Chapter 1
1. Animal Register, 1761, p.101.
2. Annual Register, 1761, p.83.
3. Gentleman’s Magazine, 1761, p.378.
4. Arthur Young, A Six Months Tour Through the North of England, 2nd edn 1770.
5. Felix Fareley’s Bristol Journal, 16 August 1783.
Chapter 2
1. Earl of Ellesmere, Essays, 1858.
2. J. Aiken, ‘A Description of the Country from thirty to forty miles around Manchester,’ 1795.
3. Thomas Baines, History of the Commerce and Town of Liverpool, 1852.
4. Part of a ballad, ‘Grimshaw’s Factory Fire’, written by a hand-loom weaver called Lucas, and quoted in John Harland, Ballads and Songs of Lancashire, 1856.
Chapter 3
1. The letters quoted here are taken from those published in two volumes in 1903 and 1906. The whole story of Wedgwood’s life can be read in Anthony Burton, Josiah Wedgwood, 1976.
2. Letter dated 6 July 1767.
3. Letter dated 2 January 1765.
Chapter 4
1. Supplement to ‘Seasonable Considerations …’.
2. Leicester Herald, 12 January 1793.
3. Phillips, op. cit. This is taken from Bentley’s pamphlet for the Trent & Mersey. In an earlier version he had replaced the phrase ‘terminated by water’ to ‘terminated by a canal’, which had brought out the critic in Wedgwood. ‘Why change a more elegant & equally simple word for a worse? Why a Canal is as straight as Fleet Ditch – A Canal at the bottom of your meadow! For it can’t be born by the Goddess of modern taste, but “Water” ay Water give me Water to terminate or divide my Lawn.’
4. Morning Chronicle, 11 January 1793.
5. Shrewsbury Chronicle, 8 February 1811.
Chapter 5
1. Samuel Smiles, Lives of the Engineers, Vol. 1, 1874.
2. The Times, 2 March 1793.
3. The Times, 16 February 1793. Mr Hastings was Warren Hastings, whose trial had been keeping Parliament busy for months.
4. Journal of the House of Commons, 31 January 1783.
5. The Times, 1 May 1793.
6. Lancaster Canal Letter Book, 30 December 1792.
7. Ibid, 3 February 1793.
8. Ibid, 15 January 1794.
9. Ibid, 24 February 1794.
10. Leeds & Liverpool Canal: Leeds Committee Minute Book, 1 June 1792.
11. James Waylen, Chronicles of the Devizes, 1839.
12. Journal of the House of Commons, 23 January 1783.
13. Meteyard, op. cit.
Chapter 6
1. Leeds Intelligencer, 9 July 1792.
2. Ibid, 7 June 1791.
3. Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 3 November 1792.
4. Taunton Courier, 31 January 1811.
5. The Times, 8 July 1813.
6. Felix Farley’s Bristol Journal, 21 June 1783.
7. John Rickman (ed), Life of Thomas Telford, 1838.
8. Huddersfield Canal Company Minute Book, 7 April 1797.
9. Ibid, 16 February 1798.
10. Ibid, 23 August 1799.
11. Lancaster Canal Letter Book, 14 May 1797.
12. Letter from John Rennie to Samuel Gregson of the Lancaster Canal Company, October 1796.
13. Observations on a Scheme for Extending the Navigation of the Rivers Kennet and Avon, 1788.
14. T.S. Ashton, An Economic History of England: The Eighteenth Century, 1955.
Chapter 8
1. Quoted in Lead, op. cit.
2. Phillips, op. cit.
3. Coventry Canal Minute Book, 19 February, 1768.
4. Oxford Canal Committee Book, 6 September 1769.
5. Ibid, 12 September 1770.
6. 28 September 1772.
Chapter 9
1. William Chapman, Address to the Subscribers of the Canal from Carlisle to Fisher’s Cross, 1823.
2. Thomas Pennant, The Journey from Chester to London, 1782.
3. Oxford Canal Committee Book, 7 February, 1775.
4. Lancaster Canal Company Letter Book, Letter from Gregson, 26 July 1800.
5. Ibid, Letter from Gregson, March 1794.
6. Ibid, Letter from Gregson, 21 March 1801.
7. This is probably the same Robert Mylne who had been sacked from his job as Chief Engineer on the Gloucester and Berkeley, which would go a long way in explaining the ferociousness of the letter.
8. Charles Hadfield and A.W. Skempton, William Jessop, Engineer, 1979.
9. Letter dated 19 July 1836.
Chapter 10
1. Samuel Smiles, op. cit., Vol.3.
2. Thomas Telford, op. cit.
3. The account of the opening ceremony from which the quotations are taken is that in the Annual Register, 1805.
4. 2nd Report of the Committee for Making and Maintaining the Caledonian Canal, May 1805.
