LIFE OF JAMES BRINDLEY
Samuel Smiles, 1874

- All OCR and input by Richard Fairhurst, Waterway Archive
- www.waterwayarchive.co.uk           richard@systemeD.net
- Version 1, 22nd March 2000



CHAPTER I.

BRINDLEY'S EARLY YEARS.

In the third year of the reign of George I., whilst the British
Government were occupied in extinguishing the embers of the Jacobite
rebellion which had occurred in the preceding year, the first English
canal engineer was born in a remote hamlet in the High Peak of Derby.

The nearest town of any importance was Macclesfield, where a
considerable number of persons were employed about the middle of last
century in making wrought buttons in silk, mohair, and twist. The
articles were sold throughout the country by pedestrian hawkers, most of
whom had squatted on the waste lands called "The Flash," from a hamlet
of that name situated between Buxton, Leek, and Macclesfield. They were
notorious for their half-barbarous manners, and brutal pastimes. Such
was the district, and such the population, in the neighbourhood of which
our hero was born.

James Brindley first saw the light in a humble cottage standing about
midway between the hamlet of Great Rocks, and that of Tunstead, in the
liberty of Thornsett, some three miles to the north-east of Buxton. The
house in which he was born, in the year 1716, has long since fallen to
ruins--the Brindley family having been its last occupants. The walls
stood for some time after the roof had fallen in, and at length the
materials were removed to build cowhouses; but in the middle of the ruin
there grew up a young ash tree, forcing up one of the flags of the
cottage floor. It looked so healthy and thriving a plant, that the
labourer employed to remove the stones for the purpose of forming the
pathway to the neighbouring farm-house, spared the seedling, and it grew
up into the large and flourishing tree, six feet nine inches in girth,
standing in the middle of the Croft, and now known as "Brindley's Tree."
This ash tree is Nature's own memorial of the birth-place of the
engineer, and it is the only one as yet erected in commemoration of his
genius.

Although the enclosure is called Brindley's Croft, this name was only
given to it of late years by its tenant, in memory of the engineer who
was born there. The statement made in Mr. Henshall's memoir of
Brindley,[2] to the effect that Brindley's father was the freehold owner
of his croft, does not appear to have any foundation; as the present
owner of the property, Dr. Fleming, informs us that it was purchased,
about the beginning of the present century, from the heirs of the last
of the Heywards, who became its owners in 1688. No such name as Brindley
occurs in any of the title-deeds belonging to the property; and it is
probable that the engineer's father was an under-tenant, and merely
rented the old cottage in which our hero was born. There is no record of
his birth, nor does the name of Brindley appear in the register of the
parish of Wormhill, in which the cottage was situated; but registers in
those days were very imperfectly kept, and part of that of Wormhill has
been lost.

It is probable that Brindley's father maintained his family by the
cultivation of his little croft, and that he was not much, if at all,
above the rank of a cottier. It is indeed recorded of him that he was by
no means a steady man, and was fonder of sport than of work. He went
shooting and hunting, when he should have been labouring; and if there
was a bull-running within twenty miles, he was sure to be there. The
Bull Ring of the district lay less than three miles off, at the north
end of Long Ridge Lane, which passed almost by his door; and of that
place of popular resort Brindley's father was a regular frequenter.
These associations led him into bad company, and very soon reduced him
to poverty. He neglected his children, not only setting before them a
bad example, but permitting them to grow up without education.
Fortunately, Brindley's mother in a great measure supplied the fathers
shortcomings; she did what she could to teach them what she knew, though
that was not much; but, perhaps more important still, she encouraged
them in the formation of good habits by her own steady industry.[3]

The different members of the family, of whom James was the eldest, were
thus under the necessity of going out to work at a very early age to
provide for the family wants. James worked at any ordinary labourer's
employment which offered until he was about seventeen years old. His
mechanical bias had, however, early displayed itself, and he was
especially clever with his knife, making models of mills, which he set
to work in little mill-streams of his contrivance. It is said that one
of the things in which he took most delight when a boy, was to visit a
neighbouring grist-mill and examine the water-wheels, cog-wheels,
drum-wheels, and other attached machinery, until he could carry away the
details in his head; afterwards imitating the arrangements by means of
his knife and such little bits of wood as he could obtain for the
purpose. We can thus readily understand how he should have turned his
thoughts in the direction in which we afterwards find him employed, and
that, encouraged by his mother, he should have determined to bind
himself, on the first opportunity that offered, to the business of a
millwright.

The demands of trade were so small at the time, that Brindley had no
great choice of masters; but at the village of Sutton, near
Macclesfield, there lived one Abraham Bennett, a wheelwright and
millwright, to whom young Brindley offered himself as apprentice; and in
the year 1733, after a few weeks' trial, he became bound to that master
for the term of seven years. Although the employment of millwrights was
then of a very limited character, they obtained a great deal of valuable
practical information whilst carrying on their business. The millwrights
were as yet the only engineers. In the course of their trade they worked
at the foot-lathe, the carpenter's bench, and the anvil, by turns; thus
cultivating the faculties of observation and comparison, acquiring
practical knowledge of the strength and qualities of materials, and
dexterity in the handling of tools of many different kinds. In country
places, where division of labour could not be carried so far as in the
larger towns, the millwright was compelled to draw largely upon his own
resources, and to devise expedients to meet pressing emergencies as they
arose. Necessity thus made them dexterous, expert, and skilful in
mechanical arrangements, more particularly those connected with
mill-work, steam-engines, pumps, cranes, and such like. Hence
millwrights in those early days were looked upon as a very important
class of workmen. The nature of their business tended to render them
self-reliant, and they prided themselves on the importance of their
calling. On occasions of difficulty the millwright was invariably
resorted to for help; and as the demand for mechanical skill arose, in
course of the progress of manufacturing and agricultural industry, the
men trained in millwrights' shops, such as Brindley, Meikle, Rennie, and
Fairbairn, were borne up by the force of their practical skill and
constructive genius into the highest rank of skilled and scientific
engineering.

Brindley, however, only acquired his skill by slow degrees. Indeed, his
master thought him slower than most lads, and even stupid. Bennett, like
many well-paid master mechanics at that time, was of intemperate habits,
and gave very little attention to his apprentice, leaving him to the
tender mercies of his journeymen, who were for the most part a rough and
drunken set. Much of the lad's time was occupied in running for beer,
and when he sought for information he was often met with a rebuff.
Skilled workmen were then very jealous of new hands, and those who were
in any lucrative employment usually put their shoulders together to
exclude outsiders. Brindley had thus to find out nearly everything for
himself; and he only worked his way to dexterity through a succession of
blunders.

He was frequently left in sole charge of the wheelwrights' shop--the men
being absent at jobs in the country, and the master at the public-house,
from which he could not easily be drawn. Hence, when customers called at
the shop to get any urgent repairs done, the apprentice was under the
necessity of doing them in the best way he could, and that often very
badly. When the men came home and found tools blunted and timber
spoiled, they abused Brindley and complained to the master of his
bungling apprentice's handiwork, declaring him to be a mere "spoiler of
wood." On one occasion, when Bennett and the journeymen were absent, he
had to fit in the spokes of a cartwheel, and was so intent on completing
his job that he did not find out that he had fitted them all in the
wrong way until he had applied the gauge-stick. Not long after this
occurrence, Brindley was left by himself in the shop for an entire week,
working at a piece of common enough wheelwright's work, without any
directions; and he made such a "mess" of it, that on the master's
return he was so enraged, that he threatened, there and then, to cancel
the indentures and send the young man back to farm-labourer's work,
which Bennett declared was the only thing for which he was fit.

Brindley had now been two years at the business, and in his master's
opinion had learnt next to nothing; though it shortly turned out that,
notwithstanding the apprentice's many blunders, he had really groped his
way to much valuable practical information on matters relating to his
trade. Bennett's shop would have been a bad school for an ordinary
youth, but it proved a profitable one for Brindley, who was anxious to
learn, and determined to make a way for himself if he could not find
one. He must have had a brave spirit to withstand the many difficulties
he had to contend against, to learn dexterity through blunders, and
success through defeats. But this is necessarily the case with all
self-taught workmen; and Brindley was mainly self-taught, as we have
seen, even in the details of the business to which he had bound himself
apprentice.

In the autumn of 1735 a small silk-mill at Macclesfield, the property of
Mr. Michael Daintry, sustained considerable injury from a fire at one of
the gudgeons inside the mill, and Bennett was called upon to execute the
necessary repairs. Whilst the men were employed at the shop in executing
the new work, Brindley was sent to the mill to remove the damaged
machinery, under the directions of Mr. James Mimer, the superintendent
of the factory. Mimer had thus frequent occasion to enter into
conversation with the young man, and was struck with the pertinence of
his remarks as to the causes of the recent fire and the best means of
avoiding similar accidents in future. He even applied to Bennett, his
master, to permit the apprentice to assist in executing the repairs of
certain parts of the work, which was reluctantly assented to. Bennett
closely watched his "bungling apprentice," as he called him; but
Brindley, encouraged by the superintendent of the mill, succeeded in
satisfactorily executing his allotted portion of the repairs, not less
to the surprise of his master than to the mortification of his men. Many
years after, Brindley, in describing this first successful piece of
mill-work which he had executed, observed, "I can yet remember the
delight which I felt when my work was fixed and fitted complete; though
I could not understand why my master and the other workmen, instead of
being pleased, seemed to be dissatisfied with the insertion of every
fresh part in its proper place."

The completion of the job was followed by the usual supper and drink at
the only tavern in the town, then on Parsonage Green. Brindley's share
in the work was a good deal ridiculed by the men when the drink began to
operate; on which Mr. Mimer, to whose intercession his participation in
the work had been entirely attributable, interposed and said, "I will
wager a gallon of the best ale in the house, that before the lad's
apprenticeship is out he will be a cleverer workman than any here,
whether master or man." We have not been informed whether the wager was
accepted; but it was long remembered, and Brindley was so often taunted
with it by the workmen, that he was not himself allowed to forget that
it had been offered. Indeed, from that time forward, he zealously
endeavoured so to apply himself as to justify the prediction, for it was
nothing less, of his kind friend Mr. Miner; and before the end of his
third year's apprenticeship his master was himself constrained to admit
that Brindley was not the "fool" and the "blundering blockhead" which he
and his men had so often called him.

Very much to the chagrin of the latter, and to the surprise of Bennett
himself, the neighbouring millers, when sending for a workman to execute
repairs in their machinery, would specially request that "the young man
Brindley" should be sent them in preference to any other of the workmen.
Some of them would even have the apprentice in preference to the master
himself. At this Bennett was greatly surprised, and, quite unable to
understand the mystery, he even went so far as to inquire of Brindley
where he had obtained his knowledge of mill-work! Brindley could not
tell; it "came natural-like;" but the whole secret consisted in Brindley
working with his head as well as with his hands. The apprentice had
already been found peculiarly expert in executing mill repairs, in the
course of which he would frequently suggest alterations and
improvements, more especially in the application of the water-power,
which no one had before thought of; but which proved to be founded on
correct principles, and worked to the millers' entire satisfaction.
Bennett, on afterwards inspecting the gearing of one of the mills
repaired by Brindley, found it so securely and substantially fitted,
that he even complained to him of his style of work. "Jem," said he, "if
thou goes on i' this foolish way o' workin', there will be very little
trade left to be done when thou comes cot o' thy time: thou knaws
firmness o wark's th' ruin o' trade." Brindley, however, gave no heed
whatever to the unprincipled suggestion, and considered it the duty and
the pride of the mechanic always to execute the best possible work.

Among the other jobs which Brindley's master was employed to execute
about this time, was the machinery of a new paper-mill proposed to be
erected on the river Dane. The arrangements were to be the same as those
adopted in the Smedley paper-mill on the Irk, and at Throstle-Nest, on
the Irwell, near Manchester; and Bennett went over to inspect the
machinery at those places. But Brindley was afterwards of opinion that
he must have inspected the taverns in Manchester much more closely than
the papermills in the neighbourhood; for when he returned, the practical
information he brought with him proved almost a blank Nevertheless,
Bennett could not let slip the opportunity of undertaking so lucrative a
piece of employment in his special line, and, ill-informed though he
was, he set his men to work upon the machinery of the proposed
papermill.

It very soon appeared that Bennett was altogether unfitted for the
performance of the contract which he had undertaken. The machinery, when
made, would not fit; it would not work; and, what with drink and what
with perplexity, Bennett soon got completely bewildered. Yet to give up
the job altogether would be to admit his own incompetency as a mechanic,
and must necessarily affect his future employment as a millwright. He
and his men, therefore, continued distractedly to persevere in their
operations, but without the slightest appearance of satisfactory
progress.

About this time an old hand, who happened to be passing the place at
which the men were at work, looked in upon them and examined what they
were about, as a mere matter of curiosity. When he had done so, he went
on to the nearest public-house and uttered his sentiments on the subject
very freely. He declared that the job was a farce, and that Abraham
Bennett was only throwing his employer's money away. The statement of
what the "experienced hand" had said, was repeated until it came to the
ears of young Brindley. Concerned for the honour of his shop as well as
for the credit of his master--though he probably owed him no great
obligation on the score either of treatment or instruction--Brindley
formed the immediate resolution of attempting to master the difficulty
so that the work might be brought to a satisfactory completion.

At the end of the week's work Brindley left the mill without saying a
word of his intention to any one, and instead of returning to his
master's house, where he lodged, he took the road for Manchester.
Bennett was in a state of great alarm lest he should have run away; for
Brindley, now in the fourth year of his apprenticeship, had reached the
age of twenty-one, and the master feared that, taking advantage of his
legal majority, he had left his service never to return. A messenger was
despatched in the course of the evening to his mother's house; but ho
was not there. Sunday came and passed--still no word of young Brindley:
he must have run away!

On Monday morning Bennett went to the paper-mill to proceed with his
fruitless work; and lo! the first person he saw was Brindley, with his
coat off, working away with greater energy than ever. His disappearance
was soon explained. He had been to Smedley Mill to inspect the machinery
there with his own eyes, and clear up his master's difficulty. He had
walked the twenty-five miles thither on the Saturday night, and on the
following Sunday morning ho had waited on Mr. Appleton, the proprietor
of the mill, and requested permission to inspect the machinery. With an
unusual degree of liberality Mr. Appleton gave the required consent, and
Brindley spent the whole of that Sunday in the most minute inspection of
the entire arrangements of the mill. He could not make notes, but he
stored up the particulars carefully in his head; and believing that be
had now thoroughly mastered the difficulty, he set out upon his return
journey, and walked the twenty-five miles back to Macclesfield again.

Having given this proof of his determination, as he had already given of
his skill in mechanics, Bennett was only too glad to give up the whole
conduct of the contract thenceforth to his apprentice; Brindley assuring
him that he should now have no difficulty in completing it to his
satisfaction. No time was lost in revising the whole design; many parts
of the work already fixed were rejected by Brindley, and removed;
others, after his own design, were substituted; several entirely new
improvements were added; and in the course of a few weeks the work was
brought to a conclusion, within the stipulated time, to the satisfaction
of the proprietors of the mill.

There was now no longer any question as to the extraordinary mechanical
skill of Bennett's apprentice. The old man felt that he had been in a
measure saved by young Brindley, and thenceforth, during the remainder
of his apprenticeship, he left him in principal charge of the shop. For
several years after, Brindley maintained his old master and his family
in respectability and comfort; and when Bennett died, Brindley carried
on the concern until the work in hand had been completed and the
accounts wound up; after which he removed from Macclesfield to begin
business on his own account at the town of Leek, in Staffordshire.



CHAPTER II.

BRINDLEY AS MASTER WHEELWRIGHT AND MILLWRIGHT.

