A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England/Chapter 15

It will have been assumed, from the two preceding chapters, that rivers, whether naturally navigable or rendered navigable by art, were of material service in supplementing defective roads, in opening up to communication parts of the country that would then otherwise have remained isolated, and in aiding the development of some of the greatest of our national industries.

While this assumption is well founded, yet, as time went on, the unsatisfactory nature of much of the inland river navigation in this country became more apparent.

Some of the greatest troubles arose from, on the one hand, excess of water in the rivers owing to floods, and, on the other, from inadequate supplies of water due either to droughts or to shallows.

The liability to floods will be at once apparent if the reader considers the extent of the areas from which rain water and the yield of countless springs, brooks, and rivulets may flow into the principal rivers. In the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on Conservancy Boards, 1877, there was published a list which showed that the 210 rivers in England and Wales had catchment basins as follows:—

The rivers having catchment basins of 1000 miles or upwards are given thus:—

In times of heavy storms or of continuous rainy weather, rivers which drain up to 5000 square miles of country may well experience floods involving a serious impediment to navigation.

The Severn, which brings down to the Bristol Channel so much of the water that falls on Plinlimmon and other Welsh hills, and is joined by various streams, draining, altogether, as shown above, an area of 4437 square miles, is especially liable to floods. In a paper read before the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1860, Mr. E. L. Williams stated that floods had been known to raise the height of the Severn 18 ft. in five hours, and they had not infrequently caused it to attain a height of 25 ft. above the level of low water. The Thames and the Trent, also, are particularly liable to floods, and so, down to recent years, when considerable sums were spent on its improvement, was the Weaver.

It has been asserted in various quarters that less water runs in English rivers now than was probably the case centuries ago, when the abundant forests caused a greater rainfall. This may be so, but, on the other hand, a number of witnesses examined before the Select Committee of 1877 expressed the belief that the water flowing into the rivers had increased of recent years, owing to the improved land drainage, which drained off rapidly and sent down to the sea much rain water that previously would have passed into the air again by evaporation.

In the matter of high tides, "Rees' Cyclopædia" (1819) says that the tide "often" rises at the mouth of the Wye to a height of 40 ft.; while "Chambers' Encyclopædia" gives 47 ft. above low-water mark as the height to which the tide has been known to rise in the same river at Chepstow.

Of the floods in the Yorkshire Ouse Rodolph De Salis says in "Bradshaw's Canals and Navigable Rivers of England" (1904): "The non-tidal portion of the river above Naburn Locks is liable to floods, which at York often reach a height of 12 ft., and have been known to attain a height of 16 ft. 6 in. above summer level."

The liability of English rivers to a shortage of water would seem to be as great as their liability to excess of it. In Archdeacon Plymley's "General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire" (1803) there is published a table, compiled by Telford, giving the heights reached by the Severn between 1789 and 1800. It shows that, as against some very serious floods and inundations, the river often, during the dates mentioned, ran for considerable periods with a stream of no more than sixteen inches of water; that it frequently had less than a foot of water; and that in times of extreme drought the depth of water had been reduced to nine inches. In 1796, the period during which barges could be navigated even down-stream with a paying load did not exceed two months, and "this interruption," it is stated, "was severely felt by the coal-masters, the manufacturers of iron, and the county in general."

The navigation of the Trent is declared in "Rees' Cyclopædia" to be "of vast importance to the country"; yet the authority of John Smeaton, who had examined the river in 1761, is given for the statement that in several places the ordinary depth of water did not exceed eight inches. In the upper part of the river there were, in 1765, more than twenty shallows over which boats could not pass in dry weather without flushes of water.

The inadequate depth of water may be due, not alone to drought, but to the formation of shoals or shallows owing to the rapid fall of the river, its excessive width, or the amount of sediment brought down from the hill-sides or washed from the bed over which it flows. Alternatively, much silting-up may be caused by the sand brought into the river by incoming tides, and not always washed out again by out-going tides.

