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A Christmas Topic


Heartland

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The Worcester & Birmingham Canal was finally opened to the Severn during December 1815. The initial merchandise traffic through Diglis was mentioned in a piece published in the Cheltenham Chronicle:

 

Yesterday evening the Neptune, register 90 tons burthen, belonging to J Soule of Worcester arrived with a full cargo of merchandise for the north (being the first trow to enter the basin at Diglis since the opening of the canal) under a salute of cannon and music and admist an immense concourse of the inhabitants.

 

The advantages of the new canal begins to be sensibly felt by the public and there is an appearance of bustle and activity in the basins, wharfs &c that presents a favourable idea of the extent of commerce that this great undertaking has produced. We understand that Messr Bird, Barnett, Meaby and Barnett have established warehouses at Diglis, for the reception of property of every species, which they immediately forward to all parts of the kingdom; and the other wharfingers are using all possible exertions to complete other buildings for the same purpose. There will be a competition therefore highly favourable to the public and we trust that ample compensation will redound to the parties this busily engaged- The first boat that came down from Birmingham was Mt G R Bird’s which delivered a cargo of goods to Messr Barnett, Meaby & Co’s trows for Bristol and the West of England.

 

Cheltenham Chronicle December 28th, 1815

 

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I was tempted to start a Christmas topic but couldn't find the (vaguely remembered) source I wanted to quote, I'm sure a canal company had their inaugral meeting on Christmas Day in the ate 18th century, but having checked the Chesterfield and the Glamorgan histories (both of which I thought might be contenders) I to find it wasn't them I'm beginning to think I'm mistaken. Any offers for significant canal events of Christmas Day?

 

The cargo referred to by Heartland was possibly in transit on Christmas day by the sound of it, if it arrived in Birmingham on the 27th.

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I am not sure of Patrick does have access to the Waterways History Group news letters, I had a paper published a few days ago with relation to the Trent & Mersey Canal. During December 1765 as preparations were being made for that canal scheme meeting at Wolseley Bridge on December 30th, alternative plans were being assembled for rival schemes that used the Weaver. The schemes of most interest were the canals from Tern Bridge to the Trent and the Macclesfield Canal.  The shape of our entire canal network was formulated over the Christmas period of 1765. Had the other scheme been successful the canal network would have been very different!

 

Yet how much of Christmas was considered a holiday as it is now ? For many Christmas day was a working day and for boatmen, it would be of interest to discover the extent they celebrated Christmas.

 

In later years, the establishment of boatmen's missions, probably brought home the Christmas message to the waterway.     

Edited by Heartland
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You are of course taking about narrow canals, which eventually comprised some 1200 miles nationally. Further north, the wide waterways based around the ideas for the L&LC and linked to the already completed A&CN, C&HN and the Don, were also being developed at this time. This included proposed waterway links to Scarborough, and to the NE coalfield, as well as around Lancaster, and trans-Pennine routes. Many canal enthusiasts do seem to forget that wide waterways comprised some 1800 miles nationally, and the successful ones were probably more important to the country's economy than narrow canals. For example, in the mid-19th century, the L&LC carried some 150,000 tons of human nightsoil and horse manure, a tonnage which some narrow canals never carried even when all their goods were added together. 

 

I have added a photo of St Nicholas giving presents to passing boatmen on the River Main on his Saint's Day, 6th December. It is a tradition which is still continued in Germany and the Netherlands. A boatman's diary for 1916 suggests that they had two day off for Christmas, and the opening of canals and early factories probably spelt the end for the traditional 12 days of Christmas for many.

St Nicolas, R Main 124.jpg

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Yes, Mike,

 

I mention the narrow canals, the initial river navigations were earlier, of course, but they had their limitations and that was often the length inland to which the navigation might go even with locks and suitable finance. Craft navigating the Severn, Wye, Warwickshire Avon, to mention a few were also in that mix. Yet the narrow canals were the catalyst to opening up trade to the Midlands and the factories you speak of.

 

My mothers family, being German, were very good at celebrating Christmas and still are.  

 

Ich erwähne die engen Kanäle, die anfänglichen Flussschifffahrten waren natürlich früher, aber sie hatten ihre Grenzen und das war oft die Länge im Landesinneren, bis zu der die Schifffahrt auch mit Schleusen und angemessener Finanzierung gehen konnte. Zu dieser Mischung gehörten auch Schiffe, die im Severn, Wye und Warwickshire Avon navigierten, um nur einige zu nennen. Die engen Kanäle waren jedoch der Katalysator für die Öffnung des Handels für die Midlands und die Fabriken, von denen Sie sprechen.

 

Die Familie meiner Mutter, die Deutsche war, konnte Weihnachten sehr gut feiern und ist es immer noch.

 

Frohe Weihnachten

Edited by Heartland
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The relative importance of Lancashire and Yorkshire compared to the Midlands, and how inland waterways influenced this, is something I am working on at the moment. London, despite being the most important industrial and financial centre circa 1700, had little major influence on the industrial developments in the 18th century. My research is for an introduction to my translation of an 1817 Austrian book on canal building, the author extolling the virtues of the English narrow canal. He visited England in 1795, returning to Vienna to be the first engineer for what was, in effect, a 40-mile-long English narrow canal from the coal mines around Wiener Neustadt to Vienna.

