A Brief Canal History.

Braunston, Circa 1950

The Romans built the Fossdyke canal to Lincoln in 120 AD - which is still in use today. The Mitre gate were designed by Leonardo da Vinci. and are a way of containing water in a chamber. When the water is level and therefore pressure equalised the gates could be opened.(BW marks gates with weight - so one person can open a single width lock gates weighing 1100 or 1200 kg with ease, and with a struggle the barge lock gates at Worcester onto the River Severn at 3,000 kg). We know these type of gates were used at Waltham Abbey (Lee Navigation) in 1572 and on the Exeter canal which linked Exeter with the sea in 1566. The first completely 'new canal' was built for the Duke of Bridgewater in 1761 to take coal from his mine at Worsley into Manchester. the water used came from the mine, and the boats, very simple, long narrow boats floated underground to be loaded. The price of coal in Manchester dropped overnight, making it affordable for more people and industries. The chicken or the egg! - Did canals start the industrial revolution , or did the industrial revolution create the need for canals. James Brindley was the engineer for the Bridgewater Canal. He had no canal building experience, as he was a millwright, and civil engineering had not existed before, so he had to use original ideas to solve problems, the greatest of which was to take the canal across the River Irwell on an aqueduct. New ideas always gain critics but these were confounded by the success of the scheme. The water stayed in the canal because it was lined with clay mixed with water- puddling. Josiah Wedgwood could see the benefits of transporting his fine bone china by water, and also the delivery of the raw materials. He supported the building of the Trent and Mersey canal. This time the engineering problem was Harecastle Hill - the solution, a tunnel 1.5 miles long. This was at a time when every grain of soil had to be removed by hand. Brindley seemed to have chosen roughly the dimensions of the Worsley mine boats for the structures, 70 feet long by 7 feet wide - locks and bridges had to have a standard 'gauge'. Tests showed a pack horse could carry one eighth of a ton, a large wagon 2 tons and a horse could pull a boat with a cargo of up to 50 tons.This is progress! Canal building had to be approved by an act of Parliament. The greatest number of acts passed was in the year 1793 - the height of Canal Mania. Brindley had a plan for a Grand Cross, linking ports on the Trent, Mersey, Severn and the Thames. Speculaters and businessmen poured money into these schemes. Running over budget is not a new phenomenon- engineering problems were often to blame, especially with the building of tunnels. But the canals got up and running and carried anything and everything. Pickfords started out as canal carriers? Factories, workshops and warehouses sprang up next to canals. Birmingham is a prime example. All these boat movements, particularly where there are locks needed a good supply of water, so along with the bridges, toll cottages and locks, reservoirs had to be built.A lock contains on average 25,000 gall of water. At first, many boats were used locally, and only by day, their crews living nearby. but as cargoes had to be taken further afield, crews took to living on board. Fly boats were the expresses of their day.They travelled day and night, with a relief crew to allow one to rest, while the other worked, often carrying perishable goods such as beer! They also carried passengers. (The Morse eposide - "The Wench is Dead" was based on a true story but happened on the Trent and Mersey at Rugeley, Staffs, not near Oxford. The actual case gave boatmen a bad reputation). Canals expanded and flourished, until the next innovation came along, which was the steam engine, as a method of propulsion.

President & Kildare on the Trent & Mersey Canal

Stationary engines had been around for some time, as pumps or as a source of power, but the railway age put severe pressure on the canals. London to Birminham took 5 days by boat, but could be acheived in a few hours by train. Railway engineers could use all the knowledge gained on the construction of canals, and worse, railways often followed the same routes as canals because of the lie of the land. In a struggle for survival, canal companies cut the rates of pay to their crews and men could no longer afford to keep a family ashore in a house.The family had to move onto the boat, and become the crew. Some captains worked for carrying companies, and some owned and ran their own their own boat - they were known as Number Ones. It is from this time that the traditional decoration and layout dates. The object of the boats was to carry as much cargo as possible , so the living quarters occupied as little room as possible.This meant that a family of four of more would live in a cabin no more than nine or ten feet long. In here they ate, slept, washed, cooked, were born and died. Because they were on the move so much of the time, it was impossible for the children to go to school regularly, and as the children, knowing no other way of life, continued on the boats as they grew up, the boating families grew isolated from the mainstream of life 'on the bank'.The distrust became mutual, and they were regarded much the same as gypsies. At the turn of the century some boats were fitted with steam engines. The space taken up by the engine boiler, and its supply of coal meant less room for cargo, however, the extra power meant that an unpowered boat, or butty could be towed. The steam boat President is a preserved example still in use today. The time taken to get steam up and the need for extra crew (you can't steer and stoke) meant they did not last very long but steam powered tugs were used to pull boats through tunnels saving the chore of 'legging'. The next power development was the invention of the diesel engine. A Bolinder engine was fitted as a trial in the narrowboat Linda in 1912. Despite the fact that the fuel had to be vapourised with a blow torch to start it up, and there was no reverse gear, the engine had to be slowed down then made to backfire to stop, it was considered to be a success. The narroboat Linda still exists today as a trip boat, but without her Bolinder. Diesel engines were fitted to many boats, enabling a butty to be towed, but many boats continued to be pulled by a horse (or a mule, or a pair of donkeys). If diesel engines could be fitted to boats, they could also be fitted in lorries. and so the canals began another battle to survive. A revival came in the thirties, when the Grand Union's locks were enlarged to speed up traffic, but many canals had by this time long been abandoned, their original use no longer needed.

A valiant effort was made during the war to make as much use of the canals as possible, middle class young ladies being trained as boat crews in the absence of indigenous boatmen.Things looked grim, but just before the war, an engineer named Tom Rolt had made an extensive journey in a converted boat called Cressy. After the war, he published the story of his trip and generated considerable interest in the fate of the waterway system. In 1946 the Inland Waterways Association was formed to campaign for the restoration and retention of the canals, as a leisure and heritage resource. Canals, along with the railways, were Nationalised in 1948. Commercial carrying was still struggling on, but was virtually finished by the bad winter of 1962. The first major success for the restorers was the Southern Stratford, reopened by the Queen Mother in 1964.The National Trust were responsible for running it at first, but it was handed over to British Waterways, who run nearly all the canals in this country today.The restoration os the Kennet & Avon canal which links Bristol to the thames reopened in 1990. It always suffered from water supply problems at the summit near Devizes, but a back pumping scheme, finaced by lottery grants should solve that problem.In these days of leisure boating, there are reputedly more boats on the canals today than in the hey days of commercial carrying. A few people still make their living from working boats today transporting coal and other fuels for sale, or taking people on pampered holidays in hotel boats. They still keep alive the techniques of boating with a pair.

Hotel Boats at Harecastle Tunnel

Useful websites to visit to learn more about British Canals.

Braunston. British Waterways.Inland Waterways Association.