In an undated pamphlet, entitled "Reflections on the General Utility of Inland Navigation to the Commercial and Landed Interests of England, with Observations on the Intended Canal from Birmingham to Worcester," by the proprietors of the Staffordshire Canal, stress is laid on the trouble caused by the shoals in the Severn, and some facts are given as to the way in which traders had to meet the uncertainties offered by river transport. The pamphlet says:—

"A principal defect of the present conveyance arises from the shoals in the river Severn above Worcester, an evil incurable. The fall from Stourport to Diglis, near Worcester, is nineteen feet; and the river is, what this fact alone would prove, full of shoals. These shoals impede the current of the stream, and retain the water longer in the bed of the river. Let these shoals be removed, the water will pass off, and the whole of the river become too shallow for navigation. Locks on the river could alone correct this defect; but these would overflow the meadows, impede the drainage of the land, and do an injury to the landowners, which parliament can never sanction.

"This defect gives rise to others—to uncertainty as to the time of the conveyance—for it is only at particular periods that there is water sufficient for the navigation—to delays from a want of men and expence from the increased number which the strong current requires. It gives rise, also, to a double transhipping of commodities sent from Birmingham down the Severn, first from the canal at Stourport, and secondly at or near Worcester, as the barges which this shoal water will admit are too small to navigate much below.

"The delays and damage incidental to such a navigation have induced the manufacturers of Birmingham to employ land carriage at a great expence—many waggons are constantly employed at the heavy charge of 4l. per ton from Birmingham to Bristol alone to convey goods or manufactures which cannot await the delay or damage to which in the present navigation they are necessarily exposed;—large quantities of manufactures and the materials of manufactures are likewise sent to Diglis to be conveyed by the Severn in vessels that cannot navigate higher up the river."

In the Trent frequent shallowness of water was due, partly to the excessive breadth of the stream, in places, and partly to the large quantity of "warp," or silt, brought into the river from the Humber estuary by the tides, and left there until scoured out again when the river was in flood.

The Wash group of rivers was specially liable to the silting-up process. Nathaniel Kinderly, writing of the position at Lynn in 1751, said: "The Haven is at present so choaked up with sand that at Low-water it is become almost a Wash, so as to have been frequently fordable." Of the Nen he says it "cannot possibly be preserved long, but is in danger of being absolutely lost," owing to the silting-up of its bed. As for the Witham, the welfare of the port of Boston was threatened so far back as the year 1671, judging from an Act (22 & 23 Chas. II. c. 25) passed in that year, the preamble of which stated:—

"Whereas there hath been for some hundreds of yeares a good navigacion betwixt the burrough of Boston and the river of Trent by and through the citty of Lincolne, and thereby a great trade managed to the benefit of those parts of Lincolnshire, and some parts of Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire, which afforded an honest employment and livelyhood to great numbers of people. But at present the said navigacion is much obstructed and in great decay by reason that the rivers or auntient channells of Witham and Fossdyke, which runn betwixt Boston and Trent are much silted and landed up and thereby not passable with boats and lyters as formerly, to the great decay of the trade and intercourse of the said citty and all market and other towns neare any of the said rivers, which hath producet in them much poverty and depopulation. For remedy thereof and for improvement of the said navigacion, may it please your most excellent Majestie that it may be enacted," etc.

Among various other conditions of river navigation may be mentioned—the extremely serpentine courses of some of the rivers, two miles often having to be made for each mile of real advance; the ever-varying channels in some of the streams; the arduous labour of towing against strong currents, especially when, in the absence of towing-paths for horses, this work had to be done by men; and the destruction, by floods, of the river banks or of works constructed on them.

I have here sought to catalogue, with passing illustrations, the principal troubles attendant on inland river navigation. That the physical disadvantages in question have continued, in spite of all River Improvement Acts, and notwithstanding a considerable outlay, may be seen from the report issued, in 1909, by the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways.

In regard to the Thames the report says that the commercial traffic above Staines has become a very insignificant quantity, and "if the Thames is to be converted into an artery of commercial navigation, there is need for much improvement above Windsor, but still more so above Reading."

