1
Navigable waterways and the economy of England and Wales 1600-1835
by Max Satchell1
The advantages resulting from canals, as they open an easy and cheap communication
between distant parts of a country, will be ultimately experienced by persons of various
descriptions: and more especially by the manufacturer, the occupier or owner of land, and
the merchant. The manufacturer will thus be enabled to collect his materials, his fuel, and
the means of subsistence, from remote districts, with less labour and expense; and to convey
his goods to a profitable market. As canals multiply, old manufactures revive and flourish,
new ones are established, and the adjoining country is rendered populous and productive.2
So wrote an anonymous contributor c. 1806 in an article on canals in an encyclopaedia at the height of
the boom in canal building. In a single paragraph it encapsulates the perceived inter-relationship
between cheap transport by water, improved market access, cheaper raw materials and economic and
demographic growth. Yet despite canals and navigable rivers having been the subject of historical
enquiry for over 200 years, and the enormous volume of work done, there have been few attempts to
explore in detail the relationship between the growth of the network of waterway and developments and
changes in the economy of England and Wales in the period when the network changed radically that
is from 1600 to 1835.3 Moreover, with some notable exceptions most attempts to portray the relationship
between the development of waterways and the national economy are insufficiently grounded in the
changing geographical and material realities of both the waterways themselves and those who used and
benefitted them.
This essay cannot begin to attempt to fill this gap in the literature. It is intended primarily as a general
introduction to the subject of navigable waterways of England and Wales from 1600 to 1835 but set
within the context of the wider economy. It also aims to show how the inter-relationship of navigable
waterways with economic and demographic developments can be explored in new ways using the first
ever time sensitive GIS (Geographical Information Systems) model of the waterways. The essay
consists of five sections. This first section begins with gives a general context for the development of
the network and outlines the GIS waterways model. In the second section the constraints of physical
geography on what was and could be made navigable is discussed. The third section describes the
growth and development of the network from 1600 to 1835. The fourth section discusses the
significance of waterways concerning two important aspects of the English economy: urban growth and
the role of waterways in fuelling the industrial revolution with coal. The fifth section concludes.
1.1 The general context of waterways
Between 1600 and 1800 the population of England doubled, over a quarter of this increase was from
individuals living in towns of over 5,000 people. In this period the number of people living in towns
of over 5,000 people had increased six fold while in the countryside and smaller towns the increase
population had roughly doubled (see table 1). This growth in population especially urban population
led to a massive increase in the demand for food, fuel and raw materials that was both a huge strain on
the existing transport facilities and enormous incentive for them to become more efficient. It is against
this background that the growth of the waterways network needs to be understood. In 1600 England
and Wales had about 950 miles of navigable waterway. By c.1760 it had increased to 1400 miles nearly
all of which were navigable rivers. When the last significant addition to the waterways network, the
Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, was completed in 1835 the total network was about 4,000
miles the great majority of the post-1760 mileage being canals.
2
Table 1. Population Growth in England 1600-1800
1600
% of total population
in 1600
1800
% of total population
in 1800
% increase from
1600 to 1800
335000
8
2380000
27
610
Other
3827000
92
6291000
73
108
Total
4162000
100
8671000
100
164
Towns
people
5000>
after E.A. Wrigley, The Path to Sustained Growth (Cambridge, 2016), 49
On one level the reason for this change is obvious. Until the advent of the railways, water was by far
the most efficient way to carry low value non-perishable bulky goods such as coal and grain. If
comparison is made between the weight that could be typically carried by one horse wagons on the preturnpike roads of the seventeenth century, and loads that could be hauled by a single-horse barge on a
broad canal of the eighteenth century it can be seen that 96 horses pulling wagons would be needed to
carry the same load as that drawn by one horse on a broad canal. Or put another way a single horse
barge could move almost eighty times as much freight as a one horse wagon (see table 2).
Table 2: Typical loads carried or drawn by a single horse before 1750
The
Mode
Tons
Number of horses needed to draw the
same weight by wagons on soft roads
Barge on broad canal
Barge on narrow canal
Barge on river
Wagon on iron rails
Wagon on macadam roads
Wagon on soft roads
Pack-horse
50
30
30
8
2
0.625
0.125
80
48
48
12.8
3.2
1
-
after Skempton, 'Canal and river navigations before 1750', 1
number of horses and vehicles needed to move goods were crucial issues because then as now horses
were expensive animals as was their food and upkeep. In c.1700, for example, the cost of horse
provender represented about two-thirds of the total cost of carrying goods by wagon. Contemporaries
were well aware of the reduction in carrying by land once water carriage was available. For example,
in 1811 the agriculturalist R. Parkinson claimed access to a canal meant that farm horses no longer had
to be used to carry goods to market and they could be used for farming full time. For him canals
"promotes the purposes of agriculture very much by keeping their [ the farmer's ] horses at liberty for
that purpose".4
This cost differential had a major effect on the marketing of goods. In instances where alternatives were
available, for example, wood or peat or peat as fuel alternatives to coal, the availability of cheap carriage
via a navigable waterway could determine which commodity was used or whether it was economic to
3
establish industries that required a particular raw material to be transported from elsewhere. Coal, for
example, was not marketable at a profit by road beyond a distance of two to fifteen miles from the
pithead.5
The effect of the cost differential is vividly illustrated by the description of the carriage of chalk marl
from Thorpe near Norwich to Woodbastwick (Norfolk) given by the agriculturalist William Marshall
in 1782. The fields of Woodbastwick lay seven to eight miles by road from the chalk pits of Thorpe.
Even with travel as back carriage i.e. a return journey from Thorpe with the cost of going from
Woodbastwick to Thorpe ignored, it was still cheaper to load the marl onto a lighter (4d a cartload) ship
it 48 miles by water (16d a cartload) down the River Yare to Yarmouth and then up the River Bure to
Woodbastwick followed by offloading and cartage of at least half a mile (see Map 1).6
Map 1. Travel from Thorpe to Woodbastwick by road and water in 1782
The journey from Thorpe to Woodbastick is instructive in another respect. We have already seen in
Table 2 the savings in the number of horses required for haulage by water compared to road but this
table takes no account of other costs involved in travel by water. In fact the price differential between
road and water travel were particularly pronounced for the Yare and Bure because both rivers were tidal
4
and, as a consequence, toll free. Moreover, no horse haulage costs were incurred because the vessels
would have been propelled by the tide.7 Many rivers did not have these advantages. On the River Lea,
for example, coal of the same weight as the marl carried to Woodbastwick, travelling only sixteen miles
this time from the junction of the Lea with the Thames at Bromley to Kings Weir, Wormley
(Hertfordshire) would have had to pay tolls of 2s 6d in 1767 above and beyond costs, such as horse
haulage, loading, unloading, and so on.8
Stated as a more general principal the productivity gain from shipping goods by water was blunted in
two ways. For open rivers that is rivers that were not under the jurisdiction of any navigation authority
travel (most tidal rivers and a few freshwater ones) were free in the sense that no tolls were charged. In
practice travel on such unimproved rivers often incurred greater costs in travel time due to obstructions
and so on. Slower travel times meant greater cost. Conversely some river navigations were more
efficient since they had removed obstructions and so on but they charged tolls to pay for such works
and their ongoing maintenance. These relationships are apparent in the limited amount of published
freight rate data recently summarised by Bogart. This shows improved rivers costing three and a half
times more than natural rivers in the beginning of the eighteenth century.9
Higher value goods, such as cheese and textiles, while they could be marketed by road at considerable
distances because of their high value to weight ratio, if part of their journey was by water, it was possible
to market them at a still greater distance compared to road travel alone. For example, in 1704 cheese
for the London market was carried by road from Cheshire and Lancashire to Doncaster (Yorkshire,
West Riding), then by the rivers Don, Ouse and Humber to Hull (Yorkshire East Riding)l, then by ship
down the coast and up the Thames to London.10 Proximity to a navigable river then had complex local
and long distance effects on regional economies.
1.2 The GIS waterways model
Hitherto anyone wishing to assess the extent of navigable waterways and how they changed over time
were dependant on estimates of national mileage at various dates or laboriously picking out the salient
information from the pioneering regional studies of Hadfield et al in conjunction with a variety of paper
maps of variable accuracy and utility.11 The creation of the first ever time dynamic GIS model of the
waterways of England and Wales has fundamentally altered how the changing distribution and capacity
of navigable waterways through space and time can be studied. The absence of such a resource until
now is not surprising given the scale and complexity of the task and the application of GIS to historical
data being confined to one or two research groups until the 2000s. All in all creating the waterways GIS
has proved to be a major undertaking achieved in stages by the author between 2006 and 2016 under a
series of grants held by Dr Leigh Shaw-Taylor.12
A word needs to be said how the GIS is used. Put simply the GIS software enables the location of each
and every navigable waterway to be accurately mapped and data associated with it, such as variables
that effect the tonnage and frequency of vessels that travel upon it, to be stored. Once this data is
captured en masse it can be then compared in a systematic manner against other GIS datasets such as
population, mineral resources, wealth, climate etc. The inclusion of date data concerning when the
waterway opened and closed makes it possible to model the network in any particular year enabling
nuanced comparison with other datasets of historical data for specific years.
