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THE GRAND JUNCTION CANAL
A HIGHWAY
LAID WITH WATER.
PART IV. ― THE
COMING OF THE
RAILWAYS
THE RAILWAY ONSLAUGHT
“With the advance of railways the waterways lost the monopoly of
inland goods traffic which they had previously enjoyed, and their
position began to deteriorate. As railway competition
developed, many were reduced to a precarious position. Efforts
by Parliament to improve the competitive position of the canal
companies by enabling them to vary their tolls, to become carriers
of goods and to make working arrangements proved unsuccessful, and
ultimately, in many cases at the instance of the canal companies
themselves, about one third of the total mileage then existing
passed to the control of the railways. This occasioned much
disquiet, and during the second half of the nineteenth century
several public enquiries took place, but without any tangible
result.” [1]
Canals and Waterways,
The British Transport Commission (1955)
CANALS – THEIR WEAKNESSES
By the 1840s, the era of steam-hauled public railways had begun in
earnest and with it the inexorable decline of the canal network, with
significant parts falling into neglect or being abandoned.
It is worth considering the factors that led to this outcome.
In several ways the rot was already established within
our canal network by the beginning of the railway era. It stemmed from the
parochial outlook of the canal owners and from a lack of standardisation in
canal
construction, both being defects that the new railway companies were
not to exhibit in any material way, as events quickly proved:
“Canals in their day reached a far greater pitch of prosperity
than the railways have ever attained to, but they suffered fatally,
and do so now, from the want of any serious movement towards their
becoming a united system of communication. Each navigation was
constructed purely as a local concern, and the gauge of locks and
depth of water was generally decided by local circumstances or the
fancy of the constructors without any regard to uniformity.
The same ideas of exclusiveness seem to have been perpetuated in the
system of canal management; there is no Canal Clearing House, and
with few exceptions every boat owner has to deal separately with the
management of every navigation over which he trades.”
Bradshaw’s Canals and Navigable Rivers,
Henry Rodolph de Salis (1904)
Some of these weaknesses might have been
addressed with foresight and determination, but others
are inherent in the canal concept.
Other than the comparatively small amount required to raise steam,
the new railways did not depend on a sufficiency of water to support
their operations; in this
respect they were easier to construct and maintain than a canal, and
more
versatile in the locations that they could serve. A crew of three
could operate a freight train hauling a load of 500 tons or more; the same workforce manning a pair of narrow boats could move
around 50 tons. Quicker transit time was another advantage in
the
railways’ favour. Even in their earliest days, steam trains
ran at a far higher speed than their waterborne
counterparts.
Although the railways generally had transit time on their side, this was not
always so. Where a journey was short and the supplier and
consumer both had canal wharfs ― often the case on the Birmingham
canal network ― the speed advantage could lie with the canal, and
canals in this category quickly became targets for their voracious
new competitors. Efficient management could also make a
considerable difference to transit times, and here it is
interesting to note a passage from the Rusholme report, the
writer referring to government control of canals during WWI . .
. .
“The Committee [2] sought to organise
traffic on these canals with a view to relieving the congestion on
the railways, and the result of their efforts was a considerable
increase in the amount of traffic carried and an improvement in the
speed of conveyance, until it compared on the whole not unfavourably
with that of heavy traffic on the railways.”
Canals and Waterways, The British Transport
Commission (1955)
. . . . and this despite a backlog of repair and maintenance work
that had built up during the war years, which suggests that
transit times might have been improved with more efficient
management and better co-ordination between canal companies, requirements
that were generally lacking. But little could be done to manage
the weather. Steam-hauled railways rarely suffered from
delays due to drought and were less affected by freezing conditions, but
each could bring canal traffic to a standstill, sometimes for long
periods despite the construction of reservoirs and bore holes, and the
operation of ice-breaking.
But lack of speed alone did not bring about the decline of canal
carrying. The failure of canal companies to develop
inter-working ― let alone to amalgamate ― was a significant
drawback, and one in which government might have intervened by
forcing mergers similar to those that they eventually imposed on the
railway companies in 1921 (the ‘grouping’). Various inquiries
and commissions on canals and transport over the years came to much
the same conclusion as that arrived at as recently as 1928:
“. . . . we are of the opinion that certain canals still possess
considerable value as a means of transport, and that, properly
rationalized and developed, they can be made to render much useful
service to the community in the future. We are satisfied that
a process of amalgamation is a necessary preliminary to any
developmental programme.”