BRINDLEY had now been nine years at his trade, seven as apprentice and
two as journeyman; and he began business as a wheelwright at Leek at the
age of twenty-six. He had no capital except his skill, and no influence
except that which his character as a steady workman gave him. Leek was
not a manufacturing place at the time when Brindley began business there
in 1742. It was but a small market town, the only mills in the
neighbourhood being a few grist-mills driven by the streamlets flowing
into the waters of the Dane, the Churnet, and the Trent. These mills
usually contained no more than a single pair of stones, and they were
comparatively rude and primitive in their arrangement and construction.

Brindley at first obtained but a moderate share of employment. His work
was more strongly done, and his charges were consequently higher, than
was customary in the district; and the agricultural classes were as yet
too poor to enable them to pay the prices of the best work. He
gradually, however, acquired a position, and became known for his skill
in improving old machinery or inventing such new mechanical arrangements
as might be required for any special purpose. He was very careful to
execute the jobs which were entrusted to him within the stipulated time,
and he began to be spoken of as a thoroughly reliable workman. Thus his
business gradually extended to other places at a distance from Leek, and
more especially into the Staffordshire Pottery districts, about to rise
into importance under the fostering energy of Josiah Wedgwood.

At first Brindley kept neither apprentices nor journeymen, but felled
his own timber and cut it up himself, with such assistance as he could
procure on the spot. As his business increased he took in an apprentice,
and then a journeyman, to carry on the work in the shop while he was
absent; and he was often called to a considerable distance from home,
more particularly for the purpose of being consulted about any new
machinery that was proposed to be put up. Nor did he confine himself to
mill-work. He was ready to undertake all sorts of machinery connected
with the pumping of water, the draining of mines, the smelting of iron
and copper, and the various mechanical arrangements connected with the
manufactures rising into importance in the adjoining counties of
Cheshire and Lancashire. Whenever he was called upon in this way, he
endeavoured to introduce improvements; and to such an extent did he
carry this tendency, that he became generally known in the neighbourhood
by the name of "The Schemer."

A number of Brindley's memoranda books[1] are still in existence, which
show the varied nature of his employment during this early part of his
career. It appears from the entries made in them, that he was not only
employed in repairing and fitting up silk-throwing mills at
Macclesfield, all of which were then driven by water, but also in
repairing corn-mills at Congleton, Newcastle-under-Lyne, and various
other places, besides those in the immediate neighbourhood of Leek,
where he lived. We believe the pocket memoranda books, to which we
refer, were the only records which Brindley kept of his early business
transactions; the rest he carried in his memory, which by practice
became remarkably retentive. Whilst working as an apprentice at
Macclesfield, he had taught himself the art of writing; but he never
mastered it thoroughly, and to the end of his life he wrote with
difficulty, and almost illegibly. His spelling was also very bad; and
what with the bad spelling and what with the hieroglyphics in which he
wrote, it is sometimes very difficult to decypher the entries made by
him from time to time in his books.

We find him frequently at Trentham. On one occasion he makes entry of a
"Loog of Daal 20 foot long;" at another time he is fitting a pump for
"Arle Gower," the Earl being one of Brindley's first patrons. The log of
deal, it afterwards appears, was required for the flint-mill of a Mr.
Tibots--"a mow [new?] invontion," as Brindley enters it in his book --
of which more hereafter. On May 18, 1755, he enters "Big Tree to cut 1
day," and he seems to have felled the tree, and, some months after, to
have cut it up himself, entering so many days at two shillings a day for
the labour. When he had to travel some distance, he set down sixpence a
day extra for expenses. Thus on one occasion he makes this entry: "For
Mr. Kent corn mill of Codan looking out a shaft neer Broun Edge 1 day 0:
2 : 6."

Between Leek and Trentham lay the then small pottery village of Burslem,
which Brindley had frequent occasion to pass through in going to and
from his jobs for the Earl. The earthenware then manufactured at Burslem
was of a very inferior sort, consisting almost entirely of brown
vessels; and the quantity turned out was so small that it was hawked
about on the backs of the potters themselves, or sold by higglers, who
carried it from village to village in the panniers of their donkeys. The
brothers Elers, the Dutchmen, erected a potwork of an improved kind near
Burslem, at the beginning of the century, in which they first practised
the art of salt-glazing, brought by them from Holland.

The next improvement introduced was the use of powder of flints, used at
first as a wash or dip, and afterwards mixed with tobacco-pipe clay,
from which an improved ware was made, called "Flint potters." The merit
of introducing this article is usually attributed to William Astbury, of
Shelton, who, when on a journey to London, stopping at an inn at
Dunstable, noticed the very soft and delicate nature of some burnt
flint-stones when mixed with water (the hostler having used the powdered
flint as a remedy for a disorder in his horses' eyes), and from thence
he is said to have conceived the idea of applying it to the purposes of
his trade. In first using the calcined flints, Mr. Astbury's practice
was to have them pounded in an iron mortar until perfectly levigated;
and being but sparingly used, this answered the demand for some time.
But when the use of flint became more common, this tedious process would
no longer suffice.

The brothers John and Thomas Wedgwood carried on the pottery business in
a very small way, but were nevertheless hampered by an insufficient
supply of flint powder, and it was found necessary to adopt some means
of increasing it. In their emergency the potters called "The Schemer" to
their aid; and hence we find him frequently occupied in erecting
flint-mills, in Burslem and the neighbourhood, from that time forward.
The success which attended his efforts brought Brindley not only fame,
but business.

It happened that, while thus occupied, Mr. John Edensor Heathcote, owner
of the Clifton estate near Manchester, became married to one of the
daughters of Sir Nigel Gresley, of Knypersley, in the neighbourhood of
Burslem, and that the marriage festivities were in progress, when the
remarkable ingenuity of the young millwright of Leek was accidentally
mentioned in the hearing of Mr. Heathcote one day at dinner. The
Manchester man, in the midst of pleasure, did not forget business; and
it occurred to him that this ingenious mechanic might be of use in
contriving some method for clearing his Clifton coal-mines of the water
by which they had so long been drowned. The old methods of the gin-wheel
and tub, and the chain-pump, had been tried, but entirely failed to keep
the water under if this Brindley could but do anything to help him in
his difficulty, he would employ him at once; at all events, he would
like to see the man.

Brindley was accordingly sent for, and the whole case was laid before
him. Mr. Heathcote described as minutely as possible the nature of the
locality, the direction in which the strata lay, and exhibited a plan of
the working of the mines. Brindley was perfectly silent for a long time,
seemingly absorbed in a consideration of the difficulties to be
overcome; but at length his countenance brightened, his eyes sparkled,
and he briefly pointed out a method by which he thought he should be
enabled, at no great expense, effectually to remedy the evil. His
explanations were considered so satisfactory, that he was at once
directed to proceed to Clifton, with full powers to carry out his
proposed plan of operations. This was, to call to his aid the fall of
the river Irwell, which formed one boundary of the estate, and pump out
the water from the pits by means of the greater power of the water in
the river.

With this object Brindley contrived and executed his first tunnel, which
he drove through the solid rock for a distance of six hundred yards, and
in this tunnel he led the river on to the breast of an immense
water-wheel fixed in a chamber some thirty feet below the surface of the
ground, from the lower end of which the water, after exercising its
power, flowed away into the lower level of the Irwell. The expedient,
though bold, was simple, and it proved effective. The machinery was
found fully equal to the emergency; and in a very short time Brindley's
wheel and pumps, working night and day, so cleared the mine of water as
to enable the men to get the coal in places from which they had long
been completely "drowned out."

We are not informed of the remuneration which the engineer received for
carrying out this important work; but from the entries in his memorandum
book it is probable that all he obtained was only his workman's wage of
two shillings a day. Notwithstanding his ingenuity and hardworking
energy, Brindley never seems, during the early part of his career, to
have earned more than about one-third the wage of skilled mechanics in
our own time; and from the insignificant sums charged by him for
expenses, it is clear that he was satisfied to live in the fashion of an
ordinary labourer. What modern engineers will receive ten guineas a day
for doing, he, with his strong original mind, was quite content to do
for two shillings. But eminent constructive skill seems to have been
lightly appreciated in those days, if we may judge by the money value
attached to it.[2] To this, however, it must be added, that at the time of
which we speak, the people of the country were comparatively
poor--manufacturers as well as landowners.

In Macclesfield and the neighbourhood, where the inventions of men such
as Brindley have issued in so extraordinary a development of wealth, the
operations of trade were as yet in their infancy, and had numerous
obstructions and difficulties to contend against. Perhaps the greatest
difficulty of all was the absence of those facilities for transport
between one district and another, without which the existence of trade
is simply impossible; but we shall shortly find Brindley also entering
upon this great work of opening up the internal communications of the
country, with an extraordinary degree of ability and success.

By the middle of last century, Macclesfield and the neighbouring towns
were gradually rising out of the small button-trade, and aiming at
greater things in the way of manufacture. In 1755 Mr. N. Pattison of
London, Mr. John Clayton, and a few other gentlemen, entered into a
partnership to build a new silk-mill at Congleton, in Cheshire, on a
larger scale than had yet been attempted in that neighbourhood. Brindley
was employed to execute the water-wheel and the commoner sort of
mill-work about the building; but the smaller wheels and the more
complex parts of the machinery, with which it was not supposed Brindley
could be acquainted, were entrusted to a master joiner and millwright,
named Johnson, who also superintended the progress of the whole work.

The superintendent required Brindley to work after his mere verbal
directions, without the aid of any plan; and Brindley was not even
allowed to inspect the models of the machinery required for the proposed
mill. He thus worked at a great disadvantage, and the operations
connected with the construction of the intended machinery were very
shortly found in a state of complete muddle. The proprietors had mason
to suspect that their superintendent was not equal to the enterprise
which he had undertaken. At first he endeavoured to assure them that all
was going right; but at last, after various efforts, he was obliged to
confess his incompetency and his inability to complete the work.

The proprietors, becoming alarmed, then sent for Brindley and told him
of their dilemma. "Would he undertake to complete the works ?" He asked
to see the model and plans which the superintendent engineer had
proposed to follow out. But on being applied to, the latter positively
refused to submit his designs to a common mill-wright, as he alleged
Brindley to be. The proprietors were almost in despair, and their only
reliance now was on Brindley's genius. "Tell me," he said, "what is the
precise operation that you wish to perform, and I will endeavour to
provide you with the requisite machinery for doing it; but you must let
me carry out the work in my own way." To this they were only too glad to
assent; and having been furnished with the necessary powers, he
forthwith set to work.

His intelligent observation of the process of manufacture in the various
mills he had inspected, his intimate practical knowledge of machinery of
all kinds then in use, and his fertility of resources in matters of
mechanical arrangement, enabled him to perform even more than he had
promised; and he not only finished the mill to the complete satisfaction
of its owners, but added a number of new and skilful improvements in
detail, which afterwards proved of the greatest value. For instance, he
adapted lifts to each set of rollers and swifts, by means of which the
silk could be wound upon the bobbins equably, instead of in wreaths as
in other mills; and he so arranged the shafting as to throw out of gear
and stop either the whole or any part of the machinery at will--an
arrangement subsequently adopted in the throstle of the cotton-spinning
machine, and, though common enough now, then thought perfectly
marvellous. And, in order that the tooth-and-pinion wheels should fit
with perfect precision, he expressly invented machinery for their
manufacture--a thing that had not before been attempted--all such wheels
having, until then, been cut by hand, at great labour and cost. By means
of this new machinery, as much work, and of a far better description,
could be cut in a day as had before occupied at least a fortnight. The
result was, that the new silk-mill, when finished, was found to be one
of the most complete and economical arrangements of manufacturing
machinery that had up to that time been erected in the neighbourhood.

After the Congleton silk-mill had been completed, we find Brindley
engaged in erecting flint-mills in the Potteries, of a more powerful and
complete kind than any that had before been tried, but which were
rendered necessary by the growing demands of the
earthenware-manufacture. One of the largest was that erected for Mr.
Thomas Baddely, at a place called Machins' of the Mill, near Tunstall.
We find these entries in Brindley's pocketbook:--"March 15, 1757. With
Mr. Badley to Matherso about a now flint mill upon a windey day 1 day
3s. 6d. March 19 draing a plann 1 day 2s. 6d. March 23 draing a plann
and to sat out the wheel race 1 day 4s."

This new mill was driven by water-power, and the wheel both worked the
pumping apparatus by which the adjoining coal-mine was drained, and the
stamping machinery for pounding and grinding the flints. The wheel,
which was of considerable diameter, was fixed in a chamber below the
surface of the ground, and the water was conveyed to it from the
mill-pool through a small trough opening upon it at its breast, which
kept the paddle-boxes of the descending part constantly filled, without
any waste whatever, and thus, by the rotation of the wheel, the pumps
and stampers were effectually worked. The main shaft was more than two
hundred yards from the mill; and to work the pumps Brindley invented the
slide rods, which were moved horizontally by a crank at the mill, and
gave power to the upright arm of a crank-lever, whose axis was at the
angle, and the lift at the other extremity. In course of time, as
improvements were introduced in the grinding of flints, the stamping
apparatus was detached from the machinery; but this water-wheel
continued its constant and useful operation of pumping out the mines for
full forty years after the death of its inventor; and when it was at
length broken up, about the year 1812, the pump-trees, which consisted
of wooden staves firmly bound together with ashen hoops, were found to
be lined with cow-hides, the working buckets being also covered with
leather--a contrivance of which the like, it is believed, has not before
been recorded.[3]

About the same time Brindley was requested by Mr. John Wedgwood to erect
a windmill for a similar purpose on an elevated site adjoining the town
of Burslem, called The Jenkins; this being one of the first, if not the
verb first, experiments made of the plan of grinding the calcined flints
in water, which in this case was pumped by the action of the machinery
from a well situated within the mill itself. This invention, which was
of considerable importance, has by some been attributed to Brindley,
whose ingenious mind was ever ready to suggest improvements in whatever
process of manufacture came under his notice. It was natural that he
should closely watch the operation of flint-grinding, having to
construct and repair the greater part of the machinery used in the
process; and he could not fail to notice the distressing consequences
resulting from inhaling the fine particles with which the air of the
flint-mills was laden. Hence the probability of his suggesting that the
flints should be ground in water, as calculated not only to prevent
waste and preserve the purity of the air, but also to facilitate the
operation of grinding,--a simple enough suggestion, but, as the result
proved, a most valuable one.

With this object he invented an improved mill, which consisted of a
large circular vat, about thirty inches deep, having a central step
fixed in the bottom, to carry the axis of a vertical shaft. The moving
power was applied to this shaft by a crown cog-wheel placed on the top.
At the lower part of the shaft, at right angles to it, were four arms,
upon which the grinding-stones were fixed, large blocks of stone of the
same kind being likewise placed in the vat. These stones were a very
hard silicious mineral, called "Chert," found in abundance in the
neighbourhood of Bakewell, in Derbyshire. The broken flints being
introduced to the vat and completely covered with water, the axis was
made to revolve with great velocity, when the calcined flints were
quickly reduced to an impalpable powder. This contrivance of Brindley's
proved of great value to Wedgwood, and it was shortly after adopted
throughout the Potteries, and continues in use to this day.

Being thus extensively occupied in the invention and erection of
machinery driven by one power or another, it was natural that Brindley's
attention should have been attracted to the use of steam power in
manufacturing operations. Wind and water had heretofore been almost the
exclusive agents employed for the purpose; but far-seeing philosophers
and ingenious mechanics had for centuries been feeling their way towards
the far greater power derived from the pent-up force of vaporised water;
and engines had actually been contrived which rendered it likely that
the problem would ere long be solved, and a motive agent invented, which
should be easily controllable, and independent alike of wind, tides, and
waterfalls. Reserving for another place the history of the successive
stages of this great invention, it will be sufficient for our present
purpose merely to indicate, briefly, the direction of Brindley's labours
in this important field.