5
Though the most important variables are consistently represented there are significant aspects of the
waterways that the GIS cannot model. We cannot capture how the tides and the seasons could impede
the functions of parts of the network. The GIS maps also do not yet capture improvements created by
the upgrade of rivers which were already navigable. For example, the GIS does not indicate that a 28
miles section of the Thames between London and Great Marlow (Buckinghamshire), which had been
navigable since the middle ages, was subject to various improvements in the 1770s. That these
improvements were significant is apparent from information concerning the cost of shipping coal
between the two places, which fell by almost a quarter, and a statement that because "the Navigation
being more safe, certain, and expeditious" the boats had been able to increase the number of journey
per year between the two places.13 The GIS also do not capture navigation schemes that failed, such as
the numerous proposal to the Crown and Parliament in the seventeenth and eighteenth century that
either never got beyond the planning stage or were partially executed but never opened.14 These are of
potential interest for a variety of purposes including counterfactual exercises.
2. The physical frame: Geographical influences on what was, and could be made navigable
If the importance of travel by water was recognised by many as a general idea in 1600, geography
determined that the majority of communities lay far from navigable water and many were located in
places without any rivers that could ever be made navigable. Transport historians term rivers with
sufficient depth and width for vessels to travel unimpeded natural rivers. Rivers where it proved
necessary to extend width and depth to make them navigable, a factor which potentially can
dramatically increase cost, are termed improved rivers. The physical geography of each river catchment
was an important determinant on whether a river was or could be made navigable. Since the gross
tonnage of a vessel equals the water displaced, the depth and width of a waterway are key determinants
of its capacity to carry large or small vessels or indeed to be navigable whatsoever. In the medieval
period there is little evidence of vessels with a carrying capacity of much more than 25 tons, and on
minor rivers like the Parrett in Somerset traffic seem to have been restricted to vessels carrying tiny
loads of one or two tons.15 The depth and flow of a river is dependent on the size and character of its
catchment in terms of rainfall, and the factors that lead to the loss of that rainfall before it reaches the
river: trans-evaporation and seepage. Of some 200 river basins in England and Wales, the steep gradient
of rivers in most of Wales, the South-West and parts of the north of England plus their modest annual
discharges meant that in these regions very few rivers were naturally navigable any significant distance
beyond their tidal limits. Moreover, the same steep gradients predisposed many rivers to be dominated
by boulder stream courses, riffles and pools, and numerous bare rock outcrops which made making
them navigable all but impossible. The uselessness of most of the rivers of England and Wales is that
only about a quarter of main stem rivers – the primary downstream segment - were naturally navigable
or had been made so by 1835.16
In addition, and rather obviously, watersheds represent a barrier at which all rivers stop. The
serendipitous juxtaposition of coal, water power and other raw materials which enabled parts of the
Midlands to industrialise early was less kind in terms of terrain for navigable rivers. Most of this area
was located on the Central Pennines watershed above the 100 metre contour. For this region the moving
of goods via navigable rivers of the estuarine ports of Bristol, Liverpool or Hull first required an
expensive journey by cart or packhorse respectively to Bewdley on the Severn, Winsford on the Weaver
and Nottingham on the Trent.17
6
Even if a river was regarded as navigable, this did not mean it was continually navigable 365 days a
year. In 1600 rivers that were navigable were largely natural rivers and thus felt the full effect of
seasonal hydraulics. During late summer even major rivers like the Thames, Severn and Trent receded
and water depth was reduced. This was not a problem in their deeper sections but in their shallower
reaches it made travel difficult and at times impossible. For example, in the late eighteenth century the
Severn was only traversable to its upper navigable limit at Coalport 146 days of the year due to
insufficient water.18 For these sorts of locations navigation was at best episodic. Canals water supply
was usually less dependent on nature being met by carefully designed engineering solutions including
at times purpose-built reservoirs.
Freezing temperatures could also lead to canals and rivers becoming ice-bound and impassable. This
was potentially a greater or lesser problem depending on local air temperature and the degree to which
the water was fresh or saline. Swift flowing rivers were also less predisposed to freeze than deadwater
canals. The only attempt to quantify the numbers of working days lost due to frost is by Freeman using
climactic data for Lancashire 1771-1831.19 The estimated time lost is considerable with 33.3% of the
years loosing 20 to 30 working days per annum, and 16.6% of the years losing more than 30 days. The
worst winter is that of 1813-14 which has an estimated 36.5 days lost to frost.
Freeman based his work on temperature data from Walton near Liverpool which thanks to its position
on the Lancashire Plain and proximity to the Gulf Stream has a relatively mild climate. Walton had an
average only 30 days of air frost per annum for the period 1961-1990. Using gridded MET Office data
on the number of days air frost for this period on the entire waterways network shows that less than 4%
of the network had air frost per year as low or lower than Walton (see table 3) and that over half had 45
to 60 days a year.
Table 3. navigable waterways 1835. Average number of days with air frost 1961-1990
Days of air frost
Miles of waterways
% of all waterways
5-15
10.7
0.20
16-30
164.6
3.06
31-45
1677.9
31.22
46-60
3457.7
64.34
60-75
63.0
1.17
TOTAL
5374.0
100
Source: MET Office: UKCP09: AirFrost_1961_1990_LTA; Waterways GIS
7
Map 1 Mean number of days of air frost 1961-1990. source: MET Office: UKCP09: AirFrost_1961_1990_LTA;
Map
2. Navigable
Waterways
GIS waterways in 1835 with average annual days of air frost 1960-1990
8
This mapping generates some obvious anachronisms, such as the modern "warming" effect of major
centres like London. Further difficulties are caused by the eighteenth century being colder than the
period 1960-1990, and the climactic data being too generalised to capture the local variability of frosts.
But it is still readily apparent that that the majority of waterways would have experienced a much greater
number of days of frost than the Walton data would suggest. This does not mean waterways were
necessarily more icebound and impassable more than Freeman’s estimates. Working days lost to frost
may actually have been less. Freeman was aware of, but gave little attention to, the use of special vessels
known as ice-boats to keep waterways clear which are documented for some canals but may have been
used more generally.20 Also the process of ice-forming thick enough to prevent navigation is cumulative
i.e. it is successive days of frost that is important.21 This variable is not captured by Freeman’s estimates
of the number of frost days each winter. A more nuanced idea of the importance of frost may be
obtainable by comparing historic daily temperature data series with prolonged documented episodes of
canal closure.22 For example, a 33 day closure on the Trent and Mersey is documented during the winter
of 1813-14 and a 30 day closure on the Birmingham Old Main Line during the winter of 1819-20.23
Both correlate well with data from the historic daily temperature series published by Legg et al which
give the 32 successive days with temperatures below freezing during the same months in 1813-1814
and 9 successive days below freezing, a single day above freezing, and then a further 14 successive
days below freezing during the same months in 1819-20.24 They should NOT be taken as representative
of the usual experience of canals. When the mean temperature of the winters of these years are ranked
against those of 128 winters for the period 1772-1900, the winters of 1813-14 and 1819-20 are the
second and fifth coldest respectively. Clearly the whole issue of working days lost to frost needs to be
revisited.
The influence of the tides on the lower sections of rivers was also significant. Tidal water should
generally be regarded as a positive variable in navigation. As the example of Woodbastwick showed
the incoming and outgoing tides could propel vessels upstream and downstream at very little cost.
However, the reality was more complex than this. Since the difference between high and low tide is
greater or lesser each month (the highest are known as spring tides and the lowest are known as neap
tides), those sections of a river near the upper limit were often un-navigable for a number of days each
month. The case of the River Weaver above Frodsham Bridge (Cheshire) provides an extreme but
instructive example. In the mid seventeenth century this part of the river was only passable for an hour
and a half during spring tides causing vessels to be delayed for days on end. As a consequence, goods
were generally carried by land then transhipped onto small vessels at Frodsham bridge for the journey
downstream to Liverpool.25 Likewise vessels going up the tidal Trent to Lincoln in the summer could
only access to the entrance lock of the Foss Dyke at Torksey (Lincolnshire) during spring tides some
six days a month.26 The tidal River Axe (Somerset) was only navigable no more than five out of twelve
hours - the other seven hours vessels would "take the mud" i.e. lie on the exposed mud of the estuary.27
Tides also created other issues including the deposition of silt which would impede navigation unless
dredged, which created a regular burden of expense, and on occasion major damage to navigation works
and vessels due to storm surges. On the east coast of England the progressive lowering of the land
relative to the sea in the later middle ages made the tidal sections of rivers more likely to silt-up and
was perhaps partly to blame for the deterioration of some rivers.
If it is true that some perhaps many waterways the transit of goods was impeded by dry summers or
cold winters, the economic effects of these interruptions have been largely ignored by UK scholars. In
9
other countries economic historians have tried to model these effects by estimating inventory costs i.e.
the capital costs while the goods are in transit subject to the value of the goods, the rate of interest and
the loss of value due to the depreciation/ spoiling of goods caused by excessive transit time. For,
example, a product like coal does not spoil if stacked at the wharf side due to delays in transit. Perishable
foodstuffs, by way of contrast, rapidly deteriorate. There is great potential for modelling seasonal delays
and inventory costs for the navigable waterways of England and Wales.