The Royal Commission on Transport,
Sir Arthur Griffith Boscawen (1928)
Together with investment, company amalgamations might, over time,
have ironed out another significant difficulty, the lack of
standardization.
Canals were generally built to serve the needs of local
industries, which fostered a parochial attitude to their
construction and management. Their dimensions were influenced
by the type of trade they were designed to serve, by local
conventions, [3] by the amount of capital
available for their construction, by water supply and other
topographical limitations:
“The locks and waterways of canals are altogether wanting in
uniformity. One of the great difficulties of canal traffic in
Great Britain, in England and Wales especially, has been that
scarcely two canals have a continuous gauge. We find even upon
one canal two or three different gauges of locks. In some
instances the canals forming a continuous line are approximately of
the same size, but the gauge of the locks is entirely different.
Either their locks are considerably shorter, or are considerably
narrower, or the water-way is considerably shallower. There is
nothing like a common uniform gauge of canal throughout the whole
distance.”
E. J. Lloyd, Engineer to the Warwick canals, giving
evidence to the
Select Committee on Canals (1883)
Even the dimensions of the ubiquitous ‘narrow boat’ varied:
“’Narrow boats’ or ‘monkey’ boats are by far the most numerous
class of vessel engaged in inland navigation. They are from
70ft to 72ft long by 6ft 9ins to 7ft 2ins beam, and draw from 8ins
to 11ins of water when empty, loading afterwards to about 1ins to 1
ton.” [4]
Bradshaw’s Canals & Navigable Rivers,
H. R. de Salis (1904)
Because government took no interest,
statutory standards designed to facilitate inter-working between
different canal systems were not imposed, and waterways continued to vary in the
maximum size and loading of craft they could accommodate. The
Grand Junction Canal main line is an example; it can accommodate
craft 72ft long by 14ft 3ins beam and 3ft 8ins draught, [5]
but the locks on the adjoining systems at Gayton and Norton
restrict craft to 7ft beam, although they in turn lead to broad waterways.
In the 1930s, the Grand Union Canal Company widened the line from Braunston to Birmingham via Napton Junction,
which includes a short section of the adjoining Oxford Canal, but
with that exception the Oxford Canal is narrow:
“As almost all the through routes between important centres at
the present time contain links to narrow canal, the effect of these
diversities of gauge is to confine any long distance through traffic
to narrow boats. Nothing but a narrow boat can navigate
between London and Northampton, London and Leicester, London and
Nottingham or Manchester, and nothing but a narrow boat can get into
or out of Birmingham from anywhere. If we attempt to take our
narrow boat from London to Leeds we shall fail altogether, as we
shall be stopped at either Wigan, Sowerby Bridge, or Cooper Bridge,
by the locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, or Calder and Hebble
Navigation, which, although twice the width required by the narrow
boat, are 10 feet too short.”
H. R. de Salis (Vice Chairman Fellow, Morton &
Clayton) giving evidence to
the Royal Commission (1906).
Narrow locks also slowed traffic, due to pairs of narrow boats
having to lock through individually rather than abreast.
Even within the otherwise broad Grand Junction Canal, the Blisworth
and Braunston tunnels were too narrow to allow wide boats to pass,
while river barges (14ft beam) could only be accepted without
restrictions on its more heavily worked southern section below
Berkhamsted. [6]
Coupled with the physical limitations on through working, craft
traversing different companies’ systems faced a chaotic pricing
structure that subjected them to varying charges at toll offices
along their route. And where a craft briefly entered another
canal company’s system in order to reach its destination,
disproportionately high ‘compensation tolls’ [7]
were often imposed. An example was the Oxford Canal, which
was authorised to impose a compensation toll of 2s 9d a ton on coal
and 4s 4d on all other items at the junction of the Warwick & Napton
Canal, and in this way received a quarter of a million pounds over
twenty years. [8] All this meant that
‘through charges’ could not be determined accurately in advance; craft
were gauged and the captains paid in cash at each toll office they
passed on their journey, or if working for a carrying company with an account, then
the company was billed. Chaos would have ensued had the same
charging system operated on the railways.
