Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/87

  'said town of Birmingham,'  in the preamble of which, it is stated, that the canal and branches, authorized to be done under the act of 8th George III. had been some time completed.

This act, obtained by a new company, consisting of one hundred and twenty-nine persons, who were incorporated by the name of "The Company of Proprietors of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Navigation," gave them power to extend the Wednesbury Branch of the Birmingham Canal, from Rider's Green, to Broad-water Engine, and to make six collateral cuts. One from Butcher's Forge Pool, to Brooke's Meadow; another from near the south end of Butcher's Forge Pool, to Wood's Engine Forge; a third from the head of Willingsworth Pool, to near the nine mile stone, on the turnpike-road leading from Ocher Hill to Wolverhampton; the fourth collateral cut extends from the Willingsworth Pool Tail, to Wednesbury Open Field; one other from the last-mentioned cut, into another part of the same field; and the sixth from out of the last-mentioned cut, to a place opposite Taylor's Engine. This act further empowers the company of proprietors to make a canal from the end of the Birmingham Canal at Farmer's Bridge, near the town of Birmingham, to join the line of the Coventry Canal, at Fazeley, in the parish of Tamworth, and county of Stafford, with a branch, called the Digbeth Branch, from the north side of the town of Birmingham, to the lower part of the said town, and where the Warwick and Birmingham Canal has since effected a junction.

The subscribers are empowered to raise among themselves the sum of £85,000, in five hundred shares of £170 each, for the purpose of executing the whole of the works above described, with further power to raise an additional £30,000, if necessary. The whole of the works to be completed in four years.