It appears that Newcomen had as early as the year 1711 erected an
atmospheric engine for the purpose of drawing water from a coal mine in
the neighbourhood of Wolverhampton; and after considerable difficulties
had been experienced in its construction and working, the engine was at
length pronounced the most effective and economical that had yet been
tried. Other engines of a similar kind were shortly after erected in the
coal districts of the north of England, in the tin and copper mines of
Cornwall, and in the lead mines of Cumberland, for the purpose of
pumping water from the pits.

Brindley, like other contrivers of power, felt curious about this new
invention, and proceeded to Wolverhampton to study one of Newcomen's
engines erected there. He was greatly struck by its appearance, and,
with the irrepressible instinct of the inventor, immediately set about
contriving how it might be improved. He found the consumption of coal so
great as to preclude its use excepting where coal was unusually abundant
and cheap, as, for instance, at the mouth of a coal-pit, where the fuel
it consumed was the produce and often the refuse of the mine itself; and
he formed the opinion that unless the consumption of coal could be
reduced, the extended use of the steam-engine was not practicable, by
reason of its dearness, as compared with the power of horses, wind, or
water.

With this idea in his head, he proceeded to contrive an improved engine,
the main object of which was to ensure greater economy in fuel. In 1756
we find him erecting a steam-engine for one Mr. Broade, at Fenton
Vivian, in Staffordshire, in which he adopted the expedient, afterwards
tried by James Watt, of wooden cylinders made in the manner of coopers'
ware, instead of cylinders of iron. He also substituted wood for iron in
the chains which worked at the end of the beam. Like Watt, however, he
was under the necessity of abandoning the wooden cylinders; but he
surrounded his metal cylinders with a wooden case, filling the
intermediate space with wood-ashes; and by this means, and using no more
injection of cold water than was necessary for the purpose of
condensation, he succeeded in reducing the waste of steam by almost
one-half.

Whilst busy with Mr. Broade's engine, we find from the entries in his
pocket-book that Brindley occasionally spent several days together at
Coalbrookdale, in super-intending the making of the boiler-plates, the
pipes, and other iron-work. Returning to Fenton Vivian, he proceeded
with the erection of his engine-house and the fitting of the machinery,
whilst, during five days more, he appears to have been occupied in
making the hoops for the cylinders. It takes him five days to get the
"great leavor fixed," thirty-nine days to put the boiler together, and
thirteen days to get the pit prepared; and as he charges only workmen's
wages for those days, we infer that the greater part of the work was
done by his own hands. He even seems to have himself felled the
requisite timber for the work, as we infer from the entry in his
pocket-book of "falling big tree 3.5 days."

The engine was at length ready after about a year's work, and was set
a-going in November, 1757, after which we find these significant
entries: "Bad louk [luck] five days;" then, again, "Bad louk" for three
days more; and, after that, "Midlin louk;" and so on with "Midlin louk"
until the entries under that head come to an end. In the spring of the
following year we find him again striving to get his "engon at woork,"
and it seems at length to have been fairly started on the 19th of March,
when we have the entry "Engon at woork 3 days." There is then a stoppage
of four days, and again the engine works for seven days more, with a
sort of "loud cheer" in the words added to the entry, of "driv a-Heyd!"
Other intervals occur, until, on the 16th of April, we have the words
"at woor good order 3 days," when the entries come to a sudden close.

The engine must certainly have given Brindley a great deal of trouble,
and almost driven him to despair, as we now know how very imperfect an
engine with wooden hooped cylinders must have been; and we are not
therefore surprised at the entry which he honestly makes in his
pocket-book on the 21st of April, immediately after the one last
mentioned, when the engine had, doubtless, a second time broken down,
"to Run about a Drinking, 0: 1 : 6." Perhaps he intended the entry to
stand there as a warning against giving way to future despair; for he
underlined the words, as if to mark them with unusual emphasis.[4]

Brindley did not remain long in this mood, but set to work upon the
contrivance and erection of another engine upon a new and improved plan.
What his plan was, may be learnt from the specification lodged in the
Patent Office, on the 26th December, 1758, by "James Brindley, of Leek,
in the county of Stafford, Millwright."[5] In the arrangement of this new
steam-engine he provided that the boiler should be made of brick or
stone arched over, and the stove over the fire-place of cast-iron, fixed
within the boiler. The feeding-pipe for the boiler was to be made with a
clack, opening and shutting by a float upon the surface of the water in
the boiler, which would thus be self-feeding. The great chains for the
segments at the extremity of the beams were of wood; and the pumps were
also of wooden staves strongly hooped together.

Brindley, as a millwright, seems to have long retained his early
predilection for wood, and to have preferred it to iron wherever its use
was practicable. His plans were, however, subjected to modification and
improvement from time to time, as experience suggested; and in the
course of a few years, brick, stone, and wood were alike discarded in
favour of iron; until, in 1763, we find Brindley erecting a steam-engine
for the Walker Colliery, at Newcastle, wholly of iron, manufactured at
Coalbrookdale, which was pronounced the most "complete and noble piece
of ironwork" that had up to that time been produced.[6] But by this time
Brindley's genius had been turned in another direction; the invention of
the steam-engine being now safe in the hands of Watt, who was
perseveringly occupied in bringing it to completion.



CHAPTER III.

THE DUKE OF BRIDGEWATER -- BRINDLEY EMPLOYED AS THE ENGINEER OF HIS
CANAL.

Very little had as yet been done to open up the inland navigation of
England, beyond dredging and clearing out in a very imperfect manner the
channels of some of the larger rivers, so as to admit of the passage of
small barges. Several attempts had been made in Lancashire and Cheshire,
as we have already shown, to open up the navigation of the Mersey and
the Irwell from Liverpool to Manchester. There were similar projects for
improving the Weaver from Frodsham, where it joins the Mersey, to
Winford Bridge above Northwich; and the Douglas, from the Ribble to
Wigan. About the same time like schemes were started in Yorkshire, with
the object of opening up the navigation of the Aire and Calder to Leeds
and Wakefield, and of the Don from Doncaster to near Sheffield.

One of the Acts passed by Parliament in 1737 is worthy of notice, as the
forerunner of the Bridgewater Canal enterprise: we allude to the Act for
making navigable the Worsley Brook to its junction with the river
Irwell, near Manchester. A similar Act was obtained in 1755, for making
navigable the Sankey Brook from the Mersey, about two miles below
Warrington, to St. Helens, Gerrard Bridge, and Penny Bridge. In this
case the canal was constructed separate from the brook, but alongside of
it; and at several points locks were provided to adapt the canal to the
level of the lands passed through.

The same year in which application was made to Parliament for powers to
construct the Sankey Canal, the Corporation of Liverpool had under their
consideration a much larger scheme--no less than a canal to unite the
Trent and the Mersey, and thus open a water-communication between the
ports of Liverpool and Hull. It was proposed that the line should
proceed by Chester, Stafford, Derby, and Nottingham. A survey was made,
principally at the instance of Mr. Hardman, a public spirited merchant
of Liverpool, and for many years one of its representatives in
Parliament. Another survey was shortly after made at the instance of
Earl Gower, afterwards Marquis of Stafford, and it was probably in
making this survey that Brindley's attention was first directed to the
business of canal engineering.

We find his first entry relating to the subject made on the 5th of
February, 1758 -- "novocion [navigation] 5 days;" the second, a little
better spelt, on the 19th of the same month--"a bout the novogation 3
days;" and afterwards--"surveing the novogation from Long brigg to
Kinges Milles 12 days 1/2." It does not, however, appear that the scheme
made much progress, or that steps were taken at that time to bring the
measure before Parliament; and Brindley continued to pursue his other
employments, more especially the erection of "fire-engines" after his
new patent. This continued until the following year, when we find him in
close consultation with the Duke of Bridgewater relative to the
construction of his proposed canal from Worsley to Manchester.

The early career of this distinguished nobleman was of a somewhat
remarkable character. He was born in 1736, the fifth and youngest son of
Scroop, third Earl and first Duke of Bridgewater, by Lady Rachel
Russell. He lost his father when only five years old, and all his
brothers died by the time that he had reached his twelfth year, at which
early age he succeeded to the title of Duke of Bridgewater. He was a
weak and sickly child, and his mental capacity was thought so defective,
that steps were even in contemplation to set him aside in favour of the
next heir to the title and estates. His mother seems almost entirely to
have neglected him. In the first year of her widowhood she married Sir
Richard Lyttleton, and from that time forward took the least possible
notice of her boy.

The young Duke did not give much promise of surviving his consumptive
brothers, and his mind was considered so incapable of improvement, that
he was left in a great measure without either domestic guidance or
intellectual discipline and culture. Horace Walpole writes to Mann in
1761: "You will be happy in Sir Richard Lyttleton and his Duchess; they
are the best-humoured people in the world." But the good humour of this
handsome couple was mostly displayed in the world of gay life, very
little of it being reserved for home use. Possibly, however, it may have
been even fortunate for the young Duke that he was left so much to
himself, to profit by the wholesome neglect of special nurses and
tutors, who are not always the most judicious in their bringing up of
delicate children.

At seventeen, the young Duke's guardians, the Duke of Bedford and Lord
Trentham, finding him still alive and likely to live, determined to send
him abroad on his travels--the wisest thing they could have done. They
selected for his tutor the celebrated traveller, Robert Wood, author of
the well-known work on Troy, Baalbec, and Palmyra; afterwards appointed
to the office of Under-Secretary of State by the Earl of Chatham. Wood
was an accomplished scholar, a persevering traveller, and withal a man
of good business qualities. His habits of intelligent observation could
not fail to be of service to his pupil, and it is not unnatural to
suppose that the great artificial water-courses and canals which they
saw in the course of their travels had some effect in afterwards
determining the latter to undertake the important works of a similar
character by which his name became so famous. While passing through the
south of France, the Duke was especially interested by his inspection of
the Grand Canal of Languedoc, a magnificent work executed under great
difficulties, and which had promoted in an extraordinary degree the
prosperity of that part of the kingdom.[1] Proceeding into Italy, the Duke
and his companion inspected all that was worthy of being seen there,
including the picture galleries at Florence, Venice, and Rome. During
their visit Mr. Wood sat to Mengs for his portrait, which still forms
part of the Bridgewater collection. The Duke also purchased works of
sculpture at Rome; but that he himself entertained no great enthusiasm
for art is evident from the fact related by the late Earl of Ellesmere,
that these works remained in their original packing-cases until after
his death.[2]

Returned to England, he seems to have led the usual life of a gay young
nobleman of the time, with plenty of money at his command. In 1756, when
only twenty years old, he appears from the 'Racing Calendar' to have
kept race-horses; occasionally riding them in matches himself. Though in
after life a very bulky man, he was so light as a youth, that on one
occasion Lord Ellesmere says a bet was jokingly offered that he would be
blown off his horse. Dressed in a livery of blue silk and silver, with a
jockey cap, he once rode a race against His Royal Highness the Duke of
Cumberland, on the long terrace at the back of the weed in Trentham
Park, the seat of his relative, Earl Gower. During His Royal Highness's
visit, the large old green-house, since taken down, was hastily run up
for the playing of skittles; and prison bars and other village games
were instituted for the recreation of the guests. Those occupations of
the Duke were varied by an occasional visit to his racing-stud at
Newmarket, where he had a house for some time, and by the usual round of
London gaieties during the season.

A young nobleman of tender age, moving freely in circles where were to
be seen some of the finest specimens of female beauty in the world,
could scarcely be expected to pass heart-whole; and hence the occurrence
of the event in his London life which, singularly enough, is said to
have driven him in a great measure from society, and induced him to
devote himself to the construction of canals! We find various allusions
in the letters of the time to the intended marriage of the young Duke of
Bridgewater. One rumour pointed to the only daughter and heiress of Mr.
Thomas Revel, formerly MP for Dover, as the object of his choice. But it
appears that the lady to whom he became the most strongly attached was
one of the Gunnings -- the comparatively portionless daughters of an
Irish gentleman, who were then the reigning beauties at Court. The
object of the Duke's affection was Elizabeth, the youngest daughter, and
perhaps the most beautiful of the three. She had been married to the
fourth Duke of Hamilton, in Keith's Chapel, Mayfair, in 1752, "with a
ring of the bed-curtain, half-an-hour after twelve at night,"[3] but the
Duke dying shortly after, she was now a gay and beautiful widow, with
many lovers in her train. In the same year in which she had been
clandestinely married to the Duke of Hamilton, her eldest sister was
married to the sixth Earl of Coventry.

The Duke of Bridgewater paid his court to the young widow, proposed, and
was accepted. The arrangements for the marriage were in progress, when
certain rumours reached his ear reflecting upon the character of Lady
Coventry, his intended bride's elder sister, who was certainly more fair
than she was wise. Believing the reports, he required the Duchess to
desist from further intimacy with her sister, a condition which her high
spirit would not brook, and, the Duke remaining firm, the match was
broken off. From that time forward he is said never to have addressed
another woman in the language of gallantry.[4]

The Duchess of Hamilton, however, did not remain long a widow. In the
course of a few months she was engaged to, and afterwards married, John
Campbell, subsequently Duke of Argyll. Horace Walpole, writing of the
affair to Marshal Conway, January 28th, 1759, says: "You and M. de
Bareil do not exchange prisoners with half as much alacrity as Jack
Campbell and the Duchess of Hamilton have exchanged hearts. . . . It is
the prettiest match in the world since yours, and everybody likes it but
the Duke of Bridgewater and Lord Conway. What an extraordinary fate is
attached to these two women! Who could have believed that a Gunning
would unite the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part,
I expect to see my Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture
to marry either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled
out of the world prematurely to make room for the rest of their
adventures."

The Duke, like a wise man, sought consolation for his disappointment by
entering into active and useful occupation. Instead of retiring to his
beautiful seat at Ashridge, we find him straightway proceeding to his
estate at Worsley, on the borders of Chat Moss, in Lancashire, and
conferring with John Gilbert, his land-steward, as to the practicability
of cutting a canal by which the coals found upon his Worsley estate
might be readily conveyed to market at Manchester.

Manchester and Liverpool at that time were improving towns, gradually
rising in importance and increasing in population. The former place had
long been noted for its manufacture of coarse cottons, or "coatings,"
made of wool, in imitation of the goods known on the Continent by that
name. The Manchester people also made fustians, mixed stuffs, and small
wares, amongst which leather-laces for women's bodices, shoe-ties, and
points were the more important. But the operations of manufacture were
still carried on in a clumsy way, entirely by hand. The woo] was spun
into yarn by means of the common spinning wheel, for the spinning-jenny
had not yet been invented, and the yarn was woven into cloth by the
common handloom. There was no whirr of engine-wheels then to be heard;
for Watt's steam-engine had not yet come into existence. The air was
free from smoke, except that which arose from household fires, and there
was not a single factory-chimney in Manchester.

In 1724, Dr. Stukeley says Manchester contained no fewer than 2400
families, and that their trade was "incredibly large" in tapes, ticking,
girth-webb, and fustians. In 1757 the united population of Manchester
and Salford was only 20,000; [5] it is now, after the lapse of a century,
460,000! The Manchester manufacturer was then a very humble personage
compared with his modern representative. He was part chapman, part
weaver, and part merchant--working hard, living frugally, principally on
oatmeal, and usually contriving to save a little money.

Dr. Aikin, writing in 1795, thus described the Manchester manufacturer
in the first half of the eighteenth century: "An eminent manufacturer in
that age," said he, "used to be in his warehouse before six in the
morning, accompanied by his children and apprentices. At seven they all
came in to breakfast, which consisted of one large dish of
water-pottage, made of oatmeal, water, and a little salt, boiled thick,
and poured into a dish. At the side was a pan or basin of milk, and the
master and apprentices, each with a wooden spoon in his hand, without
loss of time, dipped into the same dish, and thence into the milk-pan,
and as soon as it was finished they all returned to their work." What a
contrast to the "eminent manufacturer" of our own day!