By comparison, from the Liverpool & Manchester Railway onwards, the
4ft 8½ins gauge applied to most of our mainline railway network, [9]
thereby permitting traffic to move from one company’s system to
another. Railway company mergers also took place resulting in
longer routes under single managements. [10]
Where passengers and freight passed through the domains of different
companies to reach their destination, arrangements were negotiated
for through working and end-to-end charging ― set up in 1842, the Railways Clearing
House allocated the revenue received in proportion
to the resources that each had provided. [11]
Overall, railway companies had a much wider vision of their business
and how it might be developed than did their blinkered waterway
competitors of their own assets. Boyle summed the position up
succinctly:
“The canal, on the contrary, is not calculated to deceive
anybody. Beside the railway it appears the embodiment of
quiet, plodding, undisguised sluggishness; and if this is not
actually the case, it must be admitted the erroneous impression is
not altogether without foundation. There is certainly nothing
fast about a canal. It seldom changes or improves; and when it
does so, it is only by imperceptible degrees. It is apparently
the same yesterday, today, and for ever; ― perpetuating its
primitive arrangements to all time and under all circumstances.
Enlightened enterprise appears to have shunned it as an ungenial
sphere for all its operations, and the world in its march of
improvements seems to have left it behind hopelessly on the road.”
Hope for the Canals,
Thomas Boyle (1848)
In Britain, the need for large-scale modernisation of the
canal system was an issue in which the state took no part,
for transport was seen as a matter for individual companies. Some
of our early canals ― especially those built before the French Wars
drove up construction costs ― paid large dividends rather than
investing their revenue in straightening, widening and deepening
their waterways, and in providing bank protection when steam-power became feasible
― some systems would not at first accept
powered craft. In France, Belgium and Germany,
where the introduction of railways also had a damaging impact on inland
waterways, the state intervened. The outcome was that
waterways were modernised and steam haulage introduced, while protective legislation regulated
canal and railway tariffs. Not until nationalisation in 1947
did the British government take a material interest in inland waterways,
but by then it was too late. The development of road transport
and of the motorway network made canal modernisation along
northern European lines wholly uneconomic.
――――♦――――
THE ONSLAUGHT BEGINS
The success of the Bridgewater Canal proved the viability of canal
transport, and within a few years of its opening an
embryonic national canal network came into being with the
construction of canals such as the Trent & Mersey and the Oxford.
The early 1790s saw the period known as ‘canal mania’, when huge
sums were invested in new canal schemes, often with little serious
consideration of their viability. Partly as a result, the
canal network grew to over 4,000 miles, becoming both cause and
effect of the rapid industrialisation of the Midlands and the North
of England. The period between the 1770s and the 1830s is
often referred to as the ‘Golden Age’ of British canals, an age in
which canal companies faced no serious competition and the
complacency of the monopoly operator became established.
If any single date marks the beginning of the decline of our canal
network, the 15th September 1830 must be a serious
contender, for on that day the world’s first mechanically-operated
inter-city public transport link, the Liverpool & Manchester
Railway, commenced business:
“Although the advantages of a railway for the conveyance of
passengers and goods are very superior to any other mode, even when
horses are employed as the moving power; yet, these advantages are
vastly increased by the substitution of Locomotive Steam Engines . .
. . The fare between these towns [Liverpool and Manchester]
for inside passengers by the railway is five shillings; before the
opening of the railway it was twelve and fourteen shillings by the
ordinary coaches. The distance between the towns is run on the
railway in two hours: by the turnpike road it occupies four and a
half or five hours. . . . Goods shipped at Liverpool by water
conveyance to Manchester, are thirty-six hours on the passage; but
by the railway they are delivered in about five hours . . . . And in
winter, the canal part is frequently frozen for many weeks, so as to
obstruct all passage; and goods have to be transferred from the
canal to land carriage, suffering loss of time, increase in expense,
and risk of damage in the transfer.”
Observations on Railways: particularly on the
proposed London & Birmingham Railway, Anon
(1831).
Although the march of technology would have delivered the
steam-hauled public railway, the Liverpool & Manchester Railway grew
out of a commercial need, to combat the high charges and poor
service provided by the Bridgewater Canal and the Mersey & Irwell
Navigation in transporting goods between Liverpool and
Manchester (it was said that goods could take longer passing
between the two cities than in crossing the Atlantic). The irony
was that the Bridgewater Canal had been built seventy years earlier
to address the very same problem, the expensive and poor service
then provided by the Mersey & Irwell Navigation.
The waterways did what they could to oppose the Liverpool &
Manchester Railway, even to the extent of threatening physical
violence to the railway surveyors. The first Bill laid before
Parliament failed, but at the second attempt the railway company
succeeded [12]
in obtaining the necessary private Act, and construction commenced.
Faced with a fait accompli, the waterways attempted to retain
their trade by reducing tolls and improving services; the Irwell
Navigation straightened sections of its line and improved its water
supply; the Bridegwater Canal Company built new docks and
warehouses, improved access to the River Mersey at Runcorn and linked their docks to the Weaver Navigation.