On the Severn there is now practically no navigation above Stourport. Much money has been spent on the river since the Severn Navigation Act of 1842; the channel has been deepened and dredged, and, "up to Worcester, at any rate, the river is now one of the best of English waterways." But, in spite of the considerable sums expended on improvements, the traffic fell from 323,329 tons in 1888 to 288,198 tons in 1905, a decline in seventeen years of over 35,000 tons. High water in the river renders it impossible for the larger estuary-going vessels to pass under certain of the bridges, so that, as one witness said, "A vessel may go up when the water is low, and a freshet may come, and the vessel may not be able to get back again for perhaps many days."

The Warwickshire Avon, once navigable from Stratford to the Severn, is now navigable only from Evesham, and even from that point "there is hardly any commercial traffic."

The Trent is navigable to-day to the junction with the Trent and Mersey Canal, at Derwent mouth, "when there is plenty of water." The report says:—

"The great difficulty on the Trent, in its present condition, is the want of sufficient depth of water in dry seasons; in wet seasons traffic is impeded by floods. The river Trent is a fine river and a most important part of the main route connecting the Midland waterway system and the town and colliery district of Nottingham with each other and with the estuary of the Humber. It appears, for want of necessary works of improvement, to be in an inefficient state for these purposes. There is, at present, no certainty that a barge carrying seventy or eighty tons of cargo from the port of Hull to Newark or Nottingham will arrive at its destination without being lightened on its way. A witness said, 'Very often the traffic in dry seasons is left waiting for two or three weeks on the road between Hull and Newark, which, of course, is a very poor way of getting on with business.'"

On the Ouse (York), below Naburn Lock, the conservators find it difficult to keep the channel at its proper depth by reason of the great deposits of floating sand, or "warp," distributed by the tides, the scour of the river being insufficient to carry the warp out to sea. Vessels are at times unable to navigate for several days, obstructive shoals are formed, and the line of the channel is frequently altered.

On the Bedford Ouse the traffic on the upper parts of the river has come to an end, and, though there is still a small amount between Lynn and St. Ives, "the river is in many places very shallow and choked with weeds and mud, so that barges are often stopped for days, and the use of steam traction, up to St. Ives, is impossible."

The Nen from Northampton to Wisbech is "navigable with difficulty"—where the water is sufficient at all—by barges of the smallest size; but sometimes navigation even by these barges is impracticable for weeks together in certain parts of the river. Between Northampton and Peterborough the course of the Nen is extremely tortuous. "It would," says the report, "take a barge nearly three days to travel the sixty-one miles by water, while the railway can carry goods from Northampton to Peterborough in two hours."

It is thus evident that rivers, whether navigable naturally or rendered so by art, must be regarded as water highways possessed of considerable disadvantages and drawbacks in respect to inland traffic when they are on the scale and of the type found in England. Dependent on the forces of Nature—ever active and ever changing—rivers must needs be the exact opposite of the fixed and constant railway line unless those forces can be effectually controlled under conditions physically practicable and not too costly. "Rivers," says L. F. Vernon-Harcourt, in his book on "Rivers and Canals," "are not always suitable for navigation, in their natural condition, even in the lower portions of their course; and, owing to the continual changes taking place in their channels and at their outlets, they are liable to deteriorate if left to themselves." Left to themselves the English rivers, like the Roman and the British roads, were for a thousand years after the departure of the Romans, and the liability to deteriorate may well have shown itself during this period, before even the earliest of the River Improvement Acts was passed; though the deterioration due to the ceaseless operations of Nature may obviously continue in spite of all Acts of Parliament, and notwithstanding a great expenditure of money.

The fate that has overtaken so many English rivers which once counted as highways of commerce may be compared with the fate that, also through the operation mainly of natural causes, has overtaken many of our once flourishing sea ports.

When, in the thirteenth century, Liverpool was raised to the rank of a free borough, there were between thirty and forty places which, whether situated on the coast or some distance inland (as in the case of York), were counted as seaports. Their order of importance at that time is shown by the following table (taken from Baines's "History of Liverpool"), which gives the taxation then levied on each; though the amounts stated should be multiplied by fifteen to ascertain their equivalent in the money of to-day:—

Of these ports the majority have ceased to be available for the purposes of foreign commerce. Dunwich, once a considerable town, the seat of a bishopric, and the metropolis of East Anglia, had its harbour and its royal and episcopal palaces swept away by encroachments of the sea. Hedon, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, returned two members of Parliament in the reign of Edward I., and was a more important centre of trade and commerce than Hull; but its harbour, getting choked up by sand, was converted into a luxuriant meadow, and the ports of Hull and Grimsby now reign in its stead. Sandwich, Romney, Hythe, all the Cinque ports except Dover, and various other ports, got choked up with sand, while others that have been able to retain a certain amount of traffic are to-day only the ghosts of their former selves.