It is important not to overstate the obstacles that confronted those who wished to extend navigable
waterways or build canals. Some areas were ripe for the extension of navigation. The work and cost of
making rivers navigable could be shared with that of land reclamation, in areas of wetland, such as the
Fens - the wetland area that stretches from the lowlands of Lincolnshire in the north to Cambridge in
the south; the Yorkshire marshes, from Hull and Doncaster to nearly as far north as Scarborough; the
Somerset Levels; the Norfolk Broads; the Lancashire mosslands, Romney Marsh; and the Essex
marshes,. These areas generally had some rivers that were semi-navigable already but the straightening
of rivers to increase flow and the digging of new artificial channels required for drainage could also
benefit the interests of navigation. For example, in 1633 when Simon Hill proposed to drain the fens
between Boston and Lincoln with a " one new Ryver" (drainage cut) some 25 miles long that would
straighten the Witham between the two towns, he gave two options a cut just for drainage and another
for drainage and navigation. The former cut would cost £6,360 and would be 5ft deep throughout and
50ft wide at its lower end near Boston but narrower further up. It would have a wooden sluice suitable
only for drainage. To make the cut "constantly navigable as well in somer as winter" would require an
additional £12,260. The navigable cut would be 7ft deep throughout and 50ft wide near Boston and
narrower further up with a stone built navigable sluice. It would also have substantial banks on both
sides of the cut with footways for the benefit of travellers and groups of men towing boats.28
Little has been said yet concerning canals. On one level canals were fundamentally different in that
their routes were chosen by people, whereas hydrology dictated the route of rivers. For Turnbull this
distinction is seen as absolute:
But canals were very different from natural waterways, with characteristics that
transformed water transport. Their technology freed them from the tyranny of natural
hydrology that limited the value of rivers. Canals could be constructed to exploit potential
opportunities, linking places at will by deliberate, rational, economic calculation. This
greatly changed and indeed reversed, the relationship between water transport and the
economy: bulk water transport could be brought to favourable manufacturing sites instead
of a forced movement in the opposite direction.29
In practice this distinction between the routes of river navigations and canal was more complex. While
the route of a canal was not constrained by pre-existence of a potentially navigable river, it was
constrained by even modest changes in elevation. In the eighteenth century it was considered that one
pound lock was needed for every 7ft (2.13 metres) of elevation.30 The major cost of individual locks
must be borne in mind. For example, two new pound locks were built on the River Weaver cost
approximately £7000 each in the late seventeenth century or about £800,000 each in today's money.
Only in circumstances where the economic case was particularly compelling or investors particularly
unwise
were
Figure 2 Main Flight of 16 locks on Caen Hill, Kennet and Avon Canal
10
significant elevations tackled by numerous locks.
Locks also reduced travel speeds and limited capacity. An idea of the effects of locks on travel speeds
can be established by comparing carriers by road and water, which, if unimpeded, travelled at similar
speeds. For example, in 1825 a non-stop journey took 44 hours by fly-boat from Birmingham to the
Bridgwater canal via the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal and the Trent and Mersey Canal. This route
represented some 93 miles in length and traversed 96 locks and four tunnels. A fly-van could cover
double the distance by road in the same time.31 Ignoring the necessity to slow for tunnels this suggests
each lock took something like 13 minutes to pass. The data concerning travel speeds is plentiful for
scheduled services of both waterway and road transport between towns, though it has only been
systematically gathered and analysed recently. Combined with information for locks and other
impediments it will be possible to model and compare travel speeds between individual waterways and
in relation to roads much better than has been possible hitherto.32
Pound locks also required enormous amounts of water so in many circumstances purpose-built
reservoirs have to be built to supply them as well which added further to the expense.33 The most
spectacular examples are called lock flights - sets of locks which ran staircase like up a hillside. In
practice these represented a major impediment to simple efficient travel and by the late 19th century
moves were made on occasion to replace them with inclined planes - - as with the flight of ten locks at
Foxton on the Grand Junction Canal which was replaced by a steam-powered inclined plane in 1900 as
part of making the waterway efficient to recapture the Derbyshire coal trade. In the case of Foxton travel
via the inclined plane was four times faster than by the lock flight.
This cost factor determined that most canals followed river valleys only crossing watersheds where
absolutely necessary and where the elevation was least pronounced. Indeed for much of the eighteenth
century canals would try to follow a particular contour to minimize changes in elevation and thus keep
down costs. These are termed contour canals by historians and where characterised by gentle curves
and were far from direct between their start and end points. For example, the Brecon and Abergavveny
Canal was 33 miles long though the straight-line distance between its start and end-points was 23 miles.
The first 14 miles of it being lock free.34 Far from Turnbull's view of canals "linking places at will by
deliberate, rational, economic calculation" the choice of routes was constrained by a potent combination
of elevation cost and competing interests including other canal and navigation schemes.
3. Changes in the network of navigable waterways 1600-1835
3.1. The situation in 1600.
In 1600 the network of navigable rivers of England and Wales had declined from a peak in the thirteenth
century in terms of extent and quality.35 This affected some of the most important rivers in the country.
For example, the Great Ouse has been navigable to Bedford but in 1600 vessels could only reach St
Ives. The Thames had been navigable from the sea to at least Radcot near the Gloucestershire border in
the 13th century but in 1600 vessels seem to have been restricted to a short section upstream of Oxford
to Eynsham. Downstream of Oxford the river only became navigable again at Burcot south of Abingdon
(see map 3).
11
Map 3 The situation in 1600
12
In some circumstances rivers while remaining nominally navigable had declined markedly in the size
of vessel they could carry and in the reliability of passage. For example, in the first half of the fourteenth
century the Witham had been navigable by vessels carrying c.12 tons from the port of Boston up river
to Lincoln. Both towns were large important places and the Witham was a waterway of major
importance, connecting as it did coastal and international shipping landing at Boston to Lincoln, which
itself was connected via the Foss Dyke with the Trent, Humber and Yorkshire Ouse river network. The
decline of the Witham in the latter middle ages is mirrored by the decline in the fortunes of Lincoln and
Boston and by 1635 it was said that the port of Boston had only seven or eight small vessels and was
virtually" landed [silted] up".36 The scale and nature of the problem is apparent from a survey of 1733
which shows the river was virtually un-navigable between the two towns being only passable by the
smallest of vessels because it was now very shallow.37
Such contraction and decline
of the navigable rivers
reflected a variety of problems
which would remain to
challenge and direct the
attempts to improve and
extend the network into the
nineteenth century. Some
problems derived from human
interference with the course of
the river. On the many rivers
which had gradients steep
enough to make water mills
viable, the numerous mill
weirs could be a major
hindrance to navigation.
While it was sometimes
possible for boats to travel
through a weir via a special type of sluice called a flash or flashlock, there was an understandable tension
between miller and navigator as the former wished to conserve water of the mill dam for milling and
the latter needed the water to aid their passage through the flash. Also flash locks were at best a very
imperfect means of passing the mill weir. To go downstream the opening of the flashlock to wash the
boat through (and sometimes over shoals and other obstacle down river). To go upstream the flow
pressure and level of the water upstream of the weir had to be lowered enough to enable the vessel to
be winched through the flash lock. This challenge was more problematic in summer when river levels
were lower and water was scarcer. The depth of water downstream of the weir was shallower which
meant the water level upstream of the mill weir had to be made lower to enable the vessel to be winched
through. Travel up or down stream used extremely large amounts of water. Weirs extended right across
the river and the difference in height between the river above and below the
Figure 2 Caen
Hill Lock Flight, Kennet and Avon Canal .
weir could be considerable: weirs on the River Medway were said to be six to eight feet high c. 1600,
Monmouth Weir on the River Wye was said to be eleven feet high c.1700.38 The higher the weir the
13
greater the water the miller would need to let out to allow boats to navigate upstream. The need of the
miller to conserve water meant that passage through the lock might only happen twice a week during
the summer months when river levels were lower. Boats would proceed from flash to flash but the
temporary positive effect of the flash on downstream shoals soon dissipated and boats would run
aground and have to wait days till the next flash came. On the Aire and Calder Navigation, for example,
a journey from Stock Reach to Leeds or Wakefield that should have taken 15 hours took over a week
in 1771.39
It is important not to be too negative about mill weirs. On one hand mill flashlocks introduced delays
in travel, and limited the tonnage of a laden vessel that could be hauled through. In some instances
vessels would have to offload their cargoes and reload them to pass through the flashlock.40 On the
other hand when mill-weirs with flash-locks occur in succession they may have actually made some
marginal sections of rivers more navigable by dividing them into a series of deeper, more slower flowing
pools.41 In a few instances there seems to have been a well-established system of co-operation between
millers and boatmen, for example that on sections of the Thames lasted into the nineteenth century. 42
Such a system can only be surmised for other navigable rivers, such as section of the Bure between
Aylsham and Wroxham (Norfolk), whose numerous mills predate the earliest record of that part of the
river being navigable.43 Such a system was not necessarily a problem when traffic volumes were low
and speed unimportant. It was also an improvement on other rivers whose upper limit of navigation was
the lowest mill-weir, such as Ham Mill which was the upper navigable limit of the River Tone (see
Figure 3).
Figure 3 Bypassing an obstacle: Ham Mill, River Tone (Somerset). Coal Harbour is the former navigable
limit and transit point for goods from water to land carriage c. 1600. The mill weir shown on the map would
have blocked the navigation but was bypassed by a new channel or cut - the lowest of the three courses after 1638.Water to power the mill would go down the mill leat - the central channel
Many rivers were not constrained by mills and the degree to which they represented a problem is a
Much remains to be learnt concerning the interaction of mills and navigation.
Bridges could also cause complications. The ubiquity of vessels which lacked masts and sails on some
waterways in part reflected issues to do with the height of bridges. This was especially the case for
14
canals where local landowners usually insisted pre-existing roads cut by the new canal alignment have
a connecting bridge built at the canal company's expense. Bridges high enough for masted vessels were
too expensive.