In 1844, the Bridgewater bought the Mersey & Irwell Navigation and
eventually reached a trading agreement with its new competitor, the
London & North Western Railway.
In these respects the
Bridgewater Canal is unusual. Faced with the railway onslaught,
the company responded with vigour and continued to trade profitably
until acquired by the Manchester Ship Canal Company in 1885.
But compared with many other canal companies the Bridgewater had
the advantage of a
strong business foundation. At one end of its line lay Manchester, a major manufacturing city,
and at the other end lay the Runcorn docks and a river link to a major seaport, Liverpool.
In addition, there was a healthy coal trade that lasted into the 1970s.
When faced with railway competition, canal companies in less
fortunate circumstances followed the Bridgewater example by reducing their
charges, generally by between 30% and 50% of their former level, [13]
but although this slowed their commercial decline it did not halt
it. Tonnage often increased in response to the cheaper toll
rates, but total revenue fell, resulting in reductions in manpower
levels and waterway maintenance, and in the sale of company assets.
The new railways quickly acquired business where transit time was
important, such as with perishables, packages and passengers.
Passenger traffic was never a staple source of revenue for canals, although in the north-west of England and in Scotland it did
make a contribution on some systems. [14]
Most of the railways’ passenger traffic was either entirely new, or
was taken from the stagecoach operators on routes where they
competed (such as Liverpool to Manchester), the stagecoach operators
going out of business (or becoming feeders) almost as soon as a
competing railway commenced business. Having established a
profitable line in passenger traffic, the railways then began to
capture freight where another significant,
although less obvious advantage of speed, lies in swifter logistics.
This allows manufacturers and retailers to reduce their stocks of raw
materials and finished goods, thereby saving on financing charges
and/or releasing some of their capital for other
purposes.
――――♦――――
SOME CASE STUDIES
Faced with a losing battle, some canals ― mostly the less successful
― soon sold out to the competing railways, sometimes even offering
themselves for sale. By purchase, amalgamation or lease, [15]
the railway companies gradually acquired a substantial interest in
the canal network to
the extent that by 1865, about one third of canal mileage in
England and Scotland was under some form of railway control. [16] On occasions a canal fitted the railway’s business, acting as a
feeder or giving freight access to areas of the country served by a
competing railway company, but generally a railway company’s
acquisition permitted it to remove waterway competition by a
combination of increased tolls and declining maintenance:
“The cases in which railway companies have a more or less strong
or less strong positive interest in pushing the trade on the canals
belonging to them are exceptions to the rule.”
Report of the Royal Commission on Canals,
pub. 1909.
One company stifled by railway ownership was the Kennet & Avon Canal, which
links Reading on the Thames with Bristol. This
waterway comprises sections of the rivers Kennet and Avon, which between Newbury and Bath
are linked by a 57-mile ‘broad’
canal. Engineered by John Rennie Snr. and opened throughout in 1810,
the Kennet & Avon was successful in its early years ― mainly carrying coal and
stone ― although its dividends never exceeded a modest 3¾% (1840)
due mainly to its heavy construction costs. The opening of the Great
Western Railway in 1841, followed by the Berks & Hants Railway in
1847, diverted most of the Kennet and Avon’s trade to rail despite
the canal company having lowered its tolls. When taken over by the
Great Western Railway in 1852 for a
fraction of its construction cost, its tolls were increased and
its trade, unsurprisingly, declined still further. By 1868, the
canal’s annual tonnage
had fallen from 360,610 in 1848 to 210,567, and the canal ceased to
make any profit after 1876. [17] Following WWI,
when more trade was lost to road transport, the Great Western Railway
Company attempted to close
the canal but were prevented from doing so:
“The local authorities in Wiltshire, Berkshire, and Somerset,
through whose area the Kennet and Avon Canal runs, are still a
little anxious as to the fate that awaits this old waterway. The
Great Western railway, which originally proposed to apply for powers
to abandon the canal altogether, has now, in consequence of
widespread opposition, promised to modify its application so that,
though the canal will be closed to traffic, the company will remain
liable to carry out its present obligations ‘except those which have
been necessary for traffic purposes.’
In that qualifying phrase a great many fears which the railway
company has sought to answer have been revived. The one specific
promise given is that the company will maintain the pumping station
at Crofton and so ensure a flow of water into the canal. The local
bodies are asking if the locks and their gates will be kept in
proper repair; whether the channel will be allowed to become choked
with weeds and silted up; and whether ultimately there may be
stretches of virtually stagnant water in and near the towns once
served by this waterway that joins the eastern and western seas. . .