 

Regarding waterway developments in England, Andrew Yarranton's book of 1677 is certainly a major work, though his navigations in the Midlands were less successful, certainly when compared to the Aire & Calder, whose completion I feel marks the beginning of the industrial waterway age, being the first really successful waterway built by local merchants and coalowners. The early 18th century river navigations of Lancashire and Yorkshire showed the benefits that could be obtained from inland navigation, and formed the foundations upon which the canal revolution of the second half of the 18th century was based.

 

My book is fairly close to being ready for publication, but has been held back by health problems, which hopefully I am now over.

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I shall look forward to that publication, however to place a credit for waterways development with the Aire & Calder does deserve further reflection. The importance of that navigation cannot be denied, indeed it was a integral component in the greater scheme but not the only one. To ignore the contribution of the Severn to inland navigation is not the best course. Whilst such a navigation had its limits through shoals and floods, the Yorkshire and Lancashire navigations were equally challenged.  If talking about Yorkshire waterways the Romans made important use of the Ouse and York as a port ( and one not confined to military use) as was shown in a Time Team documentary.     

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What I am suggesting is that investment in the infrastructure is one of the most important signs for longterm industrial development. This was something that those involved with the Severn failed to do, while merchants and coalowners in Lancashire and Yorkshire did. I use the attached illustration to show where such investment in inland navigation took place. Those listed in black were navigations built to support industrial development, whilst those in orange were mainly there to support agriculture, especially where that agriculture was feeding the population of London. The change from agricultural based waterways to industrial marks the start of the first phase of the industrial revolution. It is interesting to note those in blue, which are Irish, to see that Ireland was well ahead of England when it came to canal promotion.

 

If you are interested in Roman waterways, the museum of early shipping at Mainz is well worth a visit. They have the remains of five Roman Rhine boats, and their conservation department has built replicas. 

early acts.jpeg

DSC_0009 general view with wreck 5.jpg

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The River Severn was a free waterway, well almost as there were some charges in Medievel Britain, such as pontage. There was considerable resistance to making locks on that river and that did not happen until much later. Yet that waterway had an important role as a navigation route to the West Midlands (as the Wye did for the Borders) and to state that the  lack of investment is doing the use of that river in aiding industry a dis-service   If investment in a waterway was the only guide to industrial development, then river navigations such as the Aire & Calder would certainly be classed as the driving force for navigation improvement and indeed  those promoting the Trent & Mersey Canal used the Aire & Calder as a model, in the early papers that Bentley & Wedgwood assembled for reasons for making their canal.  Yet so was the Weaver, and there were plans at one time for the T & M to join the Weaver. The factors that led to that not happening were discussed in that paper I produced for the RCHS. To give the A & C, or indeed all the northern waterways schemes highlighted above, ultimate credit for all subsequent waterways schemes is, in my opinion, not the total story. 

 

Financing river improvement was done for various reasons and trade was only one. With the Great Ouse an important factor was drainage of the Fens. Transport benefited ti a certain extent once the extensive works were completed. Dorothy Summer talks about the Great Ouse in detail. Early on she mentions the Danish fort at Willington near Bedford, I n the days before all the alterations the Great Ouse was a navigation like the Severn that served the communities along the way. 

 

These were natural waterways, part of a reasonably long list. The Trent was another that was natural navigation to Wilden. The factors for building the narrow canal network included the need to have a waterway free from the troubles of river navigations. That fact which includes some of the northern waterways such as Sankey Brook was the light bulb moment, I would suggest.   

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Whilst economics were not the only factor behind waterway construction and industrial development, they were perhaps the most important. The use of improved water transport was being advocated across Europe at the end of the 17th century, with canals being built not just in France, but also in Scandinavia and Finland, whilst the trekvaart in the Netherlands was held up as one of the most important factors in the Dutch having the strongest economy in Europe at that time. Smeaton visited the Low Countries to look at their canals and windmills, while Thomas Steers seems to have brought back the idea of ground paddles, first used on the Brussels Canal, after serving with William of Orange in the Low Countries. He introduced them to the UK whilst completing the Newry Canal circa 1740, and I am fairly certain that every subsequent British canal used them.

 

Several of the early Irish canals were built by European engineers when their construction was encouraged by the Act for establishing Commissioners for Navigation was passed in 1729. This seems to have been passed in response to a series of books advocating waterway development as a way to encourage economic development published in the 17th century. Yarranton's is the best known, but by no means the only one, and similar books were published elsewhere in Europe. Overcoming the economic problems created by wars - the Thirty Years War in the rest of Europe and the Civil War here - was behind this push for waterway construction and economic development. In the UK, the A&CN was the first waterway constructed as a result of these ideas, though it was built on the cheap as no one knew if it would be a success. That it was encouraged others to follow, and after a few decades to realise that the additional financial cost of building canals, compared to river navigations, was worthwhile, though even then our canals were built on the cheap. Places not served by improved water transport began to decline, with the Severn Valley being one of those areas. Industrial development required a good transport infrastructure, which is one reason why Bristol declined in importance as a port, whilst Liverpool and Hull increased their trade. Of course, 18th century technology was not really up to making large rivers, like the Severn and Trent, navigable, one reason for the slow development of France, where their most important river, the Loire, still remains to be made properly navigable. By the time there was suitable technology, in the late 19th century, railways offered a better solution economically.

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