On rivers the situation was different. Removing or lowering masts to pass under bridges was also normal
practise on some rivers. For example, on the Severn below Shrewsbury trows and barges routinely
lowered their masts to pass under the seven bridges downstream of the town. If going downstream the
river would carry the vessel through. If going upstream the men of the boat would have to haul the
vessel by rope.44 Rebuilding bridges to create sufficient headroom under them was a not uncommon
task for making a river navigable. For example, in 1727 an act concerning the Don navigation specified
the replacement of three wooden bridges with drawbridges "for the more easy passage of boats lighters
and other vessels with masts through the same without taking down or lowering their masts".45 In some
instances the density of pre-existing bridges presented a substantial obstacle to making a river
navigable. The Warwickshire Avon, for example, had 9 bridges within 43 miles. Distances between the
arches of bridges could restrict the river to small narrow beamed vessels or block navigation completely.
Numerous piers might also cause dangerously fast currents between them. The 19 piers of London
Bridge, for example, were too narrow for the large barges that carried good upriver. from London to
pass downstream to load coal directly from the coastal shipping moored below the bridge. Extra cost
was incurred because coal and other goods had to be first loaded in narrower lighters to pass under the
bridge and then be transhipped to the barges. The piers, surrounding protective timbers and other
obstacles also increased the flow of the river so much that for several hours each tide passing under the
bridge was very dangerous. This problem was only partially fixed in 1756 when the central pier of the
bridge was removed allowing barges to pass through.46 The flow problem was only effectively fixed
when the bridge was built anew in 1831.
Bridges which required extensive causeways because of the width of the floodplain of the river may
also have exacerbated silting problems.47 Improvements and extensions in navigations then were
conceived fundamentally as the upgrading of existing navigable rivers and the extension of their upper
limits through straightening of channels, widening, dredging, and the building of locks and the by
passing of obstacles, such as mills, by short cuts.
Nevertheless it should be emphasised that elements the network of navigable rivers extant 1600 were
already of major economic significance. By 1600 London had a population of c. 200,000 who consumed
some 150,000 tons of coal p.a. Though the coal was exclusively from the North-East coalfield, it was
shipped coastwise from Newcastle having already travelled down the River Tyne. The final leg of its
journey was up the River Thames. The total trade represented something like 1500 voyages each year.
The Thames though only navigable to near Abingdon was probably already a major source of barley
and malt and other goods for London as were its tributaries the Lea and Wey.48 The growth of the city
had already led to change in the waterways with the extension and improvement in the River Lea under
an act of 1571. In 1588 the River Lea had a fleet of forty-four small barges with a total carrying capacity
of c. 275 tons. While it is unlikely that they carried this tonnage weekly as alleged in 1591, a
conservative estimate would suggest carriage of 7000 tons per annum.49 London also influenced river
Map 2 The navigable waterways of England and Wales c. 1600
15
traffic further afield. Substantial traffic in grain on most of the navigable rivers of eastern England is
apparent from the port books of the customs ports of Lynn (served by the Great Ouse and tributaries),
Yarmouth (the Deben, Alde, Glaven, Yare and tributaries), and Ipswich (the Orwell and Stour) and , as
such, represent a very large proportion of England's domestic grain shipped coastwise.
16
3.2 Restoration and extension: Change in the river network 1601-1680
In the period the network of navigable rivers expanded and for the first time there was a growth in coal
traffic via river beyond the North-East coalfield. London continued to be the major driver in river
development and traffic. By c. 1700 its population had reached 500,000 and consumed some 375,000
17
tons of coal p.a. The coastal vessels that carried the coal to London had trebled in capacity making them
too big to dock and unload directly onto the quay. This leading to a huge growth in the numbers of
lighters, that is small craft that carried the coal from shore to ship on the Tyne and ship to shore on
18
the Thames.
Despite considerable legislation concerning making rivers navigable the extension of navigation what
was actually achieved by 1680 was relatively modest and much was of regional or even only local
significance. It was also geographically uneven - all the extension of navigable waterways was
concentrated in the south and east of England. If one drew a line from the mouth of the Severn to that
of the Humber, there was virtually no extension of the navigable waterways to the north and west of it.
Perhaps most significant was the restoration of the lower Thames in 1635 which made it navigable to
Oxford once again and increased the number of inland places which could supply London with grain.
The restoration and extension of the Thames upstream of Eynsham to the small market towns of
Lechlade (Gloucestershire) and Cricklade (Wiltshire) in 1641 was probably of only local importance.
The economic effects of these changes were complex and widespread. For example, trade was evidently
upstream as well as downstream on the Thames and its tributaries with coal supplanting firewood and
peat in many places. Cox writing in the early eighteenth century contrasted the previous dependence of
parts of Surrey on firewood and peat with the situation "since the Wey hath been navigable coal for
firing is become of general use and coal yards are kept in many towns standing upon it, for the supply
of the towns and villages about them".50
Also of major importance were the navigation schemes initiated on four tributaries of the Severn: the
Avon (1635), Dick Brook (c.1651), the Salwarpe and the Stour (1662). The concentration of effort in
the Severn Valley in part reflected a new awareness of the profits that could accrue from the transport
of coal via a river. The exploitation of the rich easily mined outcropping seams near the river in the
vicinity of Broseley some 140 miles up the Severn led to an massive increase in traffic on the river and
the adoption of coal across a huge marketing region encompassing the Severn Valley, the Bristol
Channel and the north Devon coast.
The nature of the Severn as both the longest navigable river in England and Wales and one of the
greatest in terms of flow (mean annual discharge), determined it was largely unencumbered by weirs,
locks and bridges for most of its length.51 It was also toll-free in this period and for much of its length
it was tidal could be navigated by trows with sails that may have been cheaper and more efficient for
carrying goods than smaller lighters or horse-drawn barges.52 These factors may have reduced the cost
of shipment by water with coal compared to that of other rivers and perhaps even sea-borne Welsh
coal.53 The output of the Shropshire coalfield seems to have experienced phenomenal growth from an
estimated 12,000 tons in 1600 to 200,000 tons in 1680. The latter figure, if correct represented 8.7%
of the national total, and the great majority of it being consumed after having travelled down the river.54
The new navigations associated with the Severn were beset with problems. The Warwickshire Avon
had been made navigable to Stratford in 1639 only to be wrecked by the English Civil War. The river
was not navigable again till 1672. In 1667 a substantial part of the Stour navigation had been opened
between Kidderminster and Stourbridge, Worcestershire but had yet to be connected to the Severn. If
opened as planned, the Stour navigation would have made coal from the landlocked Staffordshire
coalfield, accessible as well as halving the distance by road of the landward part of the journey between
the River Severn network and Birmingham. But this was not to be, the scheme ran out of money and
the works were wrecked by flooding five years later.55 Most, perhaps all, of it never reopened. Following
legislation in 1662 work on making the Salwarpe navigable had reached an advanced stage by c. 1668
19
with five out of six pound locks built. However, these were found to be defective and the navigation
was never opened.
In the east of England rivers navigation benefitted from the major project of reclamation in the Fens
under the direction of the Dutch engineer, Cornelius Vermuyden, which took place from 1642. For
example, vessels were now able to pass up the wholly artificial straight drainage cut of the Bedford
River, a journey that was far more direct than the former course via the Great Ouse. Other drainage cuts
were also navigable and benefitted particular communities, such as Chatteris, which could now access
the navigation network via the artificial Forty Foot River It may be that the change in economic fortunes
in the region due to the major extension in arable and the greatly eased passage of vessels had a knockon effect in making other navigation schemes practicable but the Ouse itself was extended from St Ives
to Huntingdon and St Neots, and its tributary the River Lark was made navigable. Further north change
was more sporadic. The problem of the Witham remained but the medieval Foss Dyke was restored
giving Lincoln access to the Trent, Humber and Yorkshire Ouse river network once more.
In addition to the restoration and extension of the network there was the beginning of an improvement
in capacity that is the size of vessel and tonnage of goods each vessel could carry. This was in part due
to the increasing adoption of the pound lock. Pound locks consisted of two pairs of mitred gates at either
end of the pound - the level stretch of water between the gates. The pound lock operates by a vessel
navigates through one set of open doors into the pound but with the other doors shut. The open doors
are then closed. The water level is equalised within the pound to that of the canal in the intended
direction of travel. The doors are then opened to allow the vessel through. Used in parts of continental
Europe before 1400, the first use of the pound lock in England was on a minute cut from Countess Wear
on the River Exe to Exeter (Devon) in 1564-6.56 More significant navigations used pound locks soon
thereafter including the Thames 1624-1635, the Wey 1651-3, and at least some of the Fenland rivers
after 1642.57 Unlike the flashlock the pound lock was less wasteful of water, and if built big enough,
could be used by very large vessels. Rivers which previously were useable intermittently only by vessels
carrying tiny loads now potentially had the means to be made navigable for vessels with much larger
cargoes.
20
3.3. To the limits of nature: The extension of the river network 1680-1756
Map 5 shows the extension of the river network to 1756 the year before first proper canal - the Sankey
Brook Navigation - opened. Unlike the earlier period river navigations were now extended in many
areas
Map 5 The extension of navigable rivers 1681 to 1756
21
A number of the schemes were to long-established county towns and other regional centres in
agricultural hinterlands. Some of these were restoring rivers to their medieval limits of navigation, such
as the restoration of the Great Ouse to Bedford in 1689, the Lugg to Monmouth and Hereford in 16956, the Itchen to Winchester (Hampshire) in 1695-6, the Suffolk Stour to Sudbury in 1709, the Kennet
to Newbury (Berkshire) in 1723 and the Lark to Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) by 1724. Whilst these
improved marketing opportunities for the communities that lay along them, they were mostly only of
local significance.