As trade increased, its operations became more subdivided, and special
classes and ranks began to spring into importance. The manufacturers
sent out riders to take orders, and gangs of chapmen with pack-horses to
distribute the goods and bring back wool, which they either used up
themselves, or sold to makers of worsted yarn at Manchester, or to the
clothiers of Rochdale, Saddleworth, or the West Riding of Yorkshire. Mr.
Walker, author of the 'Original,' left the following interesting
reminiscence of the dealings of Manchester men with the inhabitants of
the Fen districts :--"I have by tradition," said he, "the following
particulars of the mode of carrying on the home trade by one of the
principal merchants of Manchester, who was born at the commencement of
the last century, and who realised a sufficient fortune to keep a
carriage when not half a dozen were kept in the town by persons
connected with business. He sent the manufactures of the place into
Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and the intervening
counties, and principally took in exchange feathers from Lincolnshire,
and malt from Cambridgeshire and Nottinghamshire. All his commodities
were conveyed on pack-horses, and he was from home the greater part of
every year, performing his journeys entirely on horseback. His balances
were received in guineas, and were carried with him in his saddle-bags.
He was exposed to the vicissitudes of the weather, to great labour and
fatigue, and to constant danger. In Lincolnshire he travelled chiefly
along bridle-ways through fields where frequent gibbets warned him of
his perils, and where flocks of wild fowl continually darkened the air.
Business carried on in this manner required a combination of personal
attention, courage, and physical strength, not to be hoped for in a
deputy; and a merchant then led a much more severe and irksome life than
a bagman afterwards, and still more than a traveller of the present day.
In the earlier days of the merchant abovementioned, the wine merchant
who supplied Manchester, resided at Preston, then always called Proud
Preston, because exclusively inhabited by gentry. The wine was carried
on horses, and a gallon was considered a large order. Men in business
confined themselves generally to punch and ale, using wine only as a
medicine, or on extraordinary occasions; so that a considerable
tradesman somewhat injured his credit amongst his neighbours by being so
extravagant as to send to a tavern for wine, to entertain a London
customer."[6]

The roads out of Manchester in different directions, like those in most
districts throughout the kingdom, were in a very neglected state, being
for the most part altogether impracticable for waggons. Hence the use of
pack-horses was an absolute necessity; and the roads were but
ill-adapted even for them. Indeed, it was more difficult then to reach a
village twenty miles out of Manchester than it is to make the journey
from thence to London now. The only coach to London plied but every
second day, and it was four days and a half in making the journey, there
being a post only three times a week.[7] The roads in most districts of
Lancashire were what were called "mill roads," along which a horse with
a load of oats upon its back might proceed towards the mill where they
were to be ground. There was no private carriage kept by any person in
business in Manchester until the year 1758, when the first was set up by
some specially luxurious individual. But wealth led to increase of
expenditure, and Aikin mentions that there was "an evening club of the
most opulent manufacturers, at which the expenses of each person were
fixed at fourpence-halfpenny--fourpence for ale, and a halfpenny for
tobacco." The progress of luxury was further aided by the holding of a
dancing assembly once a week in a room situated about the middle of King
Street, now a busy thoroughfare, the charge for admission to the nightly
ball being half-a-crown the quarter. The ladies had their maids to wait
for them with lanterns and pattens, and to conduct them home; "nor,"
adds Aikin, "was it unusual for their partners also to attend them."

The imperfect state of the communications leading to and from Manchester
rendered it a matter of some difficulty at certain seasons to provide
food for so large a population. In winter, when the roads were closed,
the place was in the condition of a beleaguered town; and even in
summer, the land about Manchester itself being comparatively sterile,
the place was badly supplied with fruit, vegetables, and potatoes,
which, being brought from considerable distances slung across horses'
backs, were so dear as to be beyond the reach of the mass of the
population. The distress caused by this frequent dearth of provisions
was not effectually remedied until the canal navigation became
completely opened up. Thus a great scarcity of food occurred in
Manchester and the neighbourhood in 1757 which the common people
attributed to the millers and corndealers; and unfortunately the notion
was not confined to the poor who were starving, but was equally
entertained by the well-to-do classes who had enough to eat. An epigram
by Dr. Byrom, the town clergyman, written in 1737, on two millers
(tenants of the School corn-mills), who, from their spare habits, had
been nicknamed "Skin" and "Bone," was now revived, and tended to fan the
popular fury. It ran thus

"Bone and Skin, two millers thin,
Would starve the town, or near it;
But be it known to Skin and Bone,
That Flesh and Blood can't bear it."

The popular hunger and excitement increasing, at length broke out in
open outrage; and a riot took place in 1758, long after remembered in
Manchester as the "Shude Hill fight," in which unhappily several lives
were lost.

For the same reasons, the supply of coals was but scanty in winter; and
though abundance of the article lay underground, within a few miles of
Manchester, in nearly every direction, those few miles of transport, in
the then state of the roads, were an almost insurmountable difficulty.
The coals were sold at the pit mouth at so much the horse-load, weighing
280 lbs., and measuring two baskets, each thirty inches by twenty, and
ten inches deep; that is, as much as an average horse could carry on its
back.[8] The price of the coals at the pit mouth was 10d. the horse-load;
but by the time the article reached the door of the consumer in
Manchester, the price was usually more than doubled, in consequence of
the difficulty and cost of conveyance. The carriage alone amounted to
about nine or ten shillings the ton.

There was as yet no connection of the navigation of the Mersey and
Irwell with any of the collieries situated to the eastward of
Manchester, by which a supply could reach the town in boats; and
although the Duke's collieries were only a comparatively short distance
from the Irwell, the coals had to be carried on horses' backs or in
carts from the pits to the river to be loaded, and after reaching
Manchester they had again to be carried to the doors of the
consumers,--so that there was little if any saving to be effected by
that route. Besides, the minimum charge insisted on by the Mersey
Navigation Company of 3s. 4d. a ton for even the shortest distance,
proved an effectual barrier against any coal reaching Manchester by the
river.

The same difficulty stood in the way of the transit of goods between
Manchester and Liverpool. By road the charge was 40s. a ton, and by
river 12s. a ton; that between Warrington and Manchester being 10s. a
ton: besides, there was great risk of delay, loss, and damage by the
way. Some idea of the tediousness of the river navigation may be formed
from the fact, that the boats were dragged up and down stream
exclusively by the labour of men, and that horses and mules were not
employed for this purpose until after the Duke's canal had been made. It
was, indeed, obvious that unless some means could be devised for
facilitating and cheapening the cost of transport between the seaport
and the manufacturing towns, there was little prospect of any
considerable further development being effected in the industry of the
district.

Such was the state of things when the Duke of Bridgewater turned his
attention to the making of a water-road for the passage of his coal from
Worsley to Manchester. The Old Mersey Company would give him no
facilities for sending his coals by their navigation, but levied the
full charge of 3s. 4d. for every ton he might send to Manchester by
river even in his own beats. He therefore perceived that to obtain a
vend for his article, it was necessary he should make a way for himself;
and it became obvious to him that if he could but form a canal between
the two points, he would at once be enabled to secure a ready sale for
all the coals that he could raise from his Worsley pits.

We have already stated that, as early as 1737, an Act had been obtained
by the Duke's father, giving power to make the Worsley Brook navigable
from the neighbourhood of the pits to the Irwell. But the enterprise,
and its cost, appear to have been too formidable; so the powers of the
Act were allowed to expire without anything being done to carry them
out. The young Duke now determined to revive the Act in another form,
and in the early part of 1759 he applied to Parliament for the requisite
powers to enable him to cut a navigable canal from Worsley Mill eastward
to Salford, and to carry the same westward to a point on the river
Mersey, called Hollin Ferry. He introduced into the bill several
important concessions to the inhabitants of Manchester. He bound himself
not to exceed the freight of 2s. 6d. per ton on all coals brought from
Worsley to Manchester, and not to sell the coal so brought from the
mines to that town at more than 4d. per hundred, which was less than
half the then average price. It was clear that, if such a canal could be
made and the navigation opened as proposed, it would prove a great
public boon to the inhabitants of Manchester. The bill was accordingly
well supported, and it passed the legislature without opposition,
receiving the Royal assent in March, 1759.

The Duke gave further indications of his promptitude and energy, in the
steps which he adopted to have the works carried out without loss of
time. He had no intention of allowing the powers of this Act to remain a
dead letter, as the former had done. Accordingly, no sooner had it
passed than he set out for his seat at Worsley to take the requisite
measures for constructing the canal. The Duke was fortunate in having
for his land-agent a very shrewd, practical, and enterprising person, in
John Gilbert, whom he consulted on all occasions of difficulty.

Mr. Gilbert was the brother of Thomas Gilbert, the originator of the
Gilbert Unions, then agent to the Duke's brother-in-law, Lord Gower.
That nobleman had for some time been promoting the survey of a canal to
unite the Mersey and the Trent, on which Brindley had been employed, and
thus became known to Gilbert as well as to his brother. We find from an
entry in Brindley's pocketbook that the millwright had sundry interviews
with Thomas Gilbert on matters of business previous to the passing of
the first Bridgewater Canal Bill, though there is no evidence that he
was employed in making the survey. Indeed, it is questionable whether
any survey was made of the first scheme. Engineering projects were then
submitted to Parliamentary Committees in a very rough state. Levels were
guessed at rather than surveyed and calculated; and merely general
powers were taken enabling such property to be purchased as might by
possibility be required for the execution of the works. In the case of
the Bridgewater Canal, the prices of land and compensation for damage
were directed to be assessed by a local committee appointed by the Act
for the purpose.

When the Duke proceeded to consider with Gilbert the best mode of
carrying out the proposed canal, it appeared clear to them that the plan
originally contemplated was faulty in many respects, and that an
application must be made to Parliament for further powers. By the
original Act it was intended to descend from the level of the coal-mines
at Worsley by a series of locks into the river Irweil. This, it was
found, would necessarily involve a heavy cost both in the construction
and working of the canal, as well as considerable delay in the conduct
of the traffic, which it was most desirable to avoid. Neither the Duke
nor Gilbert had any practical knowledge of engineering; nor, indeed,
were there many men in the country at that time who knew much of the
subject; for it must be remembered that this canal of the Duke's was the
very first project in England for cuffing a navigable trench through the
dry land, and carrying merchandise in it across the country, independent
of the course of the existing streams.

It was in this emergency that Gilbert advised the Duke to call to his
aid James Brindley, whose fertility of resources and skill in overcoming
mechanical difficulties had long been the theme of general admiration in
his own district. Doubtless the Duke was as much impressed by the native
vigour and originality of the unlettered genius introduced to him by his
agent, as were all with whom he was brought in contact. Certain it is
that the Duke showed his confidence in Brindley by entrusting him with
the conduct of the proposed work; and, as the first step, he was desired
to go over the ground at once, and give his opinion as to the best plan
to be adopted for carrying it out with despatch.

Brindley, accordingly, after making what he termed an "ochilor [ocular]
servey or a ricconitoring," speedily formed his conclusion, and came
back to the Duke with his advice. It was that, instead of carrying the
canal down into the Irwell by a flight of locks, and so up again on the
other side to the proposed level, it should be carried right over the
river, and constructed upon one uniform level throughout. But this, it
was clear, would involve a series of formidable works, the like of which
had not before been attempted in England. In the first place, the low
ground on the north side of the Irwell would have to be filled up by a
massive embankment, and to be united with the land on the other bank by
means of a large aqueduct of stone. Would it be practicable or possible
to execute works of such magnitude? Brindley expressed so strong and
decided an opinion of their practicability, that the Duke was won over
to his views, and determined again to go to Parliament for the requisite
powers to enable him to carry out the design.

Many were the deliberations which took place about this time between the
Duke, Gilbert, and Brindley, in the Old Hall at Worsley, where the Duke
had now taken up his abode. We find from Brindley's pocketbook
memoranda, that in the month of July, 1759, he had taken up his
temporary quarters at the Old Hall; and from time to time, in the course
of the same year, while the details of the plan were being prepared with
a view to the intended application to Parliament, he occasionally stayed
with the Duke for weeks together. He made a detailed survey of the new
line, and at the same time, in order to facilitate the completion of the
undertaking when the new powers had been obtained, he proceeded with the
construction of the sough or level at Worsley Mill, and such other
portions of the work as could be executed under the original powers.

During the same period Brindley travelled backwards and forwards a great
deal, on matters connected with his various business in the Pottery
district. We find, from his private record, that he was occupied at
intervals in carrying forward his survey of the proposed canal through
Staffordshire, visiting with this object the neighbourhood of
Newcastle-under-Lyne, Lichfield, and Tamworth. He also continued to give
his attention to mills, water-wheels, cranes, and fire-engines, which he
had erected, or which required repairs, in various parts of the same
district. In short, he seems at this period to have been fully employed
as a millwright; and although, as we have seen, the remuneration which
he received for his skill was comparatively small, being a man of frugal
habits he had saved a little money; for about this time we find him able
to raise a sum of 543l. 6s. 8d., being his fourth share of the
purchase-money of the Turnhurst estate, situated near Golden Hill, in
the county of Stafford.

The principal part of this sum was no doubt borrowed, as appears by his
own memoranda, from his friend Mr. Launcelot, of Leek; but the
circumstance proves that, amongst his townsmen and neighbours, who knew
him best, he stood in good credit and repute. His other partners in the
purchase were Mr. Thomas Gilbert (Earl Gower's agent), Mr. Henshall
(afterwards his brother-in-law), and his brother John Brindley. The
estate was understood to be full of minerals, the knowledge of which had
most probably been obtained by Brindley in the course of his surveying
of the proposed Staffordshire canal; and we shall afterwards find that
he turned the purchase to good account

At length the new plans of the canal from Worsley to Manchester were
completed and ready for deposit; and on the 23rd of January, after a
visit to the Duke and Gilbert at the Hall, we find the entry in
Brindley's pocket-book of "Sot out for London." On the occasion of his
visits to London, Brindley adopted the then most convenient method of
travelling on horseback, the journey usually occupying five days. We
find him varying his route according to the state of the weather and of
the roads. In summer he was accustomed to go by Coventry, but in winter
he made for the Great North Road by Northampton, which was usually in
better condition for winter travelling.

The second Act passed like the first, without opposition, early in the
session of 1760. It enabled the Duke to carry his proposed canal over
the river Irwell, near Barton Bridge, some five miles westward of
Manchester, by means of a series of arches, and to vary its course
accordingly; whilst it further authorised him to extend a short branch
to Longford Bridge, near Stretford,--that to Hollin Ferry, authorised by
the original Act, being abandoned. In the mean time the works near
Worsley had been actively pushed forward, and considerable progress had
been made by the time the additional powers had been obtained. That part
of the canal which lay between Worsley Mill and the public highway
leading from Manchester to Warrington had been cut; the sough or level
between Worsley Mill and Middlewood, for the purpose of supplying water
to the canal, was considerably advanced; and operations had also been
begun in the neighbourhood of Salford and on the south of the river
Irwell.

The most difficult part of the undertaking, however, was that authorised
by the new Act; and the Duke looked forward to its execution with the
greatest possible anxiety. Although aqueducts of a far more formidable
description had been executed abroad, nothing of the kind had until then
been projected in this country; and many regarded the plan of Brindley
as altogether wild and impracticable. The proposal to confine and carry
a body of water within a water-tight trunk of earth upon the top of an
embankment across the low grounds on either side of the Irwell, was
considered foolish and impossible enough; but to propose to carry ships
upon a lofty bridge, over the heads of other ships navigating the Irwell
which flowed underneath, was laughed at as the dream of a madman.
Brindley, by leaving the beaten path, thus found himself exposed to the
usual penalties which befall originality and genius.