.”
The Times, 19th January,
1927
By 1950 most of the Kennet & Avon was disused and impassable, an
outcome shared by much of the railway controlled canal system.
A further attempt at closure in the 1950s having failed, sufficient
of the Canal survived into the preservation era, since when, with unstinting volunteer effort and Lottery
grant support, it has been transformed into what the 1968
Transport Act classifies as a ‘cruising waterway’. [18]
Another, and in some ways more damaging strategy adopted by railway
companies to stifle canal trade, was to gain control of a short
section of a much longer through route. The toll for that section
could then be increased to the highest permissible level, thereby
imposing a disproportionately high increase to the overall through
charge.
An example was the through toll on iron goods from South
Staffordshire to London, of 4s 6d per ton. The sum charged over the
10-mile Birmingham section, controlled by the London & North Western
Railway Company, amounted to 1s 6d, while the independent canals received 3s
for the remaining 146 miles. Had the Birmingham section being
charged at the same rate as the remainder, the through toll would
have been reduced by a quarter. [19] However, it
must be said that the railway companies were merely adopting a
strategy already operated by some canal companies in the same
circumstances:
“One great impediment has been found to exist, in the present
disjointed state of the Canal interests and the varying systems
under which they carry on their operations. Some of the existing
Companies, possessing lines of Canal which form central links in a
great chain, take advantage of their peculiar position, and
establish a rate of charges so high as to secure to themselves a
large return for their capital, even upon a small amount of traffic. This practice, while it obliges the other Companies, not so
advantageously situated, to reduce their rates to such an extent
that they are unable to conduct their business with a profit, at the
same time prevents such a reduction in the general charges of the
line as would enable the several Companies, as a body, to maintain a
fair competition with the Railways.”
Second Report from the Select Committee on
railways and Canals Amalgamation (1846)
Following WWI., the canals were faced with increasing road
competition and difficulties in recruiting boat crews (many who had
joined the forces or found better-paid employment in factories
engaged on munitions work, never returned) while the railways were
by then being subsidized by the State:
“The main difficulty with regard to the extension of the use of
canals lies in the freight charges. The railways, subsidized by the
State, have been able to keep their charges down, while on canals
increased expenses have forced freight charges up. In 1913 the canal
charges were lower than those on the railways; to-day they are
considerably higher.”
The Times, 10th October,
1919
But aggressive railway competition was not the sole reason that
canal companies went to the wall. Other causes of failure lay in
their original business case being unsound (e.g. under-estimated
construction costs, over-estimated traffic receipts) [20]
or in the local industry(s) on which they relied
disappearing under changed circumstances, such as coal mines
becoming worked out, canal-side iron works closing in favour of
large steel mills, or grain mills moving to the ports to be more
economically placed to mill cheap imported grain. The Basingstoke
Canal (also known as the London and Hampshire Canal) in part fell
victim to London increasingly receiving its agricultural produce
from the midlands and north of England via the Grand Junction Canal, and later the
railways, and importing cheaper foodstuffs through the London
docks.
The Basingstoke Canal linked that town with the Thames at Weybridge, via the River
Wey Navigation [21] ― several plans to continue it
to the South Coast never materialised. Engineered by William Jessop
and built as a broad canal, it was opened throughout in 1794. Unlike
the canals in the midlands and the north of England, which served
mainly industrial needs, the Basingstoke Canal was intended to
stimulate agricultural development in central Hampshire by
transporting timber, flour, malt and agricultural produce to
London, with return cargoes of coal, manure and groceries.
Construction costs were much higher than anticipated added to which the
traffic projections proved over-optimistic By 1796 the Company was on the brink of bankruptcy. To stave off failure bonds were
sold, but servicing the interest absorbed the profits resulting in the Company’s
shareholders failing to receive a dividend at any time in the
Canal’s
history. By the 1820s, improved roads in the area led road transport presenting serious
competition, with a faster door-to-door service at comparable
charges.
Ironically, trade revived briefly during the 1830s with the construction of the
South Western Railway, the canal being used to
transport railway construction materials; but once the railway had
been opened, canal trade slumped. Price-cutting by both companies
continued throughout the 1840s, the railway having the advantage of
being able to cross-subsidise reduced freight rates from its passenger
receipts (by then a common practice):
“Another consideration which must not be overlooked is, that
although it has been stated that with proper management Canals might
maintain a successful competition with railways in the carriage of
heavy goods, still such competition has hitherto been carried on
under great disadvantage, owing to the large profits made by Railway
Companies on passenger traffic, which enables them to submit in some
instances even to a loss on the carriage of merchandize with a view
to withdraw traffic from Canals.”
