CHAPTER VI.

JAMES BRINDLEY THE BEGINNINGS OF CANAL NAVIGATION.

In the preceding memoirs of Vermuyden and Perry, we have found a vigorous contest carried on against the powers of water, the chief object of the engineers being to dam it back by embankments, or to drain it off by cuts and sluices; whilst in the case of Myddelton, on the other hand, we find his chief concern to have been to collect all the water within his reach, and lead it by conduit and aqueduct for the supply of the thirsting metropolis. The engineer whose history we are now about to relate dealt with water in like manner to Myddelton, but on a much larger scale; directing it into extensive artificial canals, for use as the means of communication between various towns and districts.

Down to the middle of last century, the trade and commerce of England were comparatively insignificant. This is sufficiently clear from the wretched state of our road and river communication about that time; for it is well understood that without the ready means of transporting commodities from place to place, either by land or water, commerce is impossible. But the roads of England were then about the worst in Europe, and usually impassable for vehicles during the greater part of the year.* Corn, wool, and such like articles, were sent to market on horses' or bullocks' backs; and manure was carried to the field, and fuel conveyed from the forest or the bog, in the same way. The only coal used in the inland southern counties was carried on horseback in sacks for the supply of the blacksmiths' forges. The food of London was principally

*For a full account of Old Roads refer the reader to 'Lives of the and Travelling in England, we must | Engineers,' vol. i. pp. 154-275.

CHAP. VI.

COST OF TRANSPORT.

119

brought from the surrounding country in panniers. The little merchandise transported from place to place was mostly of a light description,-the cloths of the West of England, the buttons of Birmingham and Macclesfield, the baizes of Norwich, the cutlery of Sheffield, and the tapes, coatings, and fustians of Manchester.

Articles imported from abroad were in like manner conveyed inland by pack-horse or waggon; and it was then cheaper to bring most kinds of foreign wares from remote parts to London by sea than to convey them from the inland parts of England to London by road. Thus, two centuries since, the freight of merchandise from Lisbon to London was no greater than the land carriage of the same articles from Norwich to London; and from Amsterdam or Rotterdam the expense of conveyance was very much less. It cost from 71. to 97. to convey a ton of goods from Birmingham to London, and 137. from Leeds to London. It will readily be understood that rates such as these were altogether prohibitory as regarded many of the articles now entering largely into the consumption of the great body of the people. Things now considered necessaries of life, in daily common use, were then regarded as luxuries, obtainable only by the rich. The manufacture of pottery was as yet of the rudest kind. Vessels of wood, of pewter, and even of leather, formed the principal part of the household and table utensils of genteel and opulent families; and we long continued to import our cloths, our linen, our glass, our "Delph" ware, our cutlery, our paper, and even our hats, from France, Spain, Germany, Flanders, and Holland. Indeed, so long as corn, fuel, wool, iron, and manufactured articles had to be transported on horseback, or in rude waggons dragged over still ruder roads by horses or oxen, it is clear that trade and commerce could make but little progress. The cost of transport of the raw materials required for food, manufactures, and domestic consumption, must necessarily have formed so large an item as to have in a great measure pre

cluded their use; and before they could be made to enter largely into the general consumption, it was absolutely necessary that greater facilities should be provided for their transport.

England was not, however, like many other countries less favourably circumstanced, necessarily dependent solely upon roads for the means of transport, but possessed natural water communications, and the means of improving and extending them to an almost indefinite extent. She was provided with convenient natural havens situated on the margin of the world's great highway, the ocean, and had the advantage of fine tidal rivers, up which fleets of ships might be lifted at every tide into almost the heart of the land. Very little had as yet been done to take advantage of this great natural water power, and to extend navigation inland either by improving the rivers which might be made navigable, or by means of artificial canals, as had been done in Holland, France, and even Russia, by which those countries had in some parts been rendered in a great measure independent of roads.