The Duke was expostulated with by his friends, and strongly advised not
to throw away his money upon so desperate an undertaking. Who ever heard
of so large a body of water being carried over another in the manner
proposed? Brindley was himself appealed to; but he could only repeat his
conviction as to the entire practicability of his design. At length, by
his own desire and to allay the Duke's apprehensions, another engineer
was called in and consulted as to the scheme. To Brindley's surprise and
dismay, the person consulted concurred in the view so strongly expressed
by the public, lie characterised the plan of the Barton aqueduct and
embankment as instinct with recklessness and folly; and after expressing
his unqualified opinion as to the impractibiliity of executing the
design, he concluded his report to the Duke thus: "I have often heard of
castles in the air; but never before saw where any of them were to be
erected." [9]

It is to the credit of his Grace that, notwithstanding these strong
adverse opinions, he continued to give his confidence to the engineer
whom he had selected to carry out the work. Brindley's common-sense
explanations, though they might not remove all his doubts, nevertheless
determined the Duke to give him the full opportunity of carrying out his
design; and he was accordingly authorised to proceed with the erection
of his "castle in the air." Its progress was watched with great
interest, and people flocked from all parts to see it.

The Barton aqueduct is about two hundred yards in length and twelve
yards wide, the centre part being sustained by a bridge of three
semicircular arches, the middle one being of sixty-three feet span. It
carries the canal over the Irwell at a height of thirty-nine feet above
the river--this head-room being sufficient to enable the largest barges
to pass underneath without lowering their masts. The bridge is entirely
of stone blocks, those on the faces being dressed on the front, beds,
and joints, and cramped with iron. The canal, in passing over the
arches, is confined within a puddled [10] channel to prevent leakage, and
is in as good a state now as on the day on which it was completed.
Although the Barton aqueduct has since been thrown into the shade by the
vastly greater works of modern engineers, it was unquestionably a very
bold and ingenious enterprise, if we take into account the time at which
it was erected. Humble though it now appears, it was the parent of the
magnificent aqueducts of Rennie and Telford, and of the viaducts of
Stephenson and Brunel, which rival the greatest works of any age or
country.

The embankments formed across the low grounds on either side of the
Barton viaduct were also considered very formidable works at that day. A
contemporary writer speaks of the embankment across Stretford Meadows as
an amazing bank of earth 900 yards long, 112 feet in breadth across the
base, 24 feet at top, and 17 feet high. The greatest difficulty
anticipated, was the holding of so large a body of water within a hollow
channel formed of soft materials. It was supposed at first that the
water would soak through the bank, which its weight would soon burst,
and wash away all before it. But Brindley, in the course of his
experience, had learnt something of the powers of day-puddle to resist
the passage of water. He had already succeeded in stopping the breaches
of rivers flowing through low grounds by this means; and the thorough
manner in which he finished the bed of this canal, and made it
impervious to water, may be cited as a notable illustration of the
engineer's practical skill, taking into account the early period at
which this work was executed.

Not the least difficult part of the undertaking was the formation of the
canal across Trafford Moss, where the weight of the embankment pressed
down and "blew up" the soft oozy stuff on each side; but the difficulty
was again overcome by the engineer's specific of clay-puddle, which
proved completely successful. Indeed, the execution of these embankments
by Brindley was regarded at the time as something quite as extraordinary
in their way as the erection of the Barton aqueduct itself.

The rest of the canal between Longford and Manchester, being mostly on
sidelong ground, was cut down on the upper side and embanked up on the
other by means of the excavated earth. This was comparatively easy work;
but a matter of greater difficulty was to accommodate the streams which
flowed across the course of the canal. This was, however, provided for
in a highly ingenious manner. For instance, a stream called Cornbrook
was found too high to pass under the canal at its natural level.
Accordingly, Brindley contrived a weir, over which the stream fell into
a large basin, from whence it flowed into a smaller one open at the
bottom. From this point a culvert, constructed under the bed of the
canal, carried the waters across to a well situated on its further side,
where the waters rising up to their natural level, again flowed away in
their proper channel. A similar expedient was adopted at the Manchester
terminus of the canal, at the point at which it joined the waters of the
Medlock.

It was a principle of Brindley's never to permit the waters of any river
or brook to intermix with those of the canal except for the purpose of
supply; as it was clear that in a time of flood such intermingling would
be a source of great danger to the navigation. In order, therefore, to
provide for the free passage of the Medlock without causing a rush into
the canal, a weir was contrived 366 yards in circumference, over which
its waters flowed into a lower level, and from thence into a well
several yards in depth, down which the whole river fell. It was received
at the bottom in a subterranean passage, by which it passed into the
river Irwell, near at hand. The weir was very ingeniously contrived,
though it was afterwards found necessary to make considerable
alterations and improvements in it, as experience suggested, in order
effectually to accommodate the flood-waters of the Medlock. Arthur
Young, when visiting the canal, shortly after it was opened up to
Manchester, says, "The whole plan of these works shows a capacity and
extent of mind which foresees difficulties, and invents remedies in
anticipation of possible evils. The connection and dependence of the
parts upon each other are happily imagined; and all are exerted in
concert, to command by every means the wished-for success." [11]

Brindley's labours, however, were not confined to the construction of
the canal, but his attention seems to have been equally directed to the
contrivance of the whole of the arrangements and machinery by which it
was worked. The open navigation between Worsley Mill and Manchester was
10.5 miles in length. A large basin was excavated at the former place,
of sufficient capacity to contain a great many boats, and to serve as a
head for the navigation.

It is at Worsley Basin that the canal enters the bottom of the hill by a
subterranean channel which extends for a great distance,--connecting the
different workings of the mine,--so that the coals can be readily
transported in boats to their place of sale. A representation of the
basin is given in the annexed cut. It lies at the base of a cliff of
sandstone, some hundred feet in height, overhung by luxuriant foliage,
beyond which is seen the graceful spire of Worsley church. In contrast
to this scenic beauty above, lies the almost stagnant pool beneath. The
barges[12] laden with coal emerge from the mine through the two low,
semi-circular arches opening at the base of the rock, such being the
entrances to the underground workings. The smaller aperture is the mouth
of a canal of only half a mile in length, serving to prevent the
obstruction which would be caused by the entrance and egress of so many
barges through a single passage. The other archway is the entrance of a
wider channel, extending nearly six miles in the direction of Bolton,
from which various other canals diverge in different directions.

In Brindley's time, this subterranean canal, hewn out of the rock, was
only about a mile in length, but it now extends to nearly forty miles in
all directions underground. Where the tunnel passed through earth or
coal, the arching was of brickwork; but where it passed through rock, it
was simply hewn out. This tunnel acts not only as a drain and
water-feeder for the canal itself, but as a means of carrying the
facilities of the navigation through the very heart of the collieries;
and it will readily be seen of how great a value it must have proved in
the economical working of the navigation, as well as of the mines, so
far as the traffic in coals was concerned.

At every point Brindley's originality and skill were at work. He
invented the cranes for the purpose of more readily loading the boats
with the boxes filled with the Duke's "black diamonds." He also
contrived and laid down within the mines a system of underground
railways, all leading from the face of the coal, where the miners
worked, to the wells which he had made at different points in the
tunnels, through which the coals were shot into the boats waiting below
to receive them. At Manchester. where they were unloaded for sale, the
contrivances which he employed were equally ingenious. It was at flint
intended that the canal should terminate at the foot of Castle Hill, up
which the coals were dragged by their purchasers from the boats in
wheelbarrows or carts. But the toil of dragging the loads up the hill
was found very great; and, to remedy the inconvenience, Brindley
contrived to extend the canal for some way into the hill, opening a
shaft from the surface of the ground down to the level of the water. The
barges having made their way to the foot of this shaft, the boxes of
coal were hoisted to the surface by a crane, worked by a box water-wheel
of 30 feet diameter and 4 feet 4 inches wide, driven by the waterfall of
the river Medlock. In this contrivance Brindley was only adopting a
modification of the losing and gaining bucket, moved on a vertical
pillar, which he had before successfully employed in drawing water out
of coal-mines. By these means the coals were rapidly raised to the
higher ground, where they were sold and distributed, greatly to the
convenience of those who came to purchase them.

Brindley's practical ability was equally displayed in planning and
building a viaduct or in fitting up a crane--in carrying out an
embankment or in contriving a coal-barge. The range and fertility of his
constructive genius were extraordinary. For the Duke, he invented
water-weights at Rough Close, riddles to wash coal for the forges,
raising dams, and numerous other contrivances of well-adapted mechanism.
At Worsley he erected a steam-engine for draining those parts of the
mine which were beneath the level of the canal, and consequently could
not be drained into it; and he is said to have erected, at a cost of
only 150l., an engine which until that time no one bad known how to
construct for less than 500l. At the mouth of one of the mines he
erected a water-bellows for the purpose of forcing fresh air into the
interior, and thus ventilating the workings.[13] At the entrance of the
underground canal he designed and built a mill of a new construction,
driven by an over-shot wheel twenty-four feet in diameter, which worked
three pair of stones for grinding corn, besides a dressing or boulting
mill, and a machine for sifting sand and mixing mortar.

Brindley's quickness of observation and readiness in turning
circumstances to advantage were equally displayed in the mode by which
he contrived to obtain an ample supply of lime for building purposes
during the progress of the works. We give the account as related by
Arthur Young :--"In carrying on the navigation," he observes, "a vast
quantity of masonry was necessary for building aqueducts, bridges,
warehouses, wharves, &c., and the want of lime was felt severely. The
search that was made for matters that would burn into lime was for a
long time fruitless. At last Mr. Brindley met with a substance of a
chalky kind, which, like the rest, he tried; but found (though it was of
a limestone nature--limemarl, which was found along the sides of the
canal, about a foot below the surface) that, for want of adhesion in the
parts, it would not make lime. This most inventive genius happily fell
upon an expedient to remedy this misfortune. He thought of tempering
this earth in the nature of brick-earth, casting it in moulds like
bricks, and then burning it; and the success was answerable to his
wishes. In that state it burnt readily into excellent lime; and this
acquisition was one of the most important that could have been made. I
have heard it asserted more than once that this stroke was better than
twenty thousand pounds in the Duke's pocket; but, like most common
assertions of the same kind, it is probably an exaggeration. However
whether the discovery was worth five, ten, or twenty thousand, it
certainly was of noble use, and forwarded all the works in an
extraordinary manner." [14]

It has been stated that Brindley's nervous excitement was so great on
the occasion of the letting of the water into the canal, that he took to
his bed at the Wheatsheaf, in Stretford, and lay there until all cause
for apprehension was over. The tension on his brain must have been
great, with so tremendous a load of work and anxiety upon him; but that
he "ran away,"[15] as some of his detractors have alleged, is at variance
with the whole character and history of the man.

The Duke's canal, when finished, was for a long time regarded as the
wonder of the neighbourhood. Strangers looked from a distance to see
Brindley's "castle in the air;" and contemporary writers spoke in
glowing terms of the surprise with which they saw several barges of
great burthen drawn by a single mule or horse along "a river hung in the
air," over another river flowing underneath, by the side of which some
ten or twelve men might be seen slowly hauling a single barge against
the stream. A lady who writes a description of the work in 1765, speaks
of it as "perhaps the greatest artificial curiosity in the world;" and
she states that "crowds of people, including those of the first fashion,
resort to it daily."

The chief importance of the work, however, consisted in its valuable
uses. Manchester was now regularly and cheaply supplied with coals. The
average price was at once reduced by one-half--from 7d. the cwt. to 3
1/2d. (six score being given to the cwt.)--and the supply was regular
instead of intermitting, as it had formerly been. But the full
advantages of this improved supply of coals were not experienced until
many years after the opening of the canal, when the invention of the
steam-engine, and its extensive employment as a motive power in all
manufacturing operations, rendered a cheap and abundant supply of fuel
of vital importance to the growth and prosperity of Manchester and its
neighbourhood.




CHAPTER IV.

EXTENSION OF THE DUKE'S CANAL TO THE MERSEY.

THE CANAL had scarcely been opened to Manchester when we find Brindley
occupied, at the instance of the Duke, in surveying the country between
Stretford and the river Mersey, with the view of carrying out a canal in
that direction for the accommodation of the growing trade between
Liverpool and Manchester. The first boat-load of coals sailed over the
Barton viaduct to Manchester on the 17th of July, 1761; on the 7th of
September following we find Brindley at Liverpool,[1] "rocconitoring;"
and, by the end of the month, he was busily engaged levelling for a
proposed canal to join the Mersey at Hemp-stones, about eight miles
below Warrington Bridge, from whence there was a natural tideway to
Liverpool, about fifteen miles distant.

The project in question was a very important one on public grounds. We
have seen how the community of Manchester had been hampered by defective
road and water communications, which seriously affected its supplies of
food and fuel, and, at the same time, by retarding its trade, hindered
to a considerable extent the regular employment of its population. The
Duke of Bridgewater, by constructing his canal, had opened up an
abundant supply of coal, but the transport of the raw materials of
manufacture was still as much impeded as before. Liverpool was the
natural port of Manchester, from which it drew its supplies of cotton,
wool, silk, and other produce, and to which it returned them for export
when worked up into manufactured articles.

There were two existing modes by which the communication was kept up
between the two places: one was by the ordinary roads, and the other by
the rivers Mersey and Irwell. From a statement published in December,
1761, it appears that the weight of goods then carried by land from
Manchester to Liverpool was "upwards of forty tons per week," or about
two thousand tons a year. This quantity, insignificant though it must
appear when compared with the enormous traffic now passing between the
two towns, was then thought very large, as no doubt it was when the
limited trade of the country is taken into account. But the cost of
transport was the important feature; it was not less than two pounds
sterling per ton--this heavy charge being almost entirely attributable
to the execrable state of the roads. It was scarcely possible to drive
waggons along the ruts and through the sloughs which lay between the two
places at certain seasons of the year, and even pack-horses had
considerable difficulty in making the journey.

The other route between the towns was by the navigation of the rivers
Mersey and Irwell. The raw materials used in manufacture were
principally transported from Liverpool to Manchester by this route, at a
cost of about twelve shillings per ton; the carriage of timber and such
like articles costing not less than twenty per cent. on their value at
Liverpool. But the navigation was also very tedious and difficult. The
boats could only pass up to the first lock at the Liverpool end with the
assistance of a spring tide; and further up the river there were
numerous fords and shallows which the boats could only pass in great
freshes, or, in dry seasons, by drawing extraordinary quantities of
water from the locks above. Then, in winter, the navigation was apt to
be impeded by floods, and occasionally it was stopped altogether. In
short, the growing wants of the population demanded an improved means of
transit between the two towns, which the Duke of Bridgewater now
determined to supply.

The growth of Liverpool as a seaport has been comparatively recent. At a
time when Bristol and Hull possessed thriving harbours, resorted to by
foreign ships, Liverpool was little better than a fishing village, its
only distinction being that it was a convenient place for setting sail
to Ireland. In the war between France and England which broke out in
1347, when Edward the Third summoned the various ports in the kingdom to
make contributions towards the naval power according to their means,
London was required to provide 25 ships and 662 men; Bristol 22 ships
and 608 men; Hull, 16 ships and 466 men; whilst Liverpool was only asked
to find 1 bark and 6 men! In Queen Elizabeth's time, the burgesses
presented a petition to Her Majesty, praying her to remit a subsidy
which had been imposed upon it and other seaport towns, in which they
styled their native place "Her Majesty's poor decayed town of Liverpool"
Chester was then of considerably greater importance as a port. In
1634-5, when Charles I. made his unconstitutional levy of ship-money
throughout England, Liverpool was let off with a contribution of 15l.,
whilst Chester paid 100l., and Bristol not less than 1000l.

The channel of the Dee, however, becoming silted up, the trade of
Chester decayed, and that of Liverpool rose upon its ruins. In 1699 the
excavation of the Old Dock was begun; but it was used only as a tidal
harbour (being merely an enclosed space with a small pier) until the
year 1709, when an Act was obtained enabling its conversion into a wet
dock; since which time a series of docks have been constructed,
extending for about five miles along the north shore of the Mersey,
which are among the greatest works of modern times, and afford an almost
unequalled amount of shipping accommodation.