Most significant were the new navigations that connected burgeoning industrial towns to coastal and
international shipping networks. Of major importance was the extension of the Aire and its tributary
the Calder to Leeds and Wakefield (West Riding) in 1700. Both towns were situated on the Yorkshire
coalfield and Leeds was a major textile centre. Further south on the same coalfield the River Don was
made navigable to Rotherham in 1731 and to within three miles of Sheffield by 1751. Both the Don and
the Aire and Calder were linked via the Humber to the port of Hull and the enormous opportunities its
shipping networks created. These developments had their corollary in Lancashire on the other side of
the Pennines: landlocked Manchester was connected to the markets of the Irish Sea and the North
Atlantic via the Mersey and Irwell navigation in 1734, and an extension of the Douglas to Wigan unlocked
the riches of the hitherto landlocked Lancashire coalfield c. 1740.
The trend apparent in the extension of navigable waterways from 1600 to 1680 where navigation
benefitted from the drainage of wetland continued. In the fenland new navigable drainage channels were
cut and old water courses, such as the Cam, upgraded. Other moderate extensions or improvements
occurred in the Somerset Levels, Romney Marsh and other wetlands, Map 4 shows the major areas of
wetland and the extension of navigable rivers 1680-1756.
By the mid eighteenth century the stock of economically significant rivers that could be made navigable
was dwindling. Map 5 shows the major accessible coalfields, navigable rivers and land above the 100
metre contour. This map shows the easiest linkage had been achieved.
3.3. The Canal Age: 1757-1835
In England and Wales the first canal proper was partially opened in 1757 and ran from the navigable
Sankey Brook, a tidal tributary of the Mersey, some 8 miles inland via 8 single pound locks and one
double, to the Haydock and Parr collieries, thus providing the first direct access by water between
Liverpool and the rich seams of the Lancashire coalfield.58 The meteoric growth of Liverpool that
followed was in part due to access to this cheap coal and thus set a precedent for the many towns
progressively connected by the expanding network of artificial waterways over the next fifty years. It
is a given in the literature that the relationship between the advent of the canal and the growth of
Liverpool was a causal one. We are actively working on how to test/ prove/ demonstrate this
assumption.
The new mode of transport also differed from river navigations in terms of organisation and finance.
The primary vehicle for funding canals was the joint stock company. Each venture was empowered to
22
raise a stated sum by the issue of shares. These generated capital from the sale of shares and also allowed
borrowing of fixed capital mortgaged against projected toll income. Unlike some European countries
notably France the public sector played a minimal role in planning and financing navigable rivers and
canals. Only the Liverpool Corporation played a significant role in commissioning a canal -the Sankey
Brook Navigation between 1754 and 1757.
Maps 5-7 shows the expansion of the network over three periods: 1756-70,1771- 1790; and 1791-1835.
Nationally the network did not change radically from 1757 to 1770 though there were some very
important developments (see map 5). In addition to the Sankey Canal, canals linking coal mines to
established regional centres include a canal linking Coventry to the Warwickshire coalfield at Bedworth
in 1769, a canal linking Birmingham to the Warwickshire coalfield at Wednesbury the same year, e of
the Sankey and Manchester canals.
Comparing the network from 1791 to 1835 shows how it was not until the early nineteenth century that
the movement of goods and raw material between the two great northern industrial centres in Lancashire
and the West Riding was made practicable by the completion of three trans-Pennine routes: the
Rochdale in 1805, which ran from the Bridgewater Canal at Manchester to the Calder and Hebble
Navigation at Sowerby Bridge in the West Riding; the Huddersfield in 1811, which ran from Sir John
Ramsden's Canal in Huddersfield (Yorkshire, West Riding) to the Ashton Canal, Ashton-under-Lyne
(Lancashire) and the Leeds-Liverpool in 1816, which ran from Liverpool and joined the Aire and Calder
Navigation at Leeds. The Rochdale and Leeds and Liverpool were both very successful. The former in
1839 just prior to the arrival of the railways carried 875,436 tons, generating £62,712 in toll revenue.
On the latter in 1833 coal traffic to Liverpool alone accounted for 270,753 tons and represented 46% of
the total coal both consumed in Liverpool and exported from the port. Raw materials for the rapidly
expanding textile industries came from both Liverpool and Hull, and from West Yorkshire, while stone
flags, limestone and coal were carried to and from wharves all along the canals. As usual coal mines
expanded production after the canal opened, as it allowed the coal to reach new markets. Grain was
another important cargo. The Huddersfield falls into the category of heroic engineering as it
encompassed 76 locks and a tunnel over 2 miles long to cross the Pennines but being a narrow canal
had less capacity and was less successful because goods had to be transhipped at Huddersfield onto the
Yorkshire river navigations.59
23
Map 6 the extension of the network 1757-1770
24
Map 7 the extension of the network 1771-1790
25
Map 8 the extension of the network 1790-1835
26
The first north-south route, which connected the west Midlands with London and the southern network
was opened even later in 1790 and ran via the Oxford, Coventry and Birmingham and Fazeley canals
to Fradley Junction on the Trent and Mersey Canal near Lichfield in Staffordshire. To get to London
required a journey of 177 miles including passage through 150 locks. The completion of the Grand
Junction Canal in 1805 shortened the distance between London and Birmingham by 60 miles but the
capacity problem had not been completely eradicated. The onward connections of the Grand Junction
to Birmingham - the Napton and Warwick and the Warwick and Birmingham had narrow locks which
determined they could only take vessels of 30 tons.
In the past canal historians emphasised the importance of the joining up of the national network by these
development. This view was subsequently overturned by Turnbull who argued convincingly that canals
where primarily of local or regional importance. While the little available evidence for traffic suggests
the importance of shortish journeys along particular segments of the network, the promotion of long
distance routes or connections is apparent as an idea from the earliest navigation schemes in the
seventeenth century and continued right into the nineteenth century.60 To quote the prospectus of the
Grand Union Canal Company, completing as it did the linkage of the Grand Junction Canal to the
Leicestershire and Northampton Union Canal in 1814 - this represented "the greatest line of canals
which extended from the Thames to the Humber".61 It is true that the tonnage data available for many
companies primarily reflects short journeys - representing perhaps 80% of all those taken in extreme
circumstances. This does not mean long journeys were unimportant. From the point of view of the canal
company a smaller number of longer journeys was of as much, or more significance, than a far larger
number of shorter journeys because the longer the journey the greater the toll revenue. It should also be
remembered that in terms of tonnage carried per annum long distance connecting routes the Leeds and
Liverpool and the Grand Junction Canal were ranked second and sixth in terms of tonnage in 1848.
4. The significance of navigable waterways
It is now time to take stock and assess some of the major impacts of canals
4.1. Waterways and urban growth
Particular canal linkages are seen as pivotal in the growth of some of our largest and most famous cities.
Birmingham is perhaps the most spectacular example. Birmingham became connected by canal to the
Warwickshire coalfield at Wednesbury in 1769 and the price of coal immediately fell 46% from 13
shillings to 7 shillings a ton. Before this Birmingham was dependant on road transport for coal a distance
of about 8 to 12 miles, and for imports of other raw material via the Severn to Bewdley and then a
journey overland. In 1754 a ton of Swedish iron cost 12s to travel some 75 miles up-river from Bristol
to Bewdley but 12s 6d to travel the 25 miles or so by road from Bewdley. 62 This last cost constraint
changed radically in 1772 when the Wednesbury line was extended to the Staffordshire and
Worcestershire Canal at Autherley making transport by water possible to Shrewsbury, Gloucester and
Bristol, and to the Trent and Mersey which opened up connections to Manchester and the ports of
Liverpool, and Hull. Importation of large quantities of raw materials and the exportation of finished
manufactures to both America and the Continent were now practicable. The Birmingham Canal
navigations - the complex of canals that developed there - extended more than 109 miles, had some 220
locks and had an annual gross tonnage of 3,300,000 at its peak in 1835.
27
What was the effect of the connection of cities and towns to the waterways network? It has long been
suggested that access to navigable water and all the benefits that derived from that had a major effect
on the capacity of a town to grow. In 1819, for example, it was said that "general arguments in favour
of canals are superseded by the rapidly improving and thriving state of the several cities, towns, and
villages, and of the agriculture also near to most of the canals of the kingdom".63 Historians have claimed
that canals profoundly altered the geography of industrial and urban growth in the eighteenth century.
Canals enabled towns located on or near the coalfields to attract coal- dependent industries and the
labour to serve them. The uneven distribution of the coalfields determined that the towns which
benefitted the most where in the Midlands and the north of England and that the benefits of canals were
most concentrated there.64 However, the overall pattern of growth of cities and towns in relation to
access to navigable waterways has never been subject to systematic analysis until now.
Map 8 shows the network of waterways in 1831 when it was virtually complete but this time in relation
to the 433 towns and cities of England and Wales with a population of 2000 or larger. The map on the
left simply shows the distribution of towns according to their population size grouped into five ranks
Map 9 Urban size and proximity to waterways and the sea in 1831
(Rank 1: 2000-10,000; Rank 2: > 10,000-25,000, Rank 3: > 25,000-50,000; Rank 4 >50,000-100,000;
Rank 5: > 100,000). The map on the right again classifies the towns according to population in the same
way but also colour codes them according to being within two miles of a navigable waterway, the coast,
28
both or neither. The degree to which the towns and cities of England and Wales had benefitted from
access to navigable waterways is immediately apparent and is tabulated below (see table 2).
