The Father of Canals
‘The canal of the great duke of Bridgewater, who may justly be called the parent and founder of all similar works in this kingdom, is a very striking instance of public utility … and no doubt the vast fortune which this noble adventurer thus sacrificed for the good of his country, at a time of life when others squander their patrimony in useless dissipation, will amply be repaid.’
Rev S. Shaw, A Tour to the West of England in 1788, 1789
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the need for improvements in transport was widely recognised. There was a limit to the amount that could be done in improving river navigation, so it was natural that the idea of canal construction should be widely aired. Various schemes were put forward, including an early plan for a waterway to connect the rivers Trent and Mersey, but, for a variety of reasons, none of them ever amounted to anything, and most never developed beyond the stage of being vague suggestions. The promoters of the different schemes were unsure of the practicability of their own plans, worried by the thought of the inevitable conflicts with landowners and rival transport interests, and unable to raise enough enthusiasm or, more importantly, capital to make a really strenuous effort to push their schemes through. Men were cautious about committing themselves to a new and totally untried enterprise. If canal development was ever to get underway, then someone had to take the initiative to start a scheme, and then had to keep on with it to a conclusion. The most likely candidates for the role of innovator were the new industrialists, the men who stood to gain most by such a development and who were comparatively free of the traditional conservatism of the older landed interests. Among the least likely candidates would be a nobleman, such as Francis Egerton, Third Duke of Bridgewater.
Francis Egerton was born on 21 May 1736. He could claim a fair number of illustrious ancestors; his great-great-grandfather, Sir Thomas Egerton, had been Lord Keeper of the Seal at the court of Elizabeth I and became a highly successful Lord Chancellor under James I; his great-grandfather, John Egerton, had been the first Earl of Bridgewater, and had earned his place in the history books partly by his encouragement of the arts, and particularly by his association with the production of John Milton’s Comus. The first Duke of Bridgewater was Francis Egerton’s father, and when he died in 1745, the title passed to the eldest son. But the Egertons were sickly children: four of the brothers died and the title came to Francis when he was only 12 years old. Francis appeared to be no more robust than the rest of the family and there seemed to be every possibility that the line would end there, but he survived the bad health of his childhood.
The young duke received the conventional education of his class, ending up with his being sent, at the age of seventeen, on the Grand Tour of Europe. He was fortunate in having as his travelling companion the scholar and antiquarian, Richard Wood, who saw to it that the young man learned something from his travels. They saw all the sights that the Grand Tour had to offer, and, just like the other tourists, the duke came away from the sites of the ancient world weighed down with antique busts and statuettes, and paintings and sketches of the more romantic of the Roman and Greek ruins. His enthusiasm for antiquities failed to survive beyond the end of the Tour – the European treasures were packed into cases, delivered back to England and left unopened and neglected until the day he died. But it was not just antiquities he went to see. He also visited the Grand Canal of Languedoc, now known as the Canal du Midi. This great waterway, 150 miles long, had been completed in 1681 and was an immense success. The duke was impressed by what he saw of it, and this impression did stay with him beyond the end of the Tour. However, there is no evidence that he made any detailed inquiries about the practicalities and techniques of canal construction.
Back in England, the duke naturally enough turned to the pleasures of the capital. He took his place in Society and then fell in love. The lady was the beautiful young duchess of Hamilton. They were as unlikely a pair as could be imagined – the young duke, very serious, rather straight-laced and puritanical; the duchess, deeply involved in the intrigues of Society and already the subject of a certain amount of gossip. Inevitably, they quarrelled – not, surprisingly, over any of the rumours concerning the lady herself but about her sister, Lady Coventry, who had been involved in what was for those times a not particularly scandalous affair. However, the mild scandal was more than the duke was prepared to tolerate and, rather self-righteously and unreasonably, he demanded that the Duchess of Hamilton should publicly disown her sister. The lady refused and that was that. The duke left London in 1758 and the whole direction of his life turned dramatically. He ‘is said never to have spoken to another woman in the language of gallantry. A Roman Catholic might have built a monastery, tenanted a cell, and died a saint. The duke, at the age of twenty-two, betook himself to his Lancashire estates, made Brindley his confessor, and died a benefactor to commerce, manufacture, and mankind.’1
In Lancashire, the duke busied himself in discussions with his agent, John Gilbert, and the two men occupied their time in planning ways in which the coal trade from the Worsley estates could be improved. This in itself was not particularly incongruous – many aristocrats had become enthused with the idea of finding mineral wealth under their lands. It was not unheard of for the grounds of a country estate to be alive with workmen tearing up the lawns and flowerbeds in the search for coal. It was, however, unusual to find such a young man occupying himself with the problems of trade.