Second Report from the Select Committee on
railways and Canals Amalgamation (1846)
Another short boost to trade occurred in 1854, when the Canal was
used to transport materials for the construction of Aldershot Camp,
after which business again declined. In June 1866, the proprietors
resolved to go into liquidation. By this time, other canals in the
south ― notably the Wey and Arun, the Thames and Severn, and
the Wilts and Berks ― had already expired, but the Basingstoke was
not abandoned. There followed a succession of owners, one
attempting to sell in 1904:
“The canal was purchased in 1896 by its present proprietors, who
have expended a considerable amount of money on its restoration and
improvement, but apparently without success, as at the present time
(1904) the navigation is again for sale. Of late the towing path has
become much overgrown in places, thereby causing horse towing to be
very difficult.”
Bradshaw’s Canals & Navigable Rivers,
H. R. de Salis (1904)
Despite the auctioneer’s encouraging sales pitch [Appendix]
there were no takers. WWI brought a further brief revival of trade, with Government stores
and munitions being carried to Aldershot Camp with return
cargoes of manure and timber. In 1923, the Canal was bought by
Alexander Harmsworth, who ran a successful business until his death
in 1947, but only on the section below Woking, the upper reaches
having by then become a picturesque backwater:
“Long stretches of this waterway are among the quietest and
least-frequented places in the country. Rich vegetation abounds on
its banks. In places the trees meet above it, forming in summer long
tunnels in which the light is tinged a greenish shade, giving to
whoever may pass through them, in a boat hardly propelled through
the weed-thick water, a ghostly and baleful air. Here and there a
broken bridge crosses the water, here and there an empty boat-house
stands mournfully on the bank”.
The Times, 28th August,
1929
The Canal was not taken into the nationalisation programme in 1947,
and by the 1960s it was derelict. But as with the Kennet & Avon,
sufficient of it survived for restoration. Today, after years of
effort by members of the Surrey & Hampshire Canal Society in
partnership with local authorities, 32 miles of the Basingstoke
Canal are again open to navigation, albeit restricted at times due
to water shortage.
Some waterways did manage to hold their own against the railway
onslaught, but these tended to be the river navigations, which
required comparatively few locks, had a dependable water supply and
could more readily be widened and deepened. An example is the Aire &
Calder Navigation in West Yorkshire, which runs for 34 miles from
Leeds to Goole, with a 7½ mile branch from Wakefield (where it
connects with the Calder & Hebble Navigation) to Castleford. During
its life the Navigation has been widened and deepened, its locks
have been lengthened, and canal cuts have been constructed to
straighten sections of the route.
During the 1840s, the Aire & Calder’s trade was reduced by about a
third following the arrival of the railways, but the Navigation was
fortunate in having two innovative engineers, Thomas Bartholomew
and, following his death in 1852, his equally talented son, William. Thomas was an early advocate of steam
propulsion and by the time of
his death two-thirds of the traffic on the Navigation was hauled by
steam tug. Besides carrying out many improvements to the waterway,
William Bartholomew developed a sectional barge system. Known as
‘Tom Puddings’, each comprised six separate compartments with a bow
and stern section, which, under the control of four men, could move 800
tons of coal. On arrival at Goole the contents of each
compartment (‘tub’) could then be emptied mechanically into a
collier by means of dockside hydraulic hoists. By 1913, there were 18 tugs,
1,010 compartments and 1,560,006 tons of coal was being carried
annually. [22] The compartments were still
carrying around half a million tons of coal until the late 1960s,
long after most British canals had ceased to be used for commercial
traffic, but the gradual demise of the coal industry led to
compartment traffic ceasing in 1986.
A
‘Tom
Puddin’
― Bartholomew’s sectional boat.
In addition to investing in the Navigation’s development, its
success can also be attributed to a firm business base in
the shape of the large Yorkshire coalfields that it serviced and on
the company’s development of Goole Docks, from which coal and other
goods were exported in quantity and into which pit props for the
mining industry were landed:
“. . . . the collector of customs at Goole, said that there were
large warehouses there belonging to the Aire and Calder Navigation
Company. He produced a mass of reports made to the Board of Customs,
from which it appeared that cotton-twist, fustians, woollen goods,
coals, and iron were exported thence.”