From that time forward the progress of the port of Liverpool has kept
steady pace with the trade and wealth of the country behind it, and
especially with the manufacturing activity and energy of the town of
Manchester. Its situation at the mouth of a deep and navigable river,
its convenient proximity to districts abounding in coal and iron and
inhabited by an industrious and hardy population, were unquestionably
great advantages. But these of themselves would have been insufficient
to account for the extraordinary progress made by Liverpool during the
last century, without the opening up of the great system of' canals,
which brought not only the towns of Yorkshire, Cheshire, and Lancashire
into immediate connection with that seaport, but also the manufacturing
districts of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, and the other central counties
of England situated at the confluence of the various navigations.[2]
Liverpool thus became the great focus of import and export for the
northern and western districts. The raw materials of commerce were
poured into it from Ireland, America, and the Indies. From thence they
were distributed along the canals amongst the various seats of
manufacturing industry, and a large proportion was readily returned by
the same route to the same port, in a manufactured state, for shipment
to all parts of the world.

At the time of which we speak, however, it will be observed that the
communication between Liverpool and Manchester was very imperfect. It
was not only difficult to convey goods between the two places, but it
was also difficult to convey persons. In fine weather, those who
required to travel the thirty miles which separated them, could ride or
walk, resting at Warrington for the night. But in winter the roads, like
most of the other country roads at the time, were simply impassable.
Although an Act had been passed as early as the year 1726 for repairing
and enlarging the road from Liverpool to Prescot, coaches could not come
nearer to the town than Warrington in 1750, the road being impracticable
for such vehicles even in summer.[3]

A stage-coach was not started between Liverpool and Manchester until the
year 1 767, performing the journey only three times a week. It required
six and sometimes eight horses to draw the lumbering vehicle and its
load along the ruts and through the sloughs,--the whole day being
occupied in making the journey. The coach was accustomed to start early
in the morning from Liverpool; it breakfasted at Prescot, dined at
Warrington, and arrived at Manchester usually in time for supper. On one
occasion, at Warrington, the coachman intimated his wish to proceed,
when the company requested him to take another pint, as they had not
finished their wine, asking him at the same time if he was in a hurry?
"Oh," replied the driver, "I'm not particular to an hour or so !" As
late as 1775, no mail-coach ran between Liverpool and any other town,
the bags being conveyed to and from it on horseback; and one
letter-carrier was found sufficient for the wants of the place. A heavy
stage then ran, or rather crawled, between Liverpool and London, making
only four journeys a week in the winter time. It started from the Golden
Talbot, in Water Street, and was three days on the road. It went by
Middlewich, where one of its proprietors kept the White Bear inn; and
during the Knutsford race-week the coach was sent all the way round by
that place, in order to bring customers to the Bear.

We have said that Brindley was engaged upon the preliminary survey of a
canal to connect Manchester with the Mersey, immediately after the
original Worsley line had been opened, and before its paying qualities
had been ascertained. But the Duke, having once made up his mind as to
the expediency of carrying out this larger project, never halted nor
looked back, but made arrangements for prosecuting a bill for the
purpose of enabling the canal to be made in the very next session of
Parliament.

We find that Brindley's first visit to Liverpool and the intervening
district on the business of the survey was made early in September,
1761. During the remainder of the month he was principally occupied in
Staffordshire looking after the working of his fire-engine at Penton
Vivian, carrying out improvements in the silk-manufactory at Congleton,
and inspecting various mills at Newcastle-under-Lyne and the
neighbourhood. His only idle day during that month seems to have been
the 22nd, which was a holiday, for he makes the entry in his book of
"crounation of Georg and Sharlot," the new King and Queen of England. By
the 25th we find him again with the Duke at Worsley, and on the 30th he
makes the entry, "set out at Dunham to Level for Liverpool." The work
then went on continuously until the survey was completed; and on the
19th of November he set out for London, with 7l. 18s. in his pocket.

In the course of his numerous journeys, we find Brindley carefully
noting down the various items of his expenses, which were curiously
small. Although he was four or five days on the road to London, and
stayed eight days there, his total expenses, both going and returning,
amounted to only 4l. 8s.: it is most probable, however, that he lived at
the Duke's house whilst in town. On the 1st of December we find him, on
his return journey to Worsley, resting the first night at a place called
Brick-hill; the next at Coventry, where he makes the entry, "Moy mar had
a bad fall in the frasst;" the third at Sandon; the fourth at Congleton;
and the fifth at Worsley. He had still some inquiries to make as to the
depth of water and the conditions of the tide at Hempstones; and for
three days he seems to have been occupied in traffic-taking, with a view
to the evidence to be given before Parliament; for on the 10th of
December we find him at Stretford, "to count the caridgos," and on the
12th he is at Manchester for the same purpose, "counting the boded
caridgos and horses."

The following bill refers to some of the work done by him at this time,
and is a curious specimen of an engineer's travelling charges in those
days--the engineer himself being at the same time paid at the rate of
3s. 6d. a day :--

Expenses for His Grace the Duk of Bridgwator to pay for traveling
Chareges by James Brindley.

18 Novem--1761.

18 No masuring a Cros from Dunham to Warbuton Mercey and Thalwall,
    3s - 11d Dunham for 2 diners 1s - 3d for the man 1s - Od at
    Thalwall 1s - 2d all Night Warington                           0 7 4
19 Novem Sat out from Chester for London & at Worsley Septm 5
    Retorned beck going to London and at London & hors back to
    Worsley Charged Hors & my salf                                 4 8 0
9 december Coming back from Ham Stone Charges at Wilderspool
    all Night                                                      0 8 0
    at Warington to meet Mr Ashley dining                          0 4 2
10 to ataind the Turn pike Rode 2s - 6d & againe on the 12 De
    Rode 3s-6d                                                     0 6 0
21 Decm to inspect the flux and Reflux at Ham Stone 2 dayes Charges0 6 6
_______
26 Decr 1761. Reed the Contents of the above Bill by the Hands of
    John Gilbert. James Brindley                                 #6 00 0

In the early part of the month of January, 1762, we find Brindley busy
measuring soughs, gauging the tides at Hempstones and examining and
altering the Duke's paper-mills and iron slitting-mills at Worsley; and
on the 7th we find this entry: "to masuor the Duks pools I and Smeaton."
On the following day he makes "an ochilor survey from Saldnoor [Sale
Moor] to Stockport," with a view to a branch canal being carried in that
direction. On the 14th, he sets out from Congleton, by way of Ashbourne,
Northampton, and Dunstable, arriving in London on the fifth day.

Immediately on his arrival in town we find him proceeding to rig himself
out in a new suit of clothes. His means were small, his habits thrifty,
and his wardrobe scanty; but as he was about to appear in an important
character, as the principal engineering witness before a Parliamentary
Committee in support of the Duke's bill, lie felt it necessary to incur
an extra expenditure on dress for the occasion. Accordingly, on the
morning of the 18th we find him expending a guinea--an entire week's
pay--in the purchase of a pair of new breeches: two guineas on a coat
and waistcoat of broadcloth, and six shillings for a pair of new shoes.
The subjoined is a facsimile of the entry in his pocketbook-

It will be observed that an expenditure is here entered of nine
shillings for going to "the play." It would appear that his friend
Gilbert, who was in London with him on the canal business, prevailed on
Brindley to go with him to the theatre to see Garrick in the play of
'Richard III.,' and he went. He had never been to an entertainment of
the kind before; but the excitement which it caused him was so great,
and it so completely disturbed his ideas, that he was unfitted for
business for several days after. He then declared that no consideration
should tempt him to go a second time, and he held to his resolution.
This was his first and only visit to the play. The following week he
enters in his memorandum-hook concerning himself "ill in bed," and the
first Sunday after his recovery we find him attending service at "Sant
Mary's Church." The service did not make him ill, as the play had done,
and on the following day he attended the House of Commons on the subject
of the Duke's bill.

The proposed canal from Manchester to the Mersey at Hempstones stirred
up an opposition which none of the Duke's previous bills had
encountered. Its chief opponents were the proprietors of the Mersey and
Irwell Navigation, who saw their monopoly assailed by the measure; and,
unable though they had been satisfactorily to conduct the then traffic
between Liverpool and Manchester, they were unwilling to allow of any
additional water service being provided between the two towns. Having
already had sufficient evidence of the Duke's energy and enterprise,
from what he had been able to effect in so short a time in forming the
canal between Worsley and Manchester, the Navigation Company were not
without reason alarmed at his present project.

At first they tried to buy him off by concessions. They offered to
reduce the rate of 3s. 4d. per ton of coals, timber, etc., conveyed upon
the Irwell between Barton and Manchester, to 6d. if he would join their
Navigation at Barton and abandon the part of his canal between that
point and Manchester; but he would not now be diverted from which he
resolved to carry into execution if possible. Again they tried to
conciliate his Grace by him certain exclusive advantages in the use of
their Navigation. But it was again too late; and the Duke having a clear
idea of the importance of his project, and being assured by his engineer
of its practicability and the great commercial value of the undertaking,
determined to proceed with the measure. It offered to the public the
advantages of a shorter line of navigation, not liable to be interrupted
by floods on the one hand or droughts on the other, and, at the same
time, a much lower rate of freight, the maximum charge proposed in the
bill being 6s. a ton against 12s., the rate charged by the Mersey and
Irwell Navigation between Liverpool and Manchester.

The opposition to the bill was led by Lord Strange, son of the Earl of
Derby, one of the members for the county of Lancaster, who took the part
of the "Old Navigators," as they were called, in resisting the bill. The
question seems also to have been treated as a political one; and, the
Duke and his friends being Whigs, Lord Strange mustered the Tory party
strongly against him. Hence we find this entry occurring in Brindley's
notebook, under date the 16th of February: "The Toores [Tories] mad had
[made head] agane ye Duk."

The principal objections offered to the proposed canal were, that the
landowners would suffer by it from having their lands cut through and
covered with water, by which a great number of acres would be for ever
lost to the public; that there was no necessity whatever for the canal,
the Mersey and Irwell Navigation being sufficient to carry more goods
than the trade then existing required; that the new navigation would run
almost parallel with the old one, and offered no advantage to the public
which the existing river navigation did not supply; that the canal would
drain away the waters which supplied the rivers, and be very prejudicial
to them, if not totally destructive, in dry seasons; that the
proprietors of the old navigation had invested their money on the faith
of protection by Parliament, and w permit the new canal to be
established would be a gross interference with their vested rights; and
so on.

To these objections there were very sufficient answers. The bill
provided for full compensation being made to the owners of lands through
which the canal passed, and, in addition, it was provided that all sorts
of manure should he carried for them without charge. It was also shown
that the Duke's canal could not abstract water from either the Mersey or
the Irwell, as the level of both rivers was considerably below that of
the intended canal, which would be supplied almost entirely from the
drainage of his own coal-mines at Worsley; and with respect to the plea
of vested rights set up, it was shown that Parliament, in granting
certain powers to the old navigators, had regard mainly to the
convenience and advantage of the public; and they were not precluded
from empowering a new navigation to be formed if it could be proved to
present a more convenient and advantageous mode of conveyance.

On these grounds the Duke was strongly supported by the inhabitants of
the localities proposed to be served by the intended canal. The "Junto
of Old Navigators of the Mersey and Irwell Company" had for many years
carried things with a very high hand, extorted the highest rates, and,
in cases of loss by delay or damage to goods in transit, refused all
redress. A feeling very hostile to them and their monopoly had
accordingly grown up, which now exhibited itself in a powerful array of
petitions to Parliament in favour of the Duke's bill.

On the 17th of February, 1762, the bill came before the Committee of the
House of Commons, and Brindley was examined in its support. We regret
that no copy of his evidence now exists [4] from which we might have an
opinion of the engineer's abilities as a witness. Some curious anecdotes
have, however, been preserved of his demeanour and evidence on canal
bilk before Parliament. When asked, on one occasion, to produce a
drawing of an intended bridge, he replied that he had no plan of it on
paper, but he would illustrate it by a model. He went out and bought a
large cheese, which he brought into the room and cut into two equal
parts, saying, "Here is my model." The two halves of the cheese
represented the semicircular arches of his bridge; and by laying over
them some long rectangular object, he could thus readily communicate to
the Committee the position of the river flowing underneath and the canal
passing over it.[5]

On another occasion, when giving his evidence, he spoke so frequently
about "puddling," describing its uses and advantages, that some of the
members expressed a desire to know what this extraordinary mixture was,
that could be applied to such important purposes. Preferring a practical
illustration to a verbal description, Brindley caused a mass of clay to
be brought into the committee-room, and, moulding it in its raw
untempered state into the form of a trough, he poured into it some
water, which speedily ran through and disappeared. He then worked the
clay up with water to imitate the process of puddling, and again forming
it into a trough, filled it with water, which was now held in without a
particle of leakage. "Thus it is," said Brindley, "that I form a
water-tight trunk to carry water over rivers and valleys, wherever they
cross the path of the canal."[6]

Again, when Brindley was giving evidence before a Committee of the House
of Peers as to the lockage of his proposed canal, one of their Lordships
asked him, "But what is a lock?" on which the engineer took a piece of
chalk from his pocket and proceeded to explain it by means of a diagram
which he drew upon the floor, and made the matter clear at once.[7] He
used to be so ready with his chalk for purposes of illustration, that it
became a common saying in Lancashire, that "Brindley and chalk would go
through the world." He was never so eloquent as when with his chalk in
hand,--it stood him in lieu of tongue.

On the day following Brindley's examination before the Committee on the
Duke's bill, that is, on the 18th of February, we find him entering in
his note-book that the Duke sent out "200 leators" to members--possible
friends of the measure; containing his statement of reasons in favour of
the bill. On the 20th Mr. Tomkinson, the Duke's solicitor, was under
examination for four hours and a half. Sunday intervened, on which day
Brindley records that he was "at Lord Harrington's." On the following
day, the 22nd, the evidence for the bill was finished, and the Duke
followed this up by sending out 250 more letters to members, with an
abstract of the evidence given in favour of the measure. On the 26th
there was a debate of eight hours on the bill, followed by a division,
in Committee of the whole House, thus recorded by Brindley :-- 

"ad a grate Division of 127 fort Duk
         98 nos
          for t'e Duk 29 Me Jorete"

But the bill had still other discussions and divisions to encounter
before it was safe. The Duke and his agents worked with great assiduity.
On the 3rd of March he caused 250 more letters to be distributed amongst
the members; and on the day after we find the House wholly occupied with
the bill. We quote again from Brindley's record: "4 [March] ade bate at
the Hous with grate 'vigor 3 divisons the Duke carred by Numbers evory
time a 4 division moved but Noos yelded." On the next day we read "wont
thro the closos;" from which we learn that the clauses were settled and
passed. Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Tomkinson then set out for Lancashire: the
bill was safe. It passed the third reading, Brindley making mention that
"Lord Strange" was "sick with geef [grief] on that affair Mr. Welibron
want Rong god,"--which latter expression we do not clearly understand,
unless it was that Mr. Wilbraham wanted to wrong God. The bill was
carried to the Lords, Brindley on the 10th March making the entry, "Touk
the Lords oath." But the bill passed the Upper House "without
opposishin," and received the Royal Assent on the 24th of the same
month.

On the day following the passage of the bill through the House of Lords
(of which Brindley makes the triumphant entry, "Lord Strange defetted")'
he set out for Lancashire, after nine weary weeks' stay in London. To
hang about the lobbies of the House and haunt the office of the
Parliamentary agent, must have been excessively irksome to a man like
Brindley, accustomed to incessant occupation and to see works growing
under his hands. During this time we find him frequently at the office
of the Duke's solicitor in "Mary Axs;" sometimes with Mr. Tomkinson, who
paid him his guinea a-week during the latter part of his stay; and on
several occasions he is engaged with gentlemen from the country,
advising them about "saltworks at Droitwich" and mill-arrangements in
Cheshire.

