Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/89



By an act of the 24th George ILL entitled,  'An Act for incorporating the Proprietors of a Canal Navigation, authorized by an Act, passed in the Eighth Year of his Majesty King George the Third, to be made from Birmingham to Bilstone, and Autherley, with the Company of Proprietors of a Canal Navigation, authorized by an Act passed in the Twenty-third Year of his present Majesty, to be made from Birmingham to Fazeley, and for consolidating their Shares, and amending the last-mentioned Act,'  "The Company of Proprietors of the Birmingham Canal Navigation," and "The Company of Proprietors of the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Navigation," were incorporated by the name of "The Company of Proprietors of the Birmingham and Birmingham and Fazeley Canal Navigations." By this act, these two undertakings became consolidated; the subscribers to one concern became equal proprietors of the other in the ratio of their respective ventures, though the powers of the several previous acts in other respects remain unaltered.

It further directs, that there shall be no more than five hundred shares, the number fixed on in the original act; and that no person shall have less than one consolidated share, nor more than ten.

Power is also given in this act to borrow the £115,000 authorized to be raised by the act of 23rd George III. by mortgage, under the common seal of the company, instead of the mode therein prescribed: and that this sum shall be appropriated to the making of the canals and cuts enumerated in the 23rd George III. and to the paying off the proportion of the expense of making the required junction from Fazeley with the Trent and Mersey, or Grand Trunk Canal, at Fradley, the act for doing which received the royal assent on the 13th June, 1785, and is entitled,  'An Act to enable the Company of Proprietors of the Navigation from the Trent to the Mersey, and the Company of Proprietors of the Navigation from Birmingham to Fazeley, to make a navigable Canal from the said Trent and Mersey Navigation, on Fradley Heath, in the county of Stafford, to Fazeley, in the said county; and for confirming certain Articles of Agreement entered into between the said Trent and Mersey, the Oxford, and the Coventry Canal Navigation Companies.'