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, saw also the construction of the English and Bristol Channels Canal, otherwise the Liskeard and Looe; but the number of canals constructed since 1825 has been very limited. Eight different canals were opened between 1826 and 1830, including the Macclesfield, the Birmingham and Liverpool, the Avon and Gloucestershire, and the Nene and Wisbech; but since 1830 the only canals for which Parliamentary sanction was obtained, until the Act was passed for the Manchester Ship Canal in 1886, were the Ellesmere and Chester Canal, and the Droitwich Junction Canal.
Since 1830 the canals of Great Britain have been under a great ban. The superior speed and the greater punctuality provided by railway transport have caused them to be neglected, and, with only a few exceptions, more or less disused. The railway system has been extended so rapidly, and has secured the carrying trade of the country so completely, that canals have until lately been regarded as practically obsolete and useless. Many miles of canal navigation have passed into the hands of the railway companies, while a considerable mileage has become derelict.