5. Robert Southey, Journal of a Tour in Scotland in 1819, 1929.
6. Twentieth Report of the Caledonian Committee, May 1823.
7. Southey, op. cit.
1. Kennet & Avon Canal, Western Sub-Committee Minute Book. Letter from Rennie dated 22 June 1794.
2. Mr Millar’s Reports to the Lancaster Canal Committee, 12 November 1793.
3. Reports of Robert Whitworth to Leeds and Liverpool Canal Committee, 1 June 1792.
4. See Chapter 14.
5. Mr Millar’s Reports to the Lancaster Canal Committee, 29 October 1793
6. Ibid, 26 August 1794.
7. Huddersfield Canal Company Minute Book, 31 March 1796.
8. Tenth Report of the Caledonian Canal Committee, 20 May 1813.
9. Contract with William Montague, dated October 1794.
10. Lancaster Canal Letter Book. Letter dated 26 March 1794.
11. Ibid, 24 January 1794
12. Brecknock and Abergavenny Canal Navigation Committee Minute Book, 8 December 1794.
Chapter 12
2. Huddersfield Canal Company Minute Book, 5 March, 1795
4. See above, Chapter 11.
5. Lancaster Canal Letter Book. Letter dated 22 February 1795.
6. Lancaster Canal Letter Book. Letter dated 8 September 1794.
7. Coventry Canal Minute Book, 9 May 1769.
8. Montgomeryshire Canal Commissioners, 1 March 1799 and 22 September 1814.
9. Oxford Canal Committee Book, 10 August 1770.
10. Warwick and Birmingham Canal Minute Book, 9 November 1796.
11. Lancaster Canal Committee Minute Book, 3 July 1792.
Chapter 13
1. Coventry Canal Minute Book, 6 June 1769.
2. Ibid, March 1768.
3. W. Tatham, The Political Economy of Inland Navigation, 1799
4. First Report of the Committee for Making and Maintaining the Caledonian Canal, 1804.
5. Ibid.
6. Engineers’ Reports to the Management Committee, Kennet and Avon Canal Company, 16 July 1804.
7. See the chronology, p.184–185.
8. Morning Chronicle, 11 April 1793.
9. The Times, 11 April 1793.
10. Thomas Baines, History of the Commerce and Town of Liverpool, 1852.
11. Evidence of Hugh Dixon, Westmeath landowner, Third Report from the Select Committee on Emigration from the United Kingdom, 1827.
12. First Report of the Caledonian Committee, 1804.
13. The ‘Sampford Ghost’ was an invention of Mr Chave’s. He had taken a shop in the district and had used the ghost to get rid of an unwanted tenant. The phantom’s habits included rattling chains and beating out the rhythms of ‘Go to Bed Tom’ in the room above the tenant’s head. The interest aroused had brought new customers to come and see the haunted shop – until the hoax had been exposed.
14. Canal Boatman’s Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1829.
15. Mr Eastburn’s Reports, 30 May 1796.
16. Leeds & Liverpool Canal Committee Minute Book, 3 January 1771.
17. Quotes from the Carlisle Journal, 18 July 1820, and the Carlisle Patriot, 1 April 1821 in David Ramshaw, The Carlisle Navigation Canal, 1997.
18. Second report of the Caledonian Committee, 17 May 1805.
Chapter 14
1. Coventry Canal Journal, 24 September and 26 November 1768.
2. Coventry Canal Minute Book, 29 August 1769.
3. Coventry Canal Journal, 28 May 1768 and 29 April 1769.
4. Coventry Canal Minute Book, 14 November 1769.
5. Oxford Canal Committee Minute Book, 2 January 1770.
6. Lancaster Canal Committee Minute Book, 23 October 1792.
7. Ibid, 31 December 1792.
8. Lancaster Canal Letter Book. Letter from Samuel Gregson, 27 January 1793.
9. Ibid, 2 February 1793.
10. Warwick and Birmingham Canal Letter Book, 30 August 1799.
11. Lancaster Canal Letter Book. Letter from Gregson, 25 July 1798.
12. William Cartwright to the Lancaster Committee, 22 April 1794
13. Contract between William Montague and the Gloucester & Berkeley Canal Company, 7 October 1794.
14. Leeds Committee Minute Book, Leeds & Liverpool Canal Company, July 1791.
15. Lancaster Canal Letter Book, 4 April 1795.
Chapter 15
1. Lancaster Canal Letter Book, 1 November 1795.
2. Ibid, 18 November 1795.
3. Ibid, 8 October 1796.
4. Reports to the Kennet & Avon Management Committee, letter from John Rennie, 25 September 1804.
5. Described in the last chapter.
6. Ibid, 24 June 1794.
8. The Times, 9 November 1811 and 11 December 1810.
9. Coventry Canal Journal, 27 May 1770.
10. Engineers’ Reports to the Kennet & Avon Management Committee, 20 December 1802.
11. Ibid, 27 January 1803.
12. The Times, 15 February 1805.
13. Lancaster Canal Letter Book, 22 April 1802.
14. Second Report of the Committee for Making and Maintaining the Caledonian Canal, 17 May 1805.
15. Journal of the House of Commons, 27 March 1783.
16. J. Grant, Journal of a Three Week Tour in 1797 Through Derbyshire to the Lakes.
Chapter 16
1. Lancaster Canal Committee Minute Book, 15 January 1793: order for an advertisement to be printed and distributed.
2. Rev S. Shaw, op. cit.
3. Robert Southey, op. cit.