Many things had fallen behind during his absence and required his
attention, so he at once set out home; but the first day, on reaching
Dunstable, he was alarmed to find that his mare, so long unaccustomed to
the road, had "allmost lost ye use of her Limes" [limbs]. He therefore
went on slowly, as the mare was a great favourite with him--his
affection for the animal having on one occasion given rise to a serious
quarrel between him and Mr. Gilbert--and he did not reach Congleton
until the sixth day after his setting out from London. He rested at
Congleton for two days, during which he "settled the geering of the
silk-mill," and then proceeded straight on to Worsley to set about the
working survey of the new canal.

The course of this important canal, which unites the mills of Manchester
with the shipping of Liverpool, is about twenty-four miles in length.[8]
From Longford Bridge, near Manchester, its course lies in a
south-westerly direction for some distance, crossing the river Mersey at
a point about five miles above its junction with the Irwell. At
Altrincham it proceeds in a westerly direction, crossing the river
Bollin about three miles further on, near Dunham. After crossing the
Bollin, it describes a small semicircle, proceeding onward in the valley
of the Mersey, and nearly in the direction of the river as far as the
crossing of the high road from Chester to Warrington. It then bends to
the south to preserve the high level, passing in & southerly direction
as far as Preston, in Cheshire, from whence it again turns round to the
north to join the river Mersey. [For Map of the Canal, see pp. 168--9.]

The canal lies entirely in the lower part of the new red sandstone, the
principal earthworks consisting of the clays, marls, bog-earths, and
occasionally the sandstones of this formation. The heaviest bog crossed
in the line of the works was Sale Moor, west of the Mersey. where the
bottom was of quicksand; and the construction of the canal at that part
was probably an undertaking of as formidable a character as the laying
of the railroad over Chat Moss proved some sixty years later. But
Brindley, like Stephenson, looked upon a difficulty as a thing to be
overcome; and when an obstruction presented itself, he at once set his
wits to work and studied how it was best to be grappled with and
surmounted. A large number of brooks had to be crossed, and also two
important rivers, which involved the construction of numerous aqueducts,
bridges, and culverts, to provide for the surface water supply of the
district. It will, therefore, be obvious that the undertaking was of a
much more important nature--more difficult for the engineer to execute,
and more costly to the noble proprietor who found the means for carrying
it to a completion -- than the comparatively limited and inexpensive
work between Worsley and Manchester, which we have above described.

The capital idea which Brindley early formed and determined to carry
out, was to construct a level of dead water all the way from Manchester
to a point as near to the Junction of the canal with the Mersey as might
be found practicable. Such a canal, he clearly saw, would not be .0
expensive to work as one furnished with locks at inter-mediate points.
Brindley's practice of securing long levels of water in canals was in
many respects similar to that of George Stephenson with reference to
flat gradients upon railways; and in all the canals that he constructed,
he planned and carried them out as far as possible after this leading
principle. Hence the whole of the locks on the Duke's canal were
concentrated at its lower end near Runcorn, where the navigation
descended, as it were by & flight of water steps, into the river Mersey.
Lord Ellesmere has observed that this uninterrupted level of the
Bridgewater Canal from Leigh and Manchester to Runcorn, and the
concentration of its descent to the Mersey at the latter place, have
always been considered as among the most striking evidences of the
genius and skill of Brindley.

There was, as usual, considerable delay in obtaining possession of the
land on which to commence the works. The tenants required a certain
notice, which must necessarily expire before the Duke's engineer could
take possession; and numerous obstacles were thrown in his way, both by
tenants and landlords hostile to the undertaking. In many oases the Duke
had to pay dearly for the land purchased under the compulsory powers of
his Act. Near Lymm, the canal passed through a little bit of garden
belonging to & poor man's cottage, the only produce growing upon the
ground being a pear-tree. For this the Duke had to pay thirty guineas,
and it was thought a very extravagant price at that time. Since the
introduction of railways, the price would probably be considered
ridiculously low. For the land on which the warehouses and docks were
built at Manchester, the Duke had to pay in all the much more formidable
sum of about forty thousand pounds.

The Old Quay Navigation, even at the last moment, thought to delay if
not to defeat the Dukes operations, by lowering their rates nearly
one-half. Only a few days after the Royal Assent had been given to the
bill, they published an announcement, appropriately dated the 1st of
April, setting forth the large sacrifices they were about to make, and
intimating that "from their Reductions in Carriage a real and permanent
Advantage will arise to the Public, and they will experience that
Utility so cried up of late, but which has hitherto only existed in
promises." The Duke heeded not the ineffective blow thus aimed at him:
he was only more than ever resolved to go forward with his canal. He was
even offered the Mersey Navigation itself at the price of thirteen
thousand pounds; but he would not have it now at any price.

The public spirit and enterprise displayed by many of the young noblemen
of those days was truly admirable. Brindley had for several years been
in close personal communication with Earl Gower as to the construction
of the canal intended to unite the Mersey with the Trent and the Severn,
and thus connect the ports of Liverpool, Hull, and Bristol, by a system
of inland water-communication. With this object, as we have seen, he had
often visited the Earl at his seat at Trentham, and discussed with him
the plans by which this truly magnificent enterprise was to be carried
out; and he had frequently visited the Earl of Stamford at his seat at
Enville for the same purpose. But those schemes were too extensive and
costly to be carried out by the private means of either of those
noblemen, or even by both combined. They were, therefore, under the
necessity of stirring up the latent enterprise of the landed proprietors
in their respective districts, and waiting until they had received &
sufficient amount of local support to enable them to act with vigour in
carrying their great design into effect

The Duke of Bridgewater's scheme of uniting Manchester and Liverpool by
an entirely new line of water-communication, cut across bogs and out of
the solid earth in some places, and carried over rivers and valleys at
others by bridges and embankments, was scarcely less bold or costly.
Though it was spoken of as another of the Duke's "castles in the air,"
and his resources were by no means overflowing at the time he projected
it, he nevertheless determined to go on alone with it, should no one be
willing to join him. The Duke thus proved himself a real Dux or leader
of industrial enterprise in his district; and by cutting his canal, and
providing a new, short, and cheap water-way between Liverpool and
Manchester, which was afterwards extended through the counties of
Chester, Stafford, and Warwick, he unquestionably paved the way for the
creation the and development of the modern manufacturing system existing
in the north-western counties of England.

We need scarcely say how admirably he was supported throughout by the
skill and indefatigable energy of his engineer. Brindley's fertility in
resources was the theme of general admiration. Arthur Young, who visited
the works during their progress, speaks with enthusiastic admiration of
his "bold and decisive strokes of genius," his "penetration which sees
into futurity, and prevents obstructions unthought of by the vulgar
mind, merely by foreseeing them: a man," says he, "with such ideas,
moves in a sphere that is to the rest of the world imaginary, or at best
a terra incognita."

It would be uninteresting to describe the works of the Bridgewater Canal
in detail; for one part of a canal is usually so like another, that to
do so were merely to involve a needless amount of repetition of a
necessarily dry description. We shall accordingly content ourselves with
referring to the original methods by which Brindley contrived to
overcome the more important difficulties of the undertaking.

From Longford Bridge, where the new works commenced, the canal, which
was originally about eight yards wide and four feet deep, was carried
upon an embankment of about a mile in extent across the valley of the
Mersey. One might naturally suppose that the conveyance of such a mass
of earth must have exclusively employed all the horses and carts in the
neighbourhood for years. But Brindley, with his usual fertility in
expedients, contrived to make the construction of one part of the canal
subservient to the completion of the remainder. He had the stuff
required to make up the embankment brought in boats partly from Worsley
and partly from other parts of the canal where the cutting was in
excess; and the boats, filled with this stuff, were conducted from the
canal along which they had come into watertight caissons or cisterns
placed at the point over which the earth and clay had to be deposited.

The boats, being double, fixed within two feet of each other, had a
triangular trough supported between them of sufficient capacity to
contain about seventeen tons of earth. The bottom of this trough
consisted of a line of trap-doors, which flew open at once on a pin
being drawn, and discharged their whole burthen into the bed of the
canal in an instant. Thus the level of the embankment was raised to the
point necessary to enable the canal to be carried forward to the next
length. Arthur Young was of the opinion that the saving effected by
constructing the Stretford embankment in this way, instead of by carting
the stuff, was equivalent to not less than five thousand per cent! The
materials of the caissons employed in executing this part of the work
were afterwards used in forming temporary locks across the valley of the
Bollin, whilst the embankment was being constructed at that point by a
process almost the very reverse, but of equal ingenuity.

In the same valley of the Mersey the canal had to be carried over a
large brook subject to heavy floods, by means of a strong bridge of two
arches, adjoining which was a third, affording provision for a road.
Further on, the canal was carried over the Mersey itself upon a bridge
with one arch of seventy feet span. Westward of this river lay & very
difficult part of the work, occasioned by the carrying of the navigation
over the Sale Moor Moss. Many thought this an altogether impracticable
thing; as not only had the hollow trunk of earth in which the canal lay
to be made water-tight, but to preserve the level of the water-way it
must necessarily be raised considerably above the level of the Moor
across which it was to be laid. Brindley overcame the difficulty in the
following manner. He made a strong casing of timber-work outside the
intended line of embankment on either side of the canal, by placing deal
balks in an erect position, backing and supporting them on the outside
with other balks laid in rows, and fast screwed together; and on the
front side of this woodwork he had his earth-work brought forward, hard
rammed, and puddled, to form the navigable canal; after which the casing
was moved onward to the part of the work further in advance. and the
bottom having previously been set with rubble and gravel, the embankment
was thus carried forward by degrees, the canal was raised to the proper
level, and the whole was substantially and satisfactorily finished.

A steam-engine of Brindley's contrivance was erected at Dunham Town
Bridge to pump the water from the foundations there. The engine was
called a Sawney, for what reason is not stated, and, for long after, the
bridge was called Sawney's Bridge. The foundations of the under-bridge,
near the same place, were popularly supposed to be set on quicksand; and
old Lord Warrington, when he had occasion to pass under it, would
pretend cautiously to look about him, as if to examine whether the piers
were all right, and then run through as fast as he could. A tall
poplar-tree stood at Dunham Banks, on which a board was nailed showing
the height of the canal level; the people long after called the place
"The Duke's Folly," the name given to it while his scheme was still
believed to be impracticable. But the skill of the engineer baffled
these and other prophets of evil; and the success of his expedients, in
nearly every case of difficulty that occurred, must certainly be
regarded as remarkable, considering the novel and unprecedented
character of the undertaking.

Brindley invariably contrived to economise labour as much as possible,
and many of his expedients with this object were very ingenious. So far
as he could, he endeavoured to make use of the canal itself for the
purpose of forwarding the work. He had a floating blacksmith's forge and
shop, provided with all requisite appliances, fitted up in one barge; a
complete carpenter's shop in another; and a mason's shop in a third; all
of which were floated on as the canal advanced, and were thus always at
hand to supply the requisite facilities for prosecuting the operations
with economy and despatch. Where there was a break in the line of work,
occasioned, for instance, by the erection of some bridge not yet
finished, the engineer had similar barges constructed and carried by
land to other lengths of the canal which were in progress, where they
were floated and advanced in like manner for the use of the workmen.
When the bridge across the Mersey, which was pushed on as rapidly as
possible with the object of economising labour and cost of materials,
was completed, the stone, lime, and timber were brought along the canal
from the Duke's property at Worsley, as well as supplies of clay for the
purpose of puddling the bottom of the waterway; and thus the work
rapidly advanced at all points.

As one of the great objections made to the construction of the canal had
been the danger threatened to the surrounding districts by the bursting
of the embankments, Brindley made it his object to provide against the
occurrence of such an accident by an ingenious expedient. He had steps
or flood-gates contrived and laid in various parts of the bed of the
canal, across its bottom, so that, in the event of a breach occurring in
the bank and a rush of water taking place, the current which must
necessarily set in to that point should have the effect of immediately
raising the valvular floodgates, and so shutting off the stream and
preventing the escape of more water than was contained in the division
between the two nearest gates on either side of the breach. At the same
time, these floodgates might be used for cutting off the waters of the
canal at different points, for the purpose of making any necessary
repairs in particular lengths; the contrivance of waste tubes and plugs
being so arranged that the bed of any part of the canal, more especially
where it passed over the bridges, might be laid bare in & few hours, and
the repairs executed at once.

In devising these ingenious expedients, it ought to be remembered that
Brindley had no previous experience to fall back upon, and possessed no
knowledge of the means which foreign engineers might have adopted to
meet similar emergencies. All had been the result of his own original
thinking and contrivance; and, indeed, many of these devices were
altogether new and original, and had never before been tried by any
engineer.

It is curious to trace the progress of the works by Brindley's own
memoranda, which, though brief, clearly exhibit his marvellous industry
and close application to every detail of the business. He settled with
the farmers for their tenant-right, sold and accounted for the weed cut
down and the gravel dug out along the line of the canal, paid the
workmen employed,[9] laid out the work, measured off the quantities done
from time to time, planned and erected the bridges, designed the canal
boats required for conveying the earth to form the embankments, and
united in himself the varied functions of land-surveyor, carpenter,
mason, brickmaker, boat-builder, paymaster, and engineer. We even find
him condescending to count bricks and sell grass. Nothing was too small
for him to attend to, nor too bold for him to undertake, when necessity
required. At the same time we find him contriving a water-plane for the
Duke's collieries at Worsley, and occasionally visiting New-chapel,
Leek, and Congleton, in Cheshire, for the purpose of attending to the
business on which he still continued to be employed at those places.

The heavy works at the crossing of the Mersey occupied him almost
exclusively towards the end of the year 1763. He was there making dams
and pushing on the building of the bridge. Occasionally he enters the
words, "short of men at Cornbrook." Indeed, he seems at that time to
have lived upon the works, for we find the almost daily entry of "dined
at the Bull, 6d." On the 10th of November he makes this entry: "Aftor
noon sattled about the size of the arch over the river Marsee [Mersey]
to be 66 foot span and rise 164 feet." Next day he is "landing balk out
of the ould river in to the canal." Then he goes on, "I prosceded to
Worsley Mug was corking ye boats the masons woss making the senter of
the waire [weir]. Whithe was osing to put the later side of the
water-wheel srouds on I orderd the pit for ye spindle of ye morter-mill
to be sunk level with ye canal Mr. Gilbert sade ye 20 Tun Boat should be
at ye water initang [meeting] by 7 o'clock the next morn." Next morning
he is on the works at Cornhill, setting "a carpenter to make scrwos"
[screws], superintending the gravelling of the towing-path, and
arranging with a farmer as to Mr. Gilbert's slack. And so he goes on from
day to day with the minutest details of the undertaking.

He was not without his petty "werrets" and troubles either. Brindley and
Gilbert do not seem to have got on very well together. They were both
men of strong tempers, and neither would tolerate the other's
interference. Gilbert, being the Duke's factotum, was accustomed to call
Brindley's men from their work, which the other would not brook. Hence
we have this entry on one occasion,--"A meshender [messenger] from Mr G
I retorned the anser No more sosiety." In fact, they seem to have
quarrelled.[10]

We find the following further entries on the subject in Brindley's
note-book: "Thursday 17 Novr past 7 o'clock at night M Gilbert and sun
Tom ealed on mee at Gorshill and I went with them to ye Coik [sign of
the Cock] tha stade all night and the had balk [blank?] bill of parsill
18 Fryday November 7 morn I went to the Cock and Bruck. fast with
Gilberts he in davred to imploye ye carpinters at Conihill in making
door and window frames for a Building in Castle field and shades for the
mynors in Dito and other things I want them to Saill Moor Ilee took upon
him diriction of ye back drains and likwaise such Lands as be twixt the
2 hous and ceep uper side the large farme and was displesed with such
raing as I had pointed out."