It is certain that in the case of English navigable rivers of any type, much might require to be done, and spent, in order to keep navigation open. With most of them it was a matter of carrying on an unceasing warfare with elemental conditions. Patriotic men like Sandys, Mathew and Yarranton might bring forward their schemes, companies might raise and spend much money on river navigation, and municipal corporations might do what they could, within the range of their means and powers; but the inherent defects and limitations of the navigation itself were not always to be overcome by any practical combination of patriotism, enterprise and generous expenditure even when—and this was far from being always the case—the requisite funds were actually available.

Vernon-Harcourt is of opinion that "the regulation, improvement and control of rivers constitute one of the most important, and, at the same time, one of the most difficult, branches of civil engineering"; and this difficulty must have been found still greater in the last half of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries, when river improvement was engaging so much attention, but when civil engineering was far less advanced than is the case to-day.

Whatever, too, the degree of success attained in the efforts made to overcome the results of floods and droughts, of shoals and shallows, of river mouths choked by sand washed in from the estuaries, of streams unduly broad from lack of adequate embankments, and of ever-varying channels, whatever the energy and the outlay in meeting or trying to meet conditions such as these, there still remained the consideration that, even assuming all the difficulties in regulating, improving and controlling could be surmounted, river transport itself was an inadequate alternative to bad roads, (1) because of the length of the land journey that might have to be made before the river was reached; and (2) because even the best of the rivers only served certain parts of the country, and left undeveloped other districts which were unable to derive due benefit from their great natural resources by reason of defective communications.

Each of these points calls for some consideration, in order that the position of the traders at the period in question may be clearly understood.

In regard to the distance at which manufacturers might be situated from a navigable river, I would point to the position of the pottery trade in North Staffordshire.

The pottery industry had been introduced into Burslem in 1690, though it made comparatively little progress until the time of Josiah Wedgwood, who began to manufacture there in 1759. One of the reasons for the slow growth, down to his day, was the trouble and expense the pottery-makers experienced in getting their raw materials and in sending away their manufactured goods.

Following on the improvement of the Weaver, under the Act of 1720, there were three rivers of which the pottery-makers in North Staffordshire made more or less use—the Weaver itself, the Trent and the Severn. On the Weaver the nearest available point to the Potteries was Winsford Bridge, a distance of twenty miles by road. On the Trent the principal river-port for the Potteries was Willington, about four miles east of Burton-on-Trent, and over thirty miles by road from the Potteries. To the Severn inland ports the distances by road from the Potteries, via Eccleshall and Newport, were:—

From Winsford the pottery-makers received, by pack-horse or waggon, supplies of clay which had been sent from Devonshire or other western counties by sea to Liverpool, and there transhipped in barges, in which it was sent twenty miles down the Weaver, thence to be carried twenty miles by road. From Willington they received flints which had been brought by sea, first to Hull, then forwarded by barge along the Humber to the Trent, and so on to Willington, to be carried thirty miles by road.

Manufactured pottery for London or for the Continent was sent by road to Willington, and then along the Trent and the Humber to Hull, where it was re-shipped to destination. Exports were, also, despatched either to the Severn, along which they were taken in barges to Bristol, or via the Weaver to Liverpool. Concerning the Severn route it is stated in "The Advantages of Inland Navigation" (1766), by Richard Whitworth, afterwards M.P. for Stafford: "There are three pot-waggons go from Newcastle and Burslem weekly, through Eccleshall and Newport to Bridgnorth, and carry about eight tons of pot-ware every week, at 3l. per ton. The same waggons load back with ten tons of close goods, consisting of white clay, grocery and iron, at the same price, delivered on their road to Newcastle. Large quantities of pot-ware are conveyed on horses' backs from Burslem and Newcastle to Bridgnorth and Bewdley for exportation—about one hundred tons yearly, at 2l. 10s. per ton."