The Times, 15th July,
1845
The decline of the coal industry and of heavy manufacturing
generally saw commercial traffic on the Navigation dwindle, but not disappear. As recently as 2007 the Navigation is reported to
have carried 300,000 tons, mostly of petroleum and building aggregates. During the 1960s, the navigation underwent further modernisation, in
which the locks from Goole to Leeds were upgraded and enlarged to
accommodate vessels conforming to the 700-tonne Euro-barge standard. The Navigation also provides important leisure cruising links to,
among other waterways, the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and, via the
Calder & Hebble Navigation, to the Huddersfield Broad and Narrow
canals and the Rochdale Canal (the latter two being restored to
use).
But overall, the Aire & Calder’s success was untypical of British
inland waterways, which went from a position in the 1840s in which
they carried more freight than the railways, to one at the end of the
nineteenth century when their share of the market had slumped to
about a tenth; or put another way, overall growth in canal carrying
during the period remained almost static whilst the corresponding
rail freight business burgeoned.
――――♦――――
THE LONDON & BIRMINGHAM RAILWAY
“In 1825 the tract of country lying between London and Birmingham
was surveyed by Messrs John and Edward Grantham, for the purposes of
ascertaining the practicability of forming a railroad between the
metropolis and the town of Birmingham. Sir J. Rennie,
likewise, surveyed a tract of country for the same purpose carrying
the route of line along the valley of the Thames to Oxford and
thence to Birmingham. This, however, was abandoned on account
of the tunnelling necessary at Oxford, and the periodical floods to
which the Thames is subjected. Various portions of country
were also surveyed and diversions made in all directions until the
most eligible, and that which presented least, difficulties, was
evident. In 1828, the first public intimation appeared of the
formation of ‘A Company for making a Railway from London to
Birmingham,’ with the name of Mr Stephenson, of the Liverpool and
Manchester Railway, subjoined as its engineer.”
The London and Birmingham Railway Guide:
Joseph W. Wyld (1838)
The seeds of the London & Birmingham Railway were sewn as early as 1825.
Sir John Rennie proposed a London to Birmingham railway passing through
Qianton
and Banbury, but nothing came of the scheme or of a later proposal by
Francis Giles for a line passing through the Watford Gap, Rugby and
Coventry. However, both schemes caused considerable alarm
among canal companies, turnpike trusts, stagecoach operators and the
proprietors of coaching inns and stables. Each group could be depended on
to oppose with vigour any railway bill that eventually came ―
they did not
have long to wait.
In 1829, two schemes were published in which lines were proposed
along the routes put forward by Rennie and by Giles. Rather than
compete with each other ― in addition to numerous opposing
commercial and landed interests ― the schemes’ proprietors sensibly
combined forces, employing George and Robert Stephenson to review
their plans and recommend which to adopt. The Stephensons having
chosen the eastern route, a detailed survey was then undertaken by
Robert Stephenson and Thomas Gooch, [23] which formed the basis of a Bill
submitted to Parliament in 1832. This Bill passed the Commons but was
rejected by the Lords, the dissenting landowners being in the
majority of 59 to 53. The original route was then altered to avoid
the estates of most of the opposition,
while the remaining dissenters along the line were made financial offers they
found difficult to refuse. The outcome was that on the second attempt the
London & Birmingham Railway Bill passed both houses and received the
Royal Assent on 6th May, 1833.
Construction then proceeded swiftly. Boxmoor was reached in July,
1837; Tring in January 1838; Denbigh Hall in April; and the line was
opened throughout in September of that year. The 112½-mile railway
had taken five years to complete; the 131½ miles of the Grand
Junction Canal
(including its pre-1805 branches) had taken twelve.
The route chosen by Robert Stephenson keeps close company with the Canal
for many miles. From Cassiobury Park, Railway and Canal ascend the valleys of the Gade and the Bulbourne before crossing
the Tring Gap in deep cuttings. There then follows a long descent to Milton Keynes where
Canal and Railway briefly part company, the Canal weaving a sinuous
path around the modern town while the Railway takes a more direct route to
Wolverton. Both then cross
the valley of the Great Ouse, the Canal on a substantial
earth embankment,
the Railway on a brick viaduct. At Roade, rather than following
Barnes’s example of tunnelling the ridge, Stephenson took the
Railway through in a deep cutting. At Buckby, Railway and Canal finally
diverge, the Canal heading west towards its nearby rendezvous with the
Oxford Canal, the Railway departing in a north-westerly direction
towards the Watford Gap and the notorious Kilsby Tunnel. Here
Stephenson met his Nemesis in the form of the quicksand
deposits and severe flooding that had been encountered by the canal tunnelers at Blisworth
― in neither case did the trial borings reveal the problem.
