122 Innovations in Transportation
25.5: Innovations in Transportation
25.5.1: Canals
The modern canal network in Britain emerged because the Industrial Revolution demanded an economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities, simultaneously responding to the needs of the Industrial Revolution and fueling its further advancement.
Learning Objective
Demonstrate the importance of canals to commerce.
Key Points
- The British canal system played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution at a time when roads were only just emerging from the medieval mud and long trains of packhorses were the only means of more easily accessible transport. In Britain, the modern canal network came into being because the Industrial Revolution demanded an economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities. Some important river navigation improvements took place in the 16th and 17th centuries.
- Big canals began to be built in the 18th century to link the major manufacturing centers across the country. Known for its huge commercial success, the Bridgewater Canal in North West England opened in 1761. It connected Worsley with the rapidly growing town of Manchester and was a huge financial success. This success helped inspire a period of intense canal building, known as Canal Mania. An embryonic national canal network came into being and a dramatic rise in the number of schemes and money invested emerged. New canals were hastily built in the aim of replicating the commercial success of the Bridgewater Canal.
- By the 1820s a national network – first in the world – was in existence. The new canals proved highly successful. The boats on the canals were horse-drawn with a towpath alongside the canal for the horse to walk along. This horse-drawn system was highly economical and became standard across the British canal network.
- This success proved the viability of canal transport and soon industrialists in many other parts of the country wanted canals. As people saw the high incomes achieved from canal tolls, canal proposals came to be put forward by investors. In a further development, there was often out-and-out speculation, in which people would try to buy shares in a newly floated company simply to sell them on for an immediate profit, regardless of whether the canal was ever profitable or even built. Many rival canal companies were formed and competition was rampant.
- On the majority of British canals the canal-owning companies did not own or run a fleet of boats. Instead, they charged private operators tolls to use the canal. In the period of the most rapid development of the canal system, crews were all male and their families lived in cottages on the bank. Wives and children came aboard as extra labor and to save rental costs during the latter part of the 19th century. During this period, whole families lived aboard the boats. They were often marginalized from land-based society and perceived as strange outsi