Table 4: Towns and Cities of England and Wales within two miles of a navigable waterway or the
coast in 1831
Rank
Population
Near
Near
waterways coast
Near both
Not near
Total
1
2,000-10,000
162
20
64
99
345
2
10,001-25,000
33
5
14
4l
56
3
25,001-50,000
13
1
2
-
16
4
50,001-100,000
6
-
4
-
10
5
>100,000
4
2
-
-
6
Total
218
28
84
103
433
The data suggests that for towns to grow beyond a population of 25,000 they either had to have access
to navigable waterways the sea or both. Even with towns with a population less than 10,000 the penalty
of not having access to cheap transport is apparent when the average population of each category is
examined. Compared to towns with no access to navigable water, towns within two miles of a navigable
waterway were on average 8% larger, towns within two miles of the coast were 14% larger and towns
within two miles of the coast and a navigable waterway were 26% larger. The relationship was not
simply one of towns growing in response to access to navigable water. Larger more established towns
would be more likely to be able to promote and get river navigations or canals. Future work should
concentrate on looking at the status and size of the towns before they gained access to navigable water
and their growth over time as well.
4.2. Raw material, canals and the Industrial Revolution
The strong relationship between the extraction of raw materials and navigable waterways is readily
apparent especially so for canals. Phillips writing in 1803 claimed that of the 165 canal acts passed since
1758, 90 were on account of collieries in their vicinity and a further 47 on account of iron, lead and
copper mines.65 While a degree of caution should be exercised in interpreting his figures – some canals
have multiple acts and it is not clear whether Phillips excludes acts of canals that were never built – the
strong relationship between canals and raw materials is readily apparent.
The most important raw material was always coal, though there were important exceptions in particular
localities. The significance of coal reflected changing patterns in domestic consumption with a steady
move away from wood to coal as the primary fuel. Demand for non-domestic coal increased enormously
in part due to a series of innovations that enabled coal to replace wood in the industries making iron
and other metals, glass, salt, pottery and bricks plus of course the development of the steam engine as
the source of motive force. These changes had enormous implications for transportation.
29
This revolution had profound national and regional characteristics. By 1835 the tonnage of coal
produced in England and Wales that year was almost 12 times larger than it had been in 1680 having
increased from c. 2,120,000 to 27,375,000 tons p.a. Moreover, the share of national production of the
once dominant North-East coalfield had fallen from 45% in 1680 to 25% in 1835 largely due to the
enormous expansion in output from the South Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Staffordshire
coalfields. In 1835 each of these coalfields had a greater production than the entire production of
England and Wales in 1680. Except for the South Wales coalfield, none of these coalfields had been
accessible by navigable rivers in 1680, and the riches of these coalfields lay largely unexploitable in the
absence of cheap transport, though it had been possible to make short penetrations of the Yorkshire
coalfield via the Aire and Calder Navigation in 1700 and the Don Navigation in 1731, and the
Lancashire coalfield via the River Weaver after 1720 and the River Douglas c. 1740. Within three
decades the situation had radically altered due to the advent of canals.
Contemporary recognition of the close relationship between coal and navigable waterways is readily.
apparent. For example, it is no coincidence that William Smith, the great pioneering geologist, showed
canals on his famous map of the geology of England and Wales of 1815. His reason for doing this is
made explicit in the memoir that accompanied the map:
The canals are added to this map, for the purpose of showing how the heavy
articles of subterraneous produce may be best conveyed from their native sites
in the strata to the places of consumption. It may thus be seen what parts of the
kingdom have benefitted the most by canals, and where they are still wanting
and from whence heavy articles of tonnage (which alone can render them
profitable) may be the most readily maintained... It is by the establishment of
the great works [canals] and the minerals they have distributed that England
owes half her present consequence in the scale of nations66
That coal was the principal mineral is apparent in Smith's table of "canals & navigable rivers shewing
the principal articles of mineral tonnage" that featured in the single sheet reduction of his map issued
five years later. Of the 62 canals whose principal minerals are listed in the table 53 were exporting coal.67
Since waterways came to meet much of the greater demand for coal in the economy it is unsurprising
they had major impact on the supply side as well. There was a clear relationship between the opening
of canals the creation of new marketing opportunities for the expansion of the output of existing coal
mines and the opening of new ones. For example, in 1801 when the opening of the Grand Junction
Canal was imminent and the supply of coal from the Staffordshire coalfield to London was
contemplated it was stated that the mines production in the southern part of the coal field would be
expanded and new mines in the northern part of the coalfield opened for the first time.68 This pattern of
intra-coalfield shifts and the expansion of production was repeated again and again from the 1760s with
all the implication for the growth of mining sector employment, provision of cheap coal in areas of
enormous industrial potential, increase in regional populations, greater demands for goods, creation of
wealth and so on.
Some transport historians see the relationship between the Industrial Revolution and canals and cheap
coal as absolute. For Crompton "coal attracted all the manufacturing activities that needed heat or
power, with the result that the Industrial Revolution in Britain could largely be defined geographically
30
as the map of the coalfields. Cheap coal and good transport were the most fundamental of the
characteristics shared by the industrialising areas". With the exception of the North-east coalfield "the
contribution of canals" was either "particularly large and obvious" or else "important".69 This view sees
the Industrial Revolution as a post 1750 phenomena. However, in recent years this chronology has been
overturned by a more gradualist view of the Industrial Revolution with important changes in the
proportion of the population employed in agriculture and growth of GDP per capita taking place before
1700. Research by Shaw Taylor et al on occupational structure has found that as early as c.1710, 37.7%
of working men and women were part of the secondary sector.
This transition also occurs roughly as England and Wales gradually switched from an organic to a
mineral-based energy economy. It is true consumption sky rocketed with the advance of steam, coking
and so on but the transition was already very substantial before the first turf of the Sankey Canal was
cut in 1754. It was an accident of geography whereby the bisection of rich coalfields by the naturally
navigable rivers of the Tyne, and Tees linked to the sea that enabled the use of coal to grow in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries primarily for domestic consumption especially for the huge London
market.70 The unique combination of capital, the growth of port facilities, the coasting fleet, engineering
expertise, entrepreneurship and capital that enabled navigable waterways to shift from the intermittent
means of moving sea-coal up and agrarian products river down to the advanced semi-national system
which reached its fullest extent c. 1835.
5. Conclusion. Navigable waterways: Success of failure?
Canals and navigable rivers are often judged in terms of success or failure. There are various ways of
approaching the issue. Mokyr who views the industrial revolution as the outcome of the ideas of the
Enlightenment (belief in progress and improvement)- driving changes in economic behaviour does not
mention navigable rivers at all but does discuss canals. He claims that the completion of the national
network led to "gains in economic integration that accrued to the whole country". For him Britain's
canals went "from triumph to triumph... until the trains came" .71
For some historians the in-built flaws in the waterways network and its inherent inferiority compared
to railways means it should be judged a failure. This reflects the dramatic decline of navigable
waterways in the face of railway competition plus the negative anti-canal propaganda generated at the
time by the rail lobby that has clouded some of the historiography. Others have viewed the success of
individual waterways in terms profitability using dividend data. to judge whether particular companies
were a success or failure. This shows that some rural canals never had a profit, whereas some mineral
canals were immensely profitable. For example, the ten most lucrative canal companies yielded over
27 per cent on average in 1825. This approach can be criticised in a number of ways. First, emphasis
on joint stock companies makes it difficult to judge the numerous waterways that did not follow a joint
stock model. One thinks here of the many tidal rivers which were of major significance for the
communities along their banks but which were never improved. Dividend data is also inappropriate for
long-term comparisons over time - none of major navigable rivers were managed as joint stock
companies and only some of the more minor ones. Dividend data before c. 1820 is patchy. Deane also
felt it was "inappropriate to judge the contributions of canals to British economic growth in terms of the
returns they yielded to their shareholders". What mattered was that price of coal for domestic use was
affordable and that coal dependant industries could reduce their costs. "In these terms the Canal Age
31
made a massive contribution to the first industrial revolution and was a worthy forerunner of the railway
age".72
Another approach might be to use social savings analysis. This approach was developed by Robert
Fogel in the 1960s and uses quantitative methods to see what the economy in question would be like if
an innovation, for example railways, steam power, or turnpike roads, were absent. This has never been
attempted for the navigable waterways of England and Wales except for a short "conjectural, nonfactual" exercise conducted by Hawke and Higgins in 1981.73 For the method to work extremely
accurate modelling of the effects of the absence of the new technology on the economy must be
practicable. It is possible this could be a valuable exercise in the future, hitherto the incompleteness of
understanding of waterways and road transport c.1835 has ruled out social savings analysis of
waterways but now Shaw-Taylor and colleagues are actively pursuing this goal.
Alternatively a more holistic approach can be adopted which focuses more on the utility of the network.
To what extent were waterways capable of sustaining the movement of goods to market long-term and
how did it change over time? Each waterway had both characteristics in terms of capacity, width and
depth of locks, for example, and also maintenance, the degree to which the proprietors of the waterway
could maintain the waterway as navigable. The former was based on initial design and investment the
latter on the degree to which there was money for maintenance. Narrow canals, for example, still
accounted for almost two-thirds of canal mileage extant in 1906 and as such represented a major limit
on the capacity of the network to move goods (see table 5).
Table 5: Mileage of broad and narrow waterways in 1906
Capacity Canals
River
Open
Navigations Rivers
Narrow
Broad
Total
478
843
1165
762
1927
Total
0
812
1321
812
1643
2417
4060
Source: BPP, Fourth Report on Inland waterways, 23
As yet we know far too little about how the problem of such inefficiencies influenced costs on the
network and acted as a drag on economic development. In 1727 Defoe, for example, in discussing the
high cost of coal in some inland settlements in the Thames valley emphasised the effect of the six
separate transhipments required to move coal from a pit in the Northeast coalfield to the settlements. It
is certain transhipment could add greatly to the cost. A document shows that in 1703 the transport of
21 chaldrons of coal from a ship moored in Thames to Westminster Abbey shows that carriage and
taxes added 14% to the total cost of the coal for a journey of between 2.2 and 3.1 miles by river and
less than a quarter mile by road.74 Such sorts of sources are rare but extremely important, and if
systematically collected have the capacity to enrich our understanding of the cost structure of network
and improve our models of how the costs of transport varied across the landscape of the economy.