It is true, public attention had from time to time been directed to the improvement of rivers and the cutting of canals, but excepting a few isolated attempts, little had been done towards carrying the numerous suggested plans in different parts of the country into effect. If we except some of the wider drains in the Fens, which were in certain cases made available for purposes of navigation, though to a very limited extent, the first canal was that constructed by John Trew, at Exeter, in 1566. In early times the tide carried vessels up to that city, but the Countess of Devon took the opportunity of revenging herself upon the citizens for some affront they had offered to her, by erecting a weir across the Exe at Topsham in 1284, which had the effect of closing the river to sea-going vessels. This continued until the reign of Henry VIII., when authority was granted by Parliament to cut a canal about three miles in length along the west side of the

CHAP. VI. CANAL FROM EXETER TO TOPSHAM.

121

river, from Exeter to Topsham. The work was executed by Trew, and it is a curious circumstance that it contained the first lock constructed in England,-though locks are said to have been used in the Brenta in 1488, and were shortly after adopted in the Milan canals. John Trew was a native of Glamorganshire; and though he must have been a man of skill and enterprise, like many other projectors of improvements and benefactors of mankind, he seems to have realised only loss and mortification by his work. In consequence of an alleged failure on his part in carrying out the agreement for executing the canal, the Mayor and Chamber of the city disputed his claims, and he became involved in ruinous litigation. In a letter written by him to Lord Burleigh, in which he relates his suit against the Chamber of Exeter, Trew draws a sad picture of the state to which he was reduced. "The varyablenes of men," says he, "and the great injury done unto me, brought me in such case that I wyshed my credetours sattisfyd and I away from earth what becom may of my poor wyf and children, who lye in great mysery, for that I have spent all."* He then proceeded to recount "the things whearin God hath given (him) exsperyance;" relating chiefly to mining operations, and various branches of civil and even military engineering. It is satisfactory to add that in 1573 the harassing suit was brought to a conclusion, and Trew granted the Corporation a release on their agreeing to pay him a sum of 2247., and thirty pounds a year for life.†

In the reign of James I. several Acts of Parliament were passed, giving powers to improve rivers, so as to facilitate the passage of boats and barges carrying mer

*Lansdowne MS. cvii. art. 73. The Lansdowne MS. xxxi., art. 74, sets forth certain "Reasons against the proceedings of John Trew in the works of Dover Haven, 1581." It appears from Lysons's History of Dover, that Trew was

engaged as harbour-engineer at ten shillings a-day wages; but the corporation, thinking that he was inclined to protract the work on which he was engaged, summarily dismissed him. This is the last that we hear of John Trew.

chandise. Thus, in 1623, Sir Hugh Myddelton was engaged upon a Committee on a bill then under consideration "for the making of the river of Thames navigable to Oxford." In the same year Taylor, the water poet, pointed out to the inhabitants of Salisbury that their city might be effectually relieved of its poor by having their river made navigable from thence to Christchurch. The progress of improvement, however, must have been slow; as urgent appeals, on the same subject, continued to be addressed to Parliament and the public for a century later.

In 1656 we find one Francis Mathew addressing Cromwell and his Parliament on the immense advantage of opening up a water-communication between London and Bristol. But he only proposed to make the rivers Isis and Avon navigable to their sources, and then either to connect their heads by means of a short sasse or canal of about three miles across the intervening ridge of country, or to form a fair stone causeway between the heads of the two rivers, across which horses or carts might carry produce between the one and the other. His object, it will be observed, was mainly the opening up of the existing rivers; "and not," he says, “to have the old channel of any river to be forsaken for a shorter passage." Mathew fully recognised the formidable character of his project, and considered it quite beyond the range of private enterprise, whether of individuals or of any corporation, to undertake it; but he ventured to think that it might not be too much for the power of the State to construct the three miles of canal and carry out the other improvements suggested by him, with a reasonable prospect of success. The scheme was, however, too bold for Mathew's time, and a century elapsed before another canal was made in England.

A few years later, in 1677, a curious work was published by Andrew Yarranton,* in which he pointed out

'England's Improvement by Sea and Land.' London, 1677.