The cost of land transport, along roads of the worst possible description, was considerable in itself. In a pamphlet published in 1765, under the title of "A View of the Advantages of Inland Navigations, with a Plan of a Navigable Canal intended for a Communication between the Ports of Liverpool and Hull" (said to have been written by Josiah Wedgwood and his partner, Bentley), it is stated that between Birmingham and London the cost of road transport amounted to about eight shillings per ton for every ten miles, but along the route of the proposed canal, and in many other places, the cost was nine shillings per ton for every ten miles. The pamphlet adds, on this particular point:—

"The burthen of so expensive a land carriage to Winsford and Willington, and the uncertainty of the navigations from those places to Frodsham, in Cheshire, and Wilden, in Derbyshire, occasioned by the floods in winter and the numerous shallows in summer, are more than these low-priced manufactures can bear; and without some such relief as this under consideration, must concur, with their new established competitors in France, and our American colonies, to bring these potteries to a speedy decay and ruin."

It was, again, as we further learn from Whitworth's little work, by the navigable Severn and Bristol that even Manchester manufacturers sent their goods to foreign countries in the days when Liverpool had still to attain pre-eminence over the south-western port. Every week, we are told, 150 packhorses went from Manchester through Stafford to Bewdley and Bridgnorth, these being in addition to two broad-wheel waggons which carried about 312 tons of cloth and Manchester wares in the year by the same route, at a cost of £3 10s. per ton. The distance, via Stafford, from Manchester to Bridgnorth is 84 miles; that from Manchester to Bewdley is 99 miles, and what the roads at this time were like we have already seen.

The quantity of salt sent from Cheshire to Willington, to proceed thence along the Trent to Hull for re-shipment to London and elsewhere, is put in Josiah Wedgwood's pamphlet at "many hundred tons" a year. The navigable Trent was thus taken advantage of for the purposes of distribution; but to get to Willington from the Northwich or other salt works in Cheshire involved a road journey of about forty miles.

Whitworth also gives much information as to what he calls the "amazing" development the iron industry had undergone along the Severn valley at the time he wrote (1766); and he more especially mentions that the total annual output of twenty-two furnaces and forges situate within a distance of four miles of the route of a canal he proposed should be constructed between Bristol, Liverpool, and Hull was £624,000—a figure which in those days appears to have been regarded as something prodigious. But the iron-works in question, though having the advantage of the navigable Severn in one direction, suffered from transport disadvantages in another, since their Cumberland ore (of which, says Whitworth, a very small furnace used at least 1100 tons a year) was brought down the Weaver to Winsford, in Cheshire, whence it had to be transported by road to the works on the Severn "at six shillings per ton for a very small distance." On the basis of 52,780 tons only (though, we are told, "they frequently send iron to ... Chester and many other places at a great distance"), Whitworth calculates that the 32 forges in question were then paying a net sum of £32,500 a year for land transport, only, of the ore and pig-iron they received, and of the manufactured iron they sent away. "I have dwelt thus long," he says, in concluding his somewhat copious details, "upon the iron trade to show that no branch of manufacture can reap more immediate benefit from the making of these canals for navigation, or more sensibly feel the want of them when other ports of the Kingdom have them."

Of coal, he further shows, some 12,000 tons a year were going from the Shropshire collieries to Nantwich, on the Weaver, at a cost of ten shillings per ton for land carriage only, apart from the supplementary cost of river transport. In the opposite direction the farmers of Cheshire and Staffordshire brought about 1000 tons of cheese annually, by road, to Bridgnorth fair—presumably for redistribution thence via the Severn among the various centres of population in the western counties, and also in Wales. The cheese was carried in waggons, and, on the basis of the journey taking, altogether, three or four days, Whitworth calculates that the cost to the farmers in getting the cheese to Bridgnorth must have been about thirty shillings for every two tons.

