Page:Rivers, Canals, Railways of Great Britain.djvu/91



In the preamble of an act of the 46th George Ill, entitled,  'An Act for improving the Birmingham Canal Navigations,'  it is stated, that the company have already opened a communication with the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, the Coventry Canal, and the Trent and Mersey, or Grand Trunk Canal, and have completed all the collateral cuts and canals authorized under the act of 34th George III.; that they have, moreover, improved the navigation, by cutting down the summit at Smethwick, and thereby materially reducing the lockage; also by cutting off bends in the canals, and erecting steam engines for the purpose of obtaining a more regular supply of water, for the purposes of lockage; in consideration of which improvements, they obtain power to charge the same amount of tonnage and mileage as they have heretofore received upon the original circuitous line of navigation. It is also recited in this act, that the company have mortgages on these navigations to the amount of £100,000 and upwards, and for the discharging of which, they obtain power to raise that sum by granting annuities to the same amount, which annuities are to be paid half-yearly, and in preference to dividends or any other claim.

By another act, entitled,  'An Act for enlarging the Powers of several Acts of his present Majesty,for making and maintaining the Birmingham Canal Navigations, and for further extending and improving the same,'  the five hundred consolidated shares, of which the whole of the navigation consists, are divided into one thousand shares, of which no person shall possess more than twenty, on pain of forfeiting all above the restricted number.

By the act of the 55th George III. entitled,  'An Act for establishing a navigable Communication between the Birmingham Canal Navigations and the Worcester and Birmingham Canal, and amending certain Acts relating thereto,'  power is given to open a communication between the two above-mentioned canals, near Broadstreet in the town of Birmingham; the space between them was only 7 feet 3 inches, and the estimate for effecting this communication, with the necessary works for preventing the water from flowing either way, amounted to the sum of £2,300, and was made by Mr. John Hodgkinson, civil engineer, in 1814. By this act it is provided, that whenever the surface water, either of