The coal trade from the duke’s mines at Worsley did offer a problem. Recently, the navigation of the nearby River Sankey had been transformed by the construction of a cut parallel to its route, the Sankey Brook, and this improved route to other collieries had resulted in part of the duke’s old market being taken away from him. He badly needed a new outlet for his coal, and for this he needed cheap transport. The most obvious outlet was the rapidly growing town of Manchester. Population estimates for the period are not particularly reliable, but they at least indicate the rate of development. In 1717 the population was estimated at 8,000. In 1757, ‘the number most to be confided in, for Manchester and Salford is 19,839, and by 1773 a survey executed with accuracy ‘gave a total of 42,927’.2
The duke’s first thought was to construct a short cut from Worsley to Barton where he could get access to the River Irwell and thence to Manchester, but the proprietors of the Mersey & Irwell Navigation Company refused to negotiate reasonable terms. Forced by the intransigence of the old Navigation Company, the duke and Gilbert took the vital decision – to construct an independent navigation which would run direct from the colliery to Salford, just outside Manchester.
This was a bold decision for the duke to take. No one in England had attempted a crosscountry canal of this type. Such a canal had been built in Ireland, but it seems that the duke knew nothing of it, so he had no prototypes to copy. True, the duke knew from his continental travels that such a canal could be constructed, but he certainly did not know how to set about it. Ignorance of the techniques was only one of the problems he had to face. Such a scheme would undoubtedly be very expensive, and while he was in no way a poor man, he would be committing himself to, literally, incalculable expenditure. He also knew that he would have to face opposition from a number of well-organised and powerful trading interests, notably the Mersey & Irwell Company. This was precisely the combination of difficulties that had deterred other would-be canal constructors. It says a great deal for the single-minded character of the duke that he was prepared to face these difficulties, not as one of a group nor as part of a company, but on his own, depending entirely on his own resources. And he was still only 22 years old.
The first struggle that the duke faced was to get an Act through Parliament to enable the work to begin.* However, the duke was successful, and obtained his Act in March 1759.
In the summer of that year, the duke was introduced by Gilbert to James Brindley, a millwright, who was gaining a reputation as an ingenious mechanic and engineer. Brindley was employed as the engineer for the canal, and work could begin. Once it was underway, the duke had time for nothing else: it dominated his whole life. The original plan was dropped for a more ambitious one that would take the canal right into Manchester, and this plan, in turn, was enlarged by the idea of extending the canal so as to join with the Mersey at Runcorn. Both proposed changes involved yet more arguments and fights, until the modifications were approved by two further Acts of Parliament in 1760 and 1762.
The greatest problem facing the duke was money. As with many a canal scheme that was to follow his own, he found that costs rose continuously above original estimates. But where later canal builders could appeal to the general public and to subscribers for fresh funds, the duke had only his own resources to draw on. He began to mortgage his estates. He no longer had either interest in or use of his London house, so that was disposed of. He raised what he could on his country estates, but still he was short of money. He borrowed money from his relatives, including the canal enthusiast Lord Gower; he borrowed from Manchester manufacturers who would stand to gain by the construction of the canal; and he borrowed from the Child & Co Bank. In spite of all his efforts, funds remained desperately short. It became increasingly difficult to get credit anywhere. At one time his bill for £500 could not be cashed in the Liverpool area, and his long-suffering agent, Gilbert, spent a good deal of his time riding round the local farms, borrowing what he could where he could. The duke was once actually pursued by the local parson who was trying to collect on a debt, and had to suffer the ignominy of being finally collared in a hay loft.