32
Focusing just on the efficiency of the network can be criticised in that it does not capture the changing
proportion of the population who benefitted from proximity to waterways overtime. In a sense access
to even a bad waterways network was preferable to no access at all. One way to begin to do this is to
look at the zone of influence of each waterway. Transport historians have tried to quantify the
"economic zone of influence" that derived from access to navigable water by defining a distance that
extended overland from the waterway. Sometimes this is termed a buffer or corridor. Opinions differ
as to what the distance should be. At one extreme the economist Fogel used a 40 mile buffer for studying
the development of transport in the USA. Willan studying England in the seventeenth century used a
fifteen mile buffer to represent a day's carriage on the basis of legislation that timber growing within
fifteen miles of navigable waterway was reserved for naval use.75 Others have regarded the zone of
influence as much narrower. For Turnbull the "stimulus of cheap water transport ...weakened steeply
as distance from the canal increased and was perhaps completely exhausted in no more than a few
miles."76 Certainly it is difficult to find examples from historical sources where a distance from
navigable water of more than few miles was regarded as adding an acceptable cost to
Map 10. Navigable waterways of England and Wales with 5, 10 and 15 mile buffers
bulky low value goods travelling by road from or to a canal, navigable river or port. For example, in
the first half of the eighteenth century newspaper advertisements for the sale of standing timber only
mention a distance to ports or navigable rivers when the distance is five miles or less.77 As a
consequence for illustrative purposes three buffers have been created with the GIS: five miles, ten miles;
and fifteen miles (see map 9).
33
Even if the smallest buffer of five miles is used it is abundantly clear that there was an enormous
expansion in the area of England and to a lesser extent Wales within 5 miles of a navigable waterway.
By 1835 only communities in the uplands of Wales, Northern England, the South-West and some rural
areas lay beyond five miles of a navigable waterway. The area of England and Wales within 5 miles of
a navigable waterway was 87% larger increasing from some 1,149,167 acres in 1680 to 2,153,351 acres
in 1835. Selecting those censuses parishes whose centres lay within the five mile buffer reveals another
powerful statistic. By 1841 some 80% of the population of England and Wales lived in census parishes
that lay within five miles of a navigable river or canal. The commercial advantage waterways gave to
England and Wales compared to other more landlocked industrialising countries was obviously
enormous. We do not yet have comparative population data for the seventeenth century but it is possible
to make the same calculation using 1841 population data but this time for parishes whose centres lie
within 5 miles of only those navigable rivers that were extant in 1680. This gives a crude but useful
measure of the scale of the change from 1680 to 1835. Only 45% of the population in 1841 lived within
5 miles of a river that was navigable in 1680.
To conclude this section and this essay there are various ways to judge whether waterways were a
success or failure. There is no doubt they had a major impact on the great majority of the population at
their peak in the 1830s, though they remained an imperfect network with inbuilt weaknesses that meant
they could not compete against the railways when they came.
1
My thanks to Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Dan Bogart for commenting on earlier drafts of this paper.
anon, 'Canals', The cyclopaedia, (London, 1819), unpaginated
3
See for example J. Phillips, A general history of navigation (London, edn 1793)
4
D. Gerhold, Road transport before the railways (Cambridge, 1993), p. 26. R. Parkinson, General view of the
agriculture of the county of Huntingdon (London, 1811), p. 279
5
J. Hatcher, The history of the British coal industry, 1 (Oxford, 1993); J. Langton, Geographical Change, 45
6
W. Marshall, The rural economy of Norfolk, 2 (London, 1796), 99, 363-5
7
The toll free nature of this section of the Bure is mentioned explicitly in an advertisement for a mill at Horstead
further upstream "situate ...upon the Navigable river running to the Port of Great Yarmouth between which and
the Mill there is no toll payable": Norfolk Chronicle 8th April 1797
8
7 Geo. III c. 51
9
D. Bogart, ‘The transport revolution in industrialising Britain’ in The Cambridge economic history of modern
Britain, 1, ed. R. Floud, J. Humphries and P. Johnson (Cambridge, 2014), 368-91
10
Journal of the House of Commons, 1702-1704, 470
11
Szostak, for example, used a reproduction of Thomas Kitchen’s 1:575000 ‘New Map of England and Wales’,
(London, 1794): R, Szostak, The Role of Transportation in the Industrial Revolution (1991), 55. This map purports
to show canals up to 1792 but some of those shown were never built.
12
Initially the aim was to produce GIS snapshots of rivers and canal network at four dates c. 1820, 1851, 1861
and 1881 which was achieved thanks to generous funding from the ESRC from 2006 and 2009: ESRC Grant RES000-23-157. Generous funding from the Leverhulme Trust in 2009-2012 enabled the dataset to extended back in
time to c. 1600 and made time dynamic i.e. the GIS captures episodes were a waterways was navigable or not for
each year from 1600 to 1948: Leverhulme Trust Grant F/09674/G. From 2014-2016 further upgrades and making
the waterways GIS suitable for network analysis were made possible by the Leverhulme funded project 'Transport
, urbanisation and economic development in England, c.1670-1911'.
13
Journal of the House of Commons, 43 (1787-8), 392
14
The great majority of some 70 proposals for navigable waterways presented to the Crown or Parliament between
1606-1688 were not implemented in these years: D. Bogart, 'Did the Glorious Revolution contribute to the
transport revolution? Evidence for investment in roads and rivers', Economic H
15
J. Langdon, 'The efficiency of inland water transport in Medieval England' in Waterways and Canal Building
in Medieval England, ed. J. Blair, (Oxford, 2007), 110-32.
16
The "main stem" of a river refers to its primary downstream segment as opposed to its tributaries.
2
34
17
P.S. Bagwell, The Transport Revolution 1770-1985 (London, edn 2002), 2. Bagwell has Burton-on-Trent as the
navigable limit of the Trent but the river was not ,made navigable above Nottingham till the second decade of the
eighteenth century.
18
J. Plymley, General view of the agriculture of Shropshire (London, 1813), 317-33
19
M.G. Freeman, 'Road transport in the English Industrial Revolution: An interim re-assessment', Journal of
Historical Geography,6 (1980), 17-28: 22-6
20
'Report from the Joint Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. On the Canal Rates, Tolls,
and Charges', BPP,1893-4 [Cd. 395], 41. An ice breaker for the Bridgwater Canal invented by the engineer James
Brindley is reported as early as 1766: T. S. Willan, The navigation of the River Weaver in the Eighteenth Century
(1951), 93. Ice-breaking appear as a regular category of expenditure in the annual accounts of some waterways,
such as the Birmingham Canal Navigations and the Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal.
21
Inland Navigation Commission Working Group 23, Technical and economic problems of channel icing
(Brussels, 2004)
22
Instances of canal closure due to frost are mentioned in passing in some secondary sources. There is valuable
un-used material concerning canal closures in private business records. See for example J. Lindsay, 'The Butterfly
Coal and Iron Works, 1792-1816', Derbyshire Archaeological Journal, 85 (1965), 25-43: 42
23
Freeman, 'Road transport in the English Industrial Revolution’, 23; J. Parkes, A statement of the claim of the
subscribers to the Birmingham and Liverpool Railroad (London, 1825), 50-1. Freeman gives the following winter
(1814-15) as when the Trent and Mersey stoppage occurred but this must be an error as this winter was mild.
D.E. Parker, T.P., Legg, C,K, Folland, ‘A new daily Central England temperature series, 1772–1991’,
International Journal of Climatology , 12 (1992) , 317-42
25
J. Brindley, A history of inland navigations, II (London, 1766), 78; J. Phillips, A general history of inland
navigation (London, edn 1793)182-3
26
Royal Commission on canals and waterways. Volume V, BPP, 1909 [Cd. 4840], 167
27
'Report of the select committee on Post Office Communication with Ireland', BPP, 1842 [Cd 373], 291
28
TNA, SP 16/339/29. For Hill in general see Skempton, though there are some errors of detail concerning Hill's
proposal: A.W. Skempton, A biographical dictionary of civil engineers in Great Britain and Ireland, Volume 1:
1500-1830 (London, 2002), 323-4.
29
G. Turnbull, 'Canals, coal and regional growth during the Industrial Revolution', Economic History Review, 40
(1987), 537-60: 539-40
30
J. Priestly, Historical account of the navigable rivers, canals, and railways of Great Britain (London, edn 1831),
190
31
C. Hadfield, The Canal Age (1981), 73; Freeman, 'Road transport in the Industrial Revolution', 20-21
24
D. Bogart, M. Lefors, and M. Satchell, 'Intermodal Competition and Innovation in Britain’s Canal Age',
forthcoming
33
The locks of the Lea Navigation measured approximately 100ft x13ft x 6ft required 50,000 gallons of water
(223.7 tons): The locks of the Grand Junction Canal had an average capacity of 56,000 gallons (250.5 tons) while
those of the Birmingham Canal Navigations had a capacity of 25,000 gallons (111.9 tons): anon, 'Second report
of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing the pollution of rivers (River Lee)',
BPP, 1867 (3835), 87; H. de Salis, Bradshaw's canals and navigable rivers of England and Wales (London, 1904)
, 10-11
34
anon, 'Canals', The cyclopaedia, (London, 1819), unpaginated
35
J. Blair, 'Transport and canal building in the upper Thames', in Waterways and canal building in Medieval
England, ed. J. Blair, (Oxford, 2007)
36
Langdon, 'The efficiency of inland water transport in medieval England'; Rigby, 'Sore decay” and “fair
dwellings”:Boston and urban decline in the later middle ages', Midland History, 14 (1985), 47-61; Calendar of
state papers domestic 1635-6, 8.