One of the subsidiary disadvantages attendant on river transport of which mention should be made was the pilfering of goods that went on, more especially when the barges were stopped in the open country, perhaps for days together, by reason of shallow water. In "A View of the Advantages of Inland Navigations" it is said, on this point:—

"It is, also, another circumstance not unworthy of notice in favour of canals, when compared with river navigation, that as the conveyance upon the former is more speedy and without interruptions and delays, to which the latter are very liable, opportunities of pilfering earthen wares, and other small goods, and stealing and adulterating wine and spirituous liquors, are thereby in a great measure prevented. The losses, disappointments and discredit of the manufacturers, arising from this cause are so great that they frequently choose to send their goods by land at three times the expense of water carriage, and sometimes even refuse to supply their orders at all, rather than run the risque of forfeiting their credit and submitting to the deductions that are made on this account.

"We may also add, with respect to the potteries in Staffordshire, that this evil discourages merchants abroad from dealing with those manufacturers, and creates innumerable misunderstandings between them and the manufacturers."

These complaints seem to have been made not without good cause. In 1751 it had been found expedient to pass an Act "for the more effectual prevention of robberies and thefts upon any navigable river, ports of entry or discharge, wharves or quays adjacent." Any person stealing goods of the value of forty shillings from any ship, barge, boat, or any vessel on any navigable river or quay adjacent thereto, was, on conviction, to suffer death! The penalty seems to have been modified into one of transportation; and in 1752 thirteen persons were convicted under the new Act, and sent across the seas.

Many traders could not derive any advantage from river transport. This was the case with the cheese-makers of Warwickshire when they sought to compete with those of Cheshire, or, alternatively, with those of Gloucester, who could take their cheese by road to Lechdale or Crickdale, on the Thames, and send it down that river to London. "The Warwickshire Men," says Defoe, "have no Water Carriage at all, or at least not 'till they have carry'd it a long way by Land to Oxford, but as their Quantity is exceedingly great, and they supply not only the City of London but also the Counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Hertford, Bedford, and Northampton, the Gross of their Carriage is by mere dead Draught, and they carry it either to London by Land, which is full an hundred miles, and so the London cheese-mongers supply the said counties of Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk, besides Kent and Sussex and Surrey by Sea and River Navigation; or the Warwickshire Men carry it by Land once a Year to Sturbridge Fair, whence the Shopkeepers of all the Inland Country above named come to buy it; in all which Cases Land-carriage being long, when the Ways were generally bad it made it very dear to the Poor, who are the chief Consumers."

While, also, Bedfordshire was producing "great quantities of the best wheat in England," the wheat itself had to be taken, from some parts of the county, a distance of twenty miles by road to the markets of Hertford or Hitchin, whence, after being bought and ground into flour, it was taken on, still by road, a further distance of twenty-five or thirty miles to London. The farmers and millers of Bedfordshire were thus unable to enjoy the same advantages of river transport as were open to those on the Wey or the Upper Thames.

In addition to all this, representations came from many different quarters of the neglect of natural advantages and other opportunities where means of transport apart from bad roads were wholly lacking. Numerous pamphlets issued in favour of one canal scheme or another pointed to the opportunities that were being lost or allowed to remain dormant. In, for example, "A Cursory View of the Advantages of an Intended Canal from Chesterfield to Gainsborough," published in 1769, it was said: "The country contiguous to Chesterfield abounds chiefly with bulky and ponderous Products, such as Lead, Corn, Timber, Coals, Iron-stones and a considerable Manufacture of earthen Ware, all of which have been for Ages past conveyed by Land, at a prodigious Expense." An advocate of a navigable canal between Liverpool and Hull had much to say about the undeveloped resources of that district. Whitworth declared that there were "many large mines of valuable contents," such as stone, iron ore, and marble, together with "quarries of various sorts," that would be "opened and set to work," if only inland navigation were better developed, while the cheapening of the cost of raw materials would, he declared, lead manufacturers to embark on new enterprises. Archdeacon Plymley told how, even at the date he wrote (1803), there was, in many of the midland and southern parishes of Shropshire, "no tolerable horse-road whatever," adding, "and in some that have coal and lime these articles are nearly useless from the difficulty of bringing any carriage to them."

However substantial, therefore, the results to which the navigable rivers had led, it was found by the middle of the eighteenth century that there was real need for entirely new efforts, and these were now to be made in the direction of supplementing alike rivers and roads by artificial waterways.