But it was not just the lack of funds that must have weighed heavily on the young duke; there was the general lack of confidence in the whole scheme which he was constantly having to face. For reassurance, he had only the small group who worked with him on the project. Many years later, Sir John Rennie told of a meeting between his brother and Mr Bradshaw, the Manager of the Bridgewater Canal:
‘Pointing to a little whitewashed house, near the Moss, about half a mile distant, he said to my brother: “Do you see that house? Many a time did the late Duke of Bridgewater, Brindley, and myself spend our evenings there during the construction of the canal, after the day’s labours were over; and one evening in particular we had a very doleful meeting. The Duke had spent all his money, had exhausted his credit, and did not know where to get more, and the canal was not finished. We were all three in a very melancholy mood, smoking our pipes and drinking ale, for we had not the means to do more, and were very silent. At last the Duke said: ‘Well, Mr Brindley, what is to be done now?’ Brindley’said: ‘Well, Duke, I don’t know; but of this I feel as confident as ever: if we could only finish the canal, it would pay very well, and soon bring back all your Grace’s money”’
Sir John Kennie FRS, Autobiography, 1875
Brindley’s confidence was well placed. Somehow the money was scraped together, the canal was completed, and the completion was a triumphant vindication of the young man’s dream. In the famous portrait done of him at the time we see him posed against a background of the canal, pointing with justifiable pride to its busy traffic. The time and effort he had put into the work finally began to show their reward; the canal was a financial success and the duke’s worries began to recede. By 1769 he had repaid the whole of the £25,000 that he had borrowed from Child’s Bank. He was still young and handsome, and now he was wealthy again. Had he wanted to do so, he could have returned to the fashionable world, but by now his work with canals had become an obsession. The rest of his life was to be spent mainly in the north west, working on improvements to his canal, lending his support to other canal promoters, and concerning himself with his colliery and his lands.
The Bridgewater Canal itself was a broad, level waterway continuing without locks from Worsley into Manchester. At Worsley, it disappeared underground into the mine workings, the drainage from which provided the main source of water for the canal. Over the years, the underground workings became more and more extensive, an elaborate network of subterranean waterways that stretched even farther than the canal itself. At the coal face, the coal could be loaded almost directly into the boats:
‘The coals are brought to this passage or canal in little low wagons, that hold nearly a ton each; and as the work is on the descent, are easily pushed or pulled along, by a man on a railed way, to a stage over the canal, and then shot into one of the boats, each of which holds seven or eight tons. They then, by means of the rails, are drawn out by one man to the basin at the mouth … then five or six of them are linked together, and drawn along the canal by a single horse, or two mules on the banks or towing-paths.’
Phillips, op. cit.
The Bridgewater Canal from Worsley to Manchester.
The entrance to the mines at Worsley, with the canal emerging from the underground workings. (British Museum)
The extension to Runcorn was taken down to the level of the Mersey by an impressive flight of locks that excited almost as much admiration as the famous aqueduct at Barton had done. The potter Josiah Wedgwood came to see them and recorded his impressions in a letter of 21 June 1773:
‘We set our faces for Runcorn Gap … to behold the wonderful works of his Grace of Bridgewater, & truly wonderfull they are indeed. You know I have seen a good deal of these matters before, but notwithstanding that, I was quite astonished at the vastness of the plan, & the greatness of stile in the execution. The Walls of the Locks are truly admirable, both for strength, & beauty of workmanship. The front Lock next to the Sea (for such it seems when the Tide is in) in particular, whose walls are compos’d of vast stones from 1 to 12 Tons weight, & yet by the excellent Machinery made use of, some of which is still left standing, they had as perfect command of these huge Masses of Rock, as a common bricklayer has of the brick in his hand … the whole seems to be the work of Titans, rather than a production of our Pigmy race of beings.’