37
Wheeler, 143-4
38
T.S. Willan, River Navigation in England 1600-1750 (London, 1936), 16-17, 86-7. Strype in an addition to
Stow's survey of London of 1720 stated "That they were in times past want to unlade some of their lading beneath
the lock and when they were to come up, and take in again above": J. Stow, A survey of the cities of London and
Westminster, 1 (London, 1720), 40. Journal of the House of Commons
39
J. Smeaton, Report on the state of the Aire and Calder Navigation
32
35
40
Willan, River navigation, 87
J. Blair, 'Transport and canal building in the upper Thames'
42
In 1770 only three of the locks on the river were pound locks. The rest were flash locks which were only
replaced piecemeal: C.R. Hadfield, 'The Thames Navigation and the canals, 1770-1830', Economic History
Review, 14 (1944), 172-9: 172. A regular twice weekly flash for the whole river was only introduced in 1771:
ibid, 173
43
This section of the river was apparently navigable in the early seventeenth century but had ceased to be by 1685
and was made so again in the eighteenth century: J. Speed, The theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (1612),
35
44
J. Plymley, General view of the agriculture of Shropshire (London, 1803), 82-3
45
13 George I, c. 20
46
In 1796 the Port of London reported 2,596 barges with a tonnage 85,103 of which it was said 80% were used
for unloading coal from coasters: Report from the Committee appointed to enquire into the Port of London, BPP
(1796), p. x, xix, 165 appendix (S s) These figures give a plausible mean tonnage of just over 32 tons per barge:
Given the enormous quantity of coal annually consumed in London by this date of > 700,000 tons (based on
Wrigley's estimates of 0.75 tons of coal per person and a population of 960,000) the real number of barge trips
must have been far larger: E.A. Wrigley, The Path to Sustained Growth (Cambridge, 2016), 49, 61
47
Blair, 'Transport and canal building in the upper Thames'
48
J. Chartres, Internal Trade 1500-1700 (, 1977), 18
49
J.G.L.Burnby and M.Parker, The navigation of the River Lea 1190-1799, Edmonton Hundred Historical Society
Occasional Paper New Series No. 36 (1978); G. Willmore and F. Wollaston, Reports of cases argued and
determined in the Court of Queen's Bench, 1 (London, 1839), 446
50
T. Cox, Magna Britannia, 5 (1738), 443
41
51
The Severn has a mean annual discharge of 62.7 m ³/s (cubic metres per second). Navigable rivers with
greater discharges are the Trent, 82.21, Wye 71.41, and Thames 67.4 : R.C. Ward, 'River systems and river
regimes' in British rivers, ed. J. Lewin (London, 1981), 1-33, table 1.1
52
Some scholars claim navigation on the Severn was cheaper than most other rivers: J. Nef, The rise of the British
coal industry, 1 (London, 1932), 98, 393; W.H.B. Court, The Rise of Midland industries (Oxford, 1938), 7-9.
Others, such as Willan, are more sceptical.
53
Hatcher, The history of the British coal industry, 1, chapter 5
54
Hatcher, The history of the British coal industry, 1, 68; M. Flinn and Stoker, The history of the British coal
industry, 2, 26, 27 gives a higher output and a greater share of a greater national output. Hussey on the basis of
extensive port book data argues that little of the Shropshire coal was marketed downstream of Gloucester in 1699:
D. Hussey, Coastal and River Trade in Pre-Industrial England (Exeter, 2000), 34. This would suggest a lower
output.
55
It is an open question whether the straightening of rivers to make them navigable by increasing flow velocity
also made them more vulnerable to greater flooding as occurred in some of the canalised Yorkshire rivers in 2016.
56
Skempton, ‘Canals and river navigations before 1750’. The cut was only 1.75 miles (2.8km) long but is known
in the literature by the rather grandiose title of "the Exeter Canal".
57
M. Chisholm, ‘Locks, sluice, and staunches: confusing terminology’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society,
75 (2005), 289–304
58
There is a degree of confusion concerning the first canal. The Sankey Brook Navigation was originally planned
to be a river navigation. In the event the plan was changed and an artificial cut complete with locks and physically
independent of the Sankey Brook was made. This waterway is thus referred to in the literature variably as the
Sankey Brook Navigation, the Sankey Canal and the St Helens Canal.. The Bridgwater Canal by way of contrast
was from the beginning conceived as such.
59
P. Maw, Transport and the Industrial City. Manchester and the Canal Age, 1750-1850 (Manchester, 2013), 57
60
In 1905-6 the average haul of fourteen major canals was 17.5 miles with a range of 3.5 to 25 miles: J. Armstrong,
The Vital Spark: The British Coastal Trade 1700-1930 (Newfoundland, 2009), 245
61
VCH Leicestershire, 3, 102. Hake
62
The most direct route to the coalfield was to Dudley via the old road to Shrewsbury. The route of the road c.
1675 is shown on J. Ogilby, Britannia (Lndon, 1675), plate 50. The significance of coal via this road may be why
the Ogilby map shows "Cole pits" beyond Dudley at the 122 mile mark. For steel see R. Angerstein, R.R.
Angerstein's Illustrated Travel Diary, 1753-1755: Industry in England and Wales from a Swedish Perspective,
transl. T and P. Berg (London, 2001), 53. It is not clear if carriage was by wagon or packhorse. Nash writing in
36
the late eighteenth century refers to regular carrying services by wagon between Bewdley Manchester, Sheffield
and Kendal but he had been told that formerly the manufactures of Manchester, Dudley and the iron works of the
Stour were formerly carried to Bewdley by "innumerable pack horses" and that 400 pack horses might be stabled
in the town at a time: T. R. Nash, Collections for the History of Worcestershire, 2 (1799), 279; Supplement, 467. If this is true, this was a post-1700 development because Bewdley only had spare stabling for 68 horses in 1686.
63
anon, 'Canals', unpaginated
64
Turnbull, 'Canals, coal and regional growth during the Industrial Revolution', 557-8
65
J. Phillips, A General History of Inland Navigation (London, edn 1803), 598
66
W. Smith, A Memoir to the Map and Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales and Part of Scotland
(London, 1815), 10
67
W. Smith, A New Geological Map of England and Wales with the Inland Navigations Exhibiting the Districts
of Coal and Other Sites of Mineral Tonnage (1820)
68
Report on the State of the Coal trade, BPP (1803), 645. See also Turnbull, ‘Canals, coal and regional growth’,
546-50
69
G. Crompton, 'The tortoise and the economy. Inland waterway navigation in international economic history',
Journal of Transport History, 25 (2) (2004), 1-22: 3
70
It is ironic that the very strength of the sea trade and the great power yielded by the vested coal interests behind
it served to frustrate the ambitions of the Oxford Canal and the Thames and Severn Canal to compete for the
London market with coal from the Staffordshire and Shropshire coalfields. Intense lobbying led to clauses being
inserted into their acts that forbade them to carry coal further down the Thames than Reading: 34 Geo. III c. 52;
Flinn and Stoker, History of the British Coal Industry, 2, 186. The strangle hold that that coastal shipping from
the north-east had on the London coal market was not broken till the rail network had established sufficient long
distance routes in the 1860s. On the shift from ship to rail see J. Armstrong, The Vital Spark: The British Coastal
Trade 1700-1930 (St John's, 2009)
71
J. Mokyr, The Enlightened Economy. An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850 (New Haven & London,
2009), 210
72
P. Deane, The First Industrial Revolution (Cambridge, edn 1979), 81
73
G.R. Hawke and J.P.P. Higgins, 'Transport and social overhead capital' in The Economic History of Britain
since 1700. I 1700-1860, ed. R. Floud and D. McCloskey (Cambridge, 1981). 227-253: 248-9. Hawke, however,
did model an expanded network of canals and roads in the absence of railways for England and Wales.
74
Westminster Abbey Archives, Voucher no. 45043. My thanks to Judy Stephenson for this reference. A chaldron
was a measure of coal of about 1.25 tons. The distance depends on whether the collier was moored in the Upper
Pool of the Thames as occurred later or given the earlier date it could moor at a wharf further upstream
75
T.S. Willan, River Navigation in England 1600-1750, p. 133 n. 2; C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait, eds., Acts and
Ordinances of the Interregnum,1642-1660, 3 vols., 191 I, vol.2, p. 168. December 10, 1741; Issue 2197
76
Turnbull, 'Canals, coal and regional growth during the Industrial Revolution', 544
77
Whitton (Sussex) 3 miles: London Gazette February 1, 1724; Evening Post, March 10, 1724 - March 12, 1724;
Issue 2282; Gwendor, (Breconshire) 3 miles to the navigable part of the River Wye; North Petherton (Somerset)
half a mile: Evening Post, September 5, 1724 - September 8, 1724; Issue 2359; 2 miles from the port of Watchet
(Somerset); Wooton Courtenay 4 miles from port of Minehead (Somerset); Bere Crocomb (Somerset) 5 miles
from the navigable River Severn: London Evening Post, November 21, 1741 - November 24, 1741; Issue 2190;
Melton (West Riding) 1 mile of the navigable River Don: London Evening Post, December 8, 1741