Until railway competition changed the picture, the Grand Junction
Canal Company had taken
full advantage of its monopoly status as a transporter of
goods:
“As a special instance of a canal taking advantage of its
position to raise its rates, we may mention the Grand Junction
Canal, which extends from Paddington to Braunston where it joins the
Oxford Canal. The Grand Junction Canal was an important link between
London and the great mining and manufacturing sections of
Warwickshire, Cheshire, Staffordshire, etc. It was a monopoly
without competitor; its exactions, excessive rates, discriminatory
rates, and its supercilious conduct caused loud and general
complaints even as late as 1836.”
Remarks on the tonnage rates and drawbacks of the
Grand Junction Canal, Mercator (1836)
No sooner had the new railway company commenced operations, than it
too began to exploit the monopolistic position that it had won from the
stagecoach operators:
“THE LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM
RAILWAY: No system appears to us to
require more vigilant scrutiny, nor the conduct of any body of
persons to be more jealously watched, than railway companies and
railway directors. The moment that all means of opposition ceases an
attempt is made to impose on the public the most exorbitant and
unjustifiable charges for goods and passengers. We last week
expressed our opinion on the subject of the increase of price for
the carriage of parcels from 1d to 1½d per pound, and we believe we
may now congratulate the public on its abandonment, and the
immediate reduction to the old prices. But there are other ways that
these great monopolies are made to press hardly on public
convenience; among others, we beg this week to direct the attention
of our readers to the sudden increase in the price of conveyance
that has taken place to all the intermediate stages since the
opening of the railway throughout to London, and the consequent
removal of the stage-coaches from that line of road.”
The Times, 29th
September, 1838
The London & Birmingham Railway’s tussle with the Grand Junction
Canal Company over their respective shares of the
freight traffic between London and the Midlands was slow to start, for the
Canal was not affected by the Railway’s prime interest at that time
― passengers. But as the railway moved into freight
carrying, a price-cutting war began that was to last off and on
until nationalisation eventually brought railways and canals under a
single owner, the State.
――――♦――――
APPENDIX
(The Times, 28th October, 1904)
THE BASINGSTOKE CANAL.—By
order of the High Court of Chancery, the Woking, Aldershot, and
Basingstoke Canal was offered for sale by auction at the Mart
yesterday, by Mr. B. I’Anson Breach, of the firm of Messrs. Farebrothers, Ellis, Egerton, Breach, and Co.
In giving particulars of the property the auctioneer remarked that
the occasion presented a unique opportunity for speculators. The
canal, which was constructed under two Acts of Parliament passed in
the reign on George III., was built at a cost of between £150,000
and £200,000, and it was opened in 1794. It started in the town of
Basingstoke, and, passing through some of the most picturesque and
beautiful residential neighbourhoods of Hampshire and Surrey, it
ended at the junction of the river Wey, by means of which a direct
line of navigation was opened to London, a distance of nearly 70
miles. The canal was about 37 miles long, and there were 29 locks. The traffic at the outset was very remunerative, but when the
South-Western railway was constructed it seemed gradually to “swamp”
the Canal. There were 13 wharves conveniently placed at important
military and trading centres; and along the canal were a number of
lockkeepers’ dwellings, warehouses, &c., principally let. The
property embraced a total land and water area of about 366 acres. There were low rentals now coming in amounting to £500 a year, and
the revenue — the general trading of the company — was £5,000. He
saw no reason why the Canal should not be carried on to Southampton;
and a splendid opportunity was afforded to the War Office of
connecting their waterways with the camp at Aldershot. Replying to
questions, the auctioneer stated that the lack of water in the canal
about a month ago near Woking arose from the fact that the receiver
had been putting in a new lock gate.
Under the existing Act it was clearly defined that the Canal was to
be used for the purposes of a canal; but he knew no difficulty which
would prevent a purchaser from obtaining a short Act of Parliament
to enable him to convert it into a motor track if he wished to do
so. Adjoining property owners, under section 101 of the Act, had the
right of pre-emption on terms which would have been settled by
Commissioners. He then invited bids for the property.
To his suggestion that they should begin at £50,000 there was no
response, upon which he invited offers of £40,000 and £30,000 with
the same result. He was, he remarked, in the hands of intended
buyers; but he was acting under sealed instructions, and could
therefore give no hint as to prices. Subsequently he invited bids of
£25,000 and £20,000, adding that he could not go below the
last-mentioned amount. No offer, however, was made for the property,
which was accordingly withdrawn. |