Josiah Wedgwood, Letters 1772–1780, 1903
The duke, Gilbert and the engineer, Brindley, worked on many other improvements. At the Manchester end of the canal, the terminus was built at the foot of Castle Hill, which meant that the poor who came to buy their coals were faced by a long and tiring trudge back up the hill with their loads. To overcome this, the canal was extended into the hill and a vertical shaft was sunk down into it from the hilltop. Above the shaft there was a hoist, powered by a waterwheel. The coal, which had been loaded into the iron boxes at the coal face, could now be lifted in the same boxes up to the top of Castle Hill.
As well as concerning himself with his canal, the duke also earned a reputation as a good manager of his estate, receiving the accolade of ‘good husbandman’ from no lesser authority than the famous agriculturist Arthur Young. But always it was for his canals and his canal schemes that he reserved his real enthusiasm, to such an extent that he came to be regarded as something of an eccentric by his contemporaries:
‘In person he was large and unwieldly, and seemed careless of his dress, which was uniformly a suit of brown, something of the cut of Dr Johnson’s. Mr – of – passed some days with us, and during his stay the duke was every evening planted with him on a distant sofa in earnest conversation about canals, to the amusements of some of the party.’
Earl of Ellesmere, op. cit.
The duke undoubtedly had little interest in the currently fashionable preoccupations or in the exchange of tit-bits of aristocratic scandal. But, however enthusiastic he might be, he never allowed his enthusiasm to deter him from considering new ways of raising money from his canal. Like many an aristocratic property owner of a later age, he had a keen eye for a profit. The canal was as popular as a tourist attraction as it was as a commercial enterprise, and he soon found a way of making money out of its attractions:
‘The Duke of Bridgewater has just built two packet-boats, which are every day towed from Manchester to Warrington; one carries six score passengers, the other eighty: Each boat has a coffee-room at the head, from whence wines, &c. are sold out by the Captain’s wife. Next to this is the first cabin, which is 2s 6d the second cabin is 1s 6d and the third cabin 1s for the passage or voyage upon the canal.’
Letter from Warrington, 1 September, Annual Register, 1774
A happy combination of useful passenger traffic and pleasure trip!
Packet boats were first introduced by the Duke of Bridgewater, but this unlikely looking vessel worked on the Grand Junction between Paddington and Uxbridge. (Bodleian Library, J.J. Collection)
As the canal prospered and the duke grew older, he was able to relax, but still spent most of his time wandering his estates, rarely travelling far from the house he had built overlooking his canal. His manner was rough, but he seems to have left behind a reputation as a good and honest employer, and he showed more compassion than many of his contemporaries: ‘During the winter of 1774 the Duke of Bridgewater ordered coals to be sold to the poor of Liverpool in pennyworths, at the same rate as by cart loads. Twenty-four pounds of coal was sold for a penny.’3 He also found his way into popular ballads as a supporter of the hand-loom weavers against the factory owners’ attempts to introduce power looms:
For coal to work his factory
He sent unto the Duke, sir;
He thought that all the town
Should be stifled with the smoke, sir;
But the Duke sent him an answer,
Which came so speedily,
That the poor should have the coal,
If the Devil took th’ machinery.’4
The duke was not, however, a man blessed with the sweetest of tempers. On one occasion, he returned from one of his comparatively rare trips to London to find that the gardeners, in an attempt to bring a little more elegance to the grounds of his Cheshire home, had planted new flower beds outside the windows. He was not pleased. When he looked out of his windows what he wanted to see were canal, docks and wharves – not flowers. He stomped out of the house, cane in hand, and set about the systematic demolition of the offending plants.
The Duke of Bridgewater died in 1803, having lived long enough to see the canal system that he had begun spread to all parts of the kingdom. He did not, however, live long enough to see another of his prophecies fulfilled. Lord Kenyon had congratulated him on the success of the canal – ‘Yes,’ replied the duke, ‘we shall do well enough if we can keep clear of those damned tramroads.’
* The form which this and subsequent Parliamentary battles took will be dealt with later.