Those differences between Brindley and Gilbert were eventually
reconciled, most probably by the mediation of the Duke, for the services
of both were alike essential to him; and we afterwards find them working
cordially together and consulting each other as before on any important
part of the undertaking.

During the construction of Longford Bridge, Brindley seems, from his
note-book, to have entertained considerable apprehensions as to its
ability to resist the heavy floods with which it was threatened. Thus,
on the 26th of November, 1763, he enters :--"Grate Rains the canal rose
2 inches extra I dreed fr [4?] clock at Longfoard;" and on the following
day, which was a Sunday, he writes:--"Lay in Bad till noon floode and
Raine." Then in the afternoon he adds, "The water in Longfoord Brook was
withe in six inches of the high of the santer [centre] of ye waire [weir
?]." The bridge, however, stood firm; and when the flood subsided, the
building was again proceeded with; and by the end of the year it was
finished and gravelled over, while the embankment was steadily
proceeding beyond the Mersey in the manner above described.

Brindley did not want for good workmen to carry out his plans. He found
plenty of labourers in the neighbourhood accustomed to bard work, who
speedily became expert excavators; and though there was at first a lack
of skilled carpenters, blacksmiths, and bricklayers, they soon became
trained into such under the vigilant eye of so able & master as Brindley
was. We find him, in his note-book, often referring to the men by their
names, or rather byenames; for in Lancashire proper names seem to have
been little used at that time. "Black David" was one of the foremen most
employed on difficult matters, and "Bill o Toms" and "Busick Jack" seem
also to have been confidential workmen in their respective departments.
We are informed by a gentleman of the neighbourhood [11] that most of the
labourers employed were of a superior class, and some of them were
"wise" or "cunning men," blood-stoppers, herb-doctors, and
planet-rulers, such as are still to be found in the neighbourhood of
Manchester. Their very superstitions, says our informant, made them
thinkers and calculators. The foreman bricklayer, for instance, as his
son used afterwards to relate, always "ruled the planets to find out the
lucky days on which to commence any important work," and he added, "none
of our work ever gave way." The skilled men had their trade-secrets, in
which the unskilled were duly initiated,--simple matters in themselves,
but not without their uses. The following may be taken as specimens of
the secrets of embanking in those days:--

A wet embankment can be prevented from slipping by dredging or dusting
powdered lime in layers over the wet clay or earth.
   Sand or gravel can be made water-tight by shaking it together with
fiat bars of iron run in some depth, say two feet, and washing down loam
or soil as the bars are moved about, thus obviating the necessity for
clay puddle.
   Dry-rot can be prevented in warehouses by setting the bricks opposite
the ends of the main beams of the warehouse in dry sand.

Whilst constructing the canal, Brindley was very intimate with one
Lawrence Earnshaw, of Mottram-in-Longdendale, a kindred mechanical
genius, though in a smaller way. Lawrence was a very poor man's son, and
had served a seven years' apprenticeship to the trade of a tailor, after
which he bound himself apprentice to a clothier fur seven years; but
these trades not suiting his tastes, and being of a decidedly mechanical
turn, he finally bound himself apprentice to a clockmaker, whom he also
served for seven years. This eccentric person invented many curious and
ingenious machines, which were regarded as of great merit in his time.
One of these was an astronomical and geographical machine, beautifully
executed, showing the earth's diurnal and annual motion, after the
manner of an orrery. The whole of the calculations were made by himself,
and the machine is said to have been so exactly contrived and executed
that, provided the vibration of the pendulum did not vary, the machine
would not alter a minute in a hundred years; but this might probably be
an extravagant estimate on the part of Earnshaw's friends. He was also &
musical instrument maker and music teacher, & worker in metals and in
wood, & painter and glazier, an optician, & bellfounder, & chemist and
metallurgist, an engraver--in short, an almost universal mechanical
genius. But though he could make all these things, it is mentioned as &
remarkable feet, that with all his ingenuity, and after many efforts
(for he made many), he never could make & wicker-basket! Indeed, trying
to be & universal genius was his ruin, He did, or attempted to do, so
much, that he never stood still and established himself in any one
thing; and, notwithstanding his great ability, he died "not worth &
groat." Amongst Earnshaw's various contrivances was & piece of machinery
to raise water from & coal-mine at Hague, near Mottram, and (about 1753)
a machine to spin and reel cotton at one operation--in fact, &
spinning-jenny--which be showed to some of his neighbours as &
curiosity, but, after having convinced them of what might be done by its
means, he immediately destroyed it, saying that "he would not be the
means of taking bread out of the mouths of the poor." [12] He was a total
abstainer from strong drink, long before the days of Teetotal Societies.
Towards the end of his life he continued on intimate terms with
Brindley; and when they met they did not readily separate.

While the undertaking was in full progress, from four to six hundred men
were employed; they were divided into gangs of about fifty, each of
which was directed by a captain and setter-out of the works. One who
visited the canal during its construction in 1765, wrote thus of the
busy scene which the works presented: "I surveyed the Duke's men for two
hours, and think the industry of bees or labour of ants is not to be
compared to them. Each man's work seems to depend on and be connected
with his neighbour's, and the whole posse appeared as I conceive did
that of the Tyrians when they wanted houses to put their heads in at
Carthage." [13] At Stretford the visitor found "four hundred men at work,
putting the finishing stroke to about two hundred yards of the canal,
which reached nearly to the Mersey, and which, on drawing up the
floodgates, was to receive a proper quantity of water and a number of
loaded barges. One of these appeared like the hull of a corner, with its
deck all covered, after the manner of a cabin, and having an iron
chimney in the centre; this, on inquiry, proved to be the carpentry, but
was shut up, being Sabbath-day, as was another barge, which contained
the smith's forge. Some vessels were loaded with soil, which was put
into troughs (see cut, p. 205), fastened together, and rested on boards
that lay across two barges; between each of these there was room enough
to discharge the loading by loosening some iron pins at the bottom of
the troughs. Other barges lay loaded with the foundation-stones of the
canal bridge, which is to carry the navigation across the Mersey. Near
two thousand oak piles are already driven to strengthen the foundations
of this bridge. The carpenters on the Lancashire side were preparing the
centre frame, and on the Cheshire side all hands were at work in
bringing down the soil and beating the ground adjacent to the
foundations of the bridge, which is designed to be covered with stone in
a month, and finished in about ten days more."[14]

By these vigorous measures the works proceeded rapidly towards
completion. Before, however, they bad made any progress at the Liverpool
end, Earl Gower, encouraged and assisted by the Duke, had applied for
and obtained an Act to enable & line of navigation to be formed between
the Mersey and the Trent; the Duke agreeing with the promoters of the
undertaking to vary the course of his canal and meet theirs about midway
between Prestonbrook and Runcorn, from which point it was to be carried
northward towards the Mersey, descending into that river by a flight of
ten locks, the total fall being not less than 79 feet from the level of
the canal to low-water of springtides.

When this deviation was proposed, the bold imagination of Brindley
projected & bridge across the tideway of the Mersey itself, which was
there some four hundred and sixty yards wide, with the object of
carrying the Duke's navigation directly onward to the port of Liverpool
on the Lancashire side of the river.[15] This was an admirable idea, which,
if carried out, would probably have redounded more to the fame of
Brindley than any other of his works. But the cost of that portion of
the canal which had already been executed, had reached so excessive an
amount, that the Duke was compelled to stop short at Runcorn, at which
place & dock was constructed for the accommodation of the shipping
employed in the trade connected with the undertaking.

From Runcorn, it was arranged that the beats should navigate by the open
tideway of the Mersey to the harbour of Liverpool, at which place the
Duke made arrangements to provide another dock for their accommodation.
Brindley made frequent visits to Liverpool for the purpose of directing
its excavation, and he superintended it until its completion. The Duke's
Dock lies between the Salt-house and Albert Docks on the north, and the
Wapping and King's Docks on the south. The Salthouse was the only public
dock near it at the time that Brindley excavated this basin. There were
only three others in Liverpool to the north, and not one to the south;
but the Duke's Dock is now the centre of about five miles of docks,
extending from it on either side along the Lancashire shore of the
Mersey; and it continues to this day to be devoted to the purposes of
the navigation.



CHAPTER V.

THE DUKE'S DIFFICULTIES -- COMPLETION OF THE CANAL -- GROWTH OF
MANCHESTER.

LONG before the Runcorn locks were constructed, and the canal from
Longford Bridge to the Mersey was available for purposes of traffic, the
Duke found himself reduced to the greatest straits for want of money.
Numerous unexpected difficulties had occurred, so that the cost of the
works considerably exceeded his calculations; and though the engineer
carried on the whole operations with the strictest regard to economy,
the expense was nevertheless almost more than any single purse could
bear. The execution of the original canal from Worsley to Manchester
cost about a thousand guineas a mile, besides the outlay upon the
terminus at Manchester. There was also the expenditure incurred in
building the requisite boats for the canal, in opening out the
underground workings of the collieries at Worsley, and in erecting
various mills, workshops, and warehouses for carrying on the new
business.

The Duke was enabled to do all this without severely taxing his
resources, and he even entertained the hope of being able to grapple
with the still greater undertaking of cutting the twenty-four miles of
new canal from Long-ford Bridge to the Mersey. But before these works
were half finished, and whilst the large amount of capital invested in
them was lying entirely unproductive, he found that the difficulties of
the undertaking were likely to prove too much for him. Indeed, it seemed
an enterprise beyond the means of any private person, and more like that
of a monarch with State revenues at his command, than of a young English
nobleman with only his private resources.

But the Duke was possessed by a brave spirit. Tie had put his hand to
the work, and he would not look back. He had become thoroughly inspired
by his great idea, and determined to bend his whole energies to the task
of carrying it out. He was only thirty years of age--the owner of
several fine mansions in different parts OF the country, surrounded by
noble domains--he had a fortune sufficiently ample to enable him to
command the pleasures and luxuries of life, so far as money can secure
them; yet he voluntarily denied himself their enjoyment, and chose to
devote his time to consultations with an unlettered engineer, and his
whole resources to the cutting of a canal to unite Liverpool and
Manchester.

Taking up his residence at the Old Hall at Worsley--a fine specimen of
the old timbered houses so common in South Lancashire and the
neighbouring counties,--he cut down every unnecessary personal expense;
denied himself every superfluity, except perhaps that of a pipe of
tobacco; paid off his retinue of servants; put down his carriages and
town house; and confined himself and his Ducal establishment to a total
expenditure of 400l. a-year. A horse was, however, a necessity, for the
purpose of enabling him to visit the canal works during their progress
at distant points; and he accordingly continued to maintain one horse
for himself and another for his groom.

Notwithstanding this rigid economy, the Duke still found his resources
inadequate to meet the heavy cost of vigorously carrying on the
undertaking, and on Saturday nights he was often put to the greatest
shifts to raise the requisite money to pay his large staff of craftsmen
and labourers. Sometimes their payment had to be postponed for a week or
more, until the cash could be raised by sending round for contributions
among the Duke's tenantry. Indeed, his credit fell to the lowest ebb,
and at one time he could not get a bill for 500l. cashed in either
Liverpool or Manchester.[1]

He was under the necessity of postponing all payments that could be
avoided, and it went abroad that the Duke was "drowned in debt." He
tried to shirk even the payment of his tithes, and turned a deaf ear to
all the applications of the collector. At length the rector himself
determined to waylay him. But the Duke no sooner caught sight of him
coming across his path than he belted! The rector was not thus to be
baulked. He followed--pursued--and fairly ran his debtor to earth in a
saw-pit! The Duke was not a little amused at being hunted in such a
style by his parson, and so soon as he found his breath, he promised
payment, which shortly followed.

When Mr. George Rennie, the engineer, was engaged, in 1825, in making
the revised survey of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, he lunched
one day at Worsley Hall with Mr. Bradshaw, manager of the Duke's
property, then a very old man. He had been a contemporary of the Duke,
and knew of the monetary straits to which his Grace had been reduced
during the construction of the works. Whilst at table, Mr. Bradshaw
pointed to a small whitewashed cottage on the Moss, about a mile and a
half distant, and said that in that cottage, formerly a public-house,
the Duke, Brindley, and Gilbert had spent many an evening discussing the
prospects of the canal while in progress. One of the principal topics of
conversation on those occasions was the means of raising funds against
the next pay night. "One evening in particular," said Mr. Bradshaw, "the
party was unusually dull and silent". The Duke's reedy-money was
exhausted; the canal was not nearly finished; his Grace's credit was at
the lowest ebb; and he was at a loss what step to take next. There they
sat, in the small parlour of the little public-house, smoking their
pipes, with a pitcher of ale before them, melancholy and silent. At last
the Duke broke the silence by asking in a querulous tone, "Well,
Brindley, what's to be done now? How are we to get at the money for
finishing this canal?' Brindley, after a few long puffs, answered
through the smoke, "Well, Duke, I can't tell; I only know that if the
money can be got, I can finish the canal, and that it will pay well.'
"Ay,' rejoined the Duke, "but where are we to get the money?' Brindley
could only repeat what he had already said; and thus the little party
remained in moody silence for some time longer, when Brindley suddenly
started up and said, "Don't mind, Duke; don't be cast down; we are sure
to succeed after all!' The party shortly after separated, the Duke going
over to Worsley to bed, to revolve in his mind the best mode of raising
money to complete his all-absorbing project."

One of the expedients adopted was to send Gilbert, the agent, upon a
round of visits among the Duke's tenants, raising five pounds here and
ten pounds there, until he had gathered together enough to pay the
week's wages.

Whilst travelling about among the farmers on one of such occasions,
Gilbert was joined by a stranger horseman, who entered into conversation
with him; and it very shortly turned upon the merits of their respective
horses. The stranger offered to swap with Gilbert, who, thinking the
other's horse better than his own, agreed to the exchange. On afterwards
alighting at a lonely village Inn, which he had not before frequented,
Gilbert was surprised to be greeted by the landlord with mysterious
marks of recognition, and still more so when he was asked if he had got
a good booty. It turned out that he had exchanged horses with a
highwayman, who had adopted this expedient for securing a nag less
notorious than the one which he had exchanged with the Duke's agent.[2]

At length, when the tenantry could furnish no further advances, and
loans were not to be had on any terms in Manchester or Liverpool, and
the works must needs come to a complete stand unless money could be
raised to pay the workmen, the Duke took the road to London on
horseback, attended only by his groom, to try what could ho done with
his London bankers. The house of Messrs. Child and Co., Temple Bar, was
then the principal banking-house in the metropolis, as it is the oldest;
and most of the aristocratic families kept their accounts there. The
Duke had determined at the outset of his undertaking not to mortgage his
landed property, and he had held to this resolution. But the time
arrived when he could not avoid borrowing money of his bankers on such
other security as he could offer them. He had already created a valuable
and lucrative property, which was happily available for the purpose. The
canal from Worsley to Manchester had proved remunerative in an
extraordinary degree, and was already producing a large income. He had
not the same scruples as to the pledging of the revenues of his canal
that he had to the mortgaging of his lands; and an arrangement was
concluded with the Messrs. Child under which they agreed to advance the
Duke sums of money from time to time, by means of which he was
eventually enabled to finish the entire canal.

The Messrs. Child and Co. have kindly permitted an examination of their
books to be made for the purposes of this memoir; and we are accordingly
enabled to state that from them it appears that the Duke obtained his
first advance of 3,800l. from the firm about the middle of the year 1
7435, at which time he was in the greatest difficulty; shortly after a
further sum of 15,000l.; then 2,000l, and various other sums, making a
total of 25,000l.; which remained owing until the year 1769, when the
whole was paid off--doubtless from the profits of the canal traffic as
well as the economised rental of the Duke's unburthened estates.

The entire level length of the new canal from Longford Bridge to the
upper part of Runcorn, nearly twenty eight miles in extent, was finished
and opened for traffic in the year 1767, after the lapse of about five
years from the passing of the Act. The formidable flight of locks, from
the level part of the canal down to the waters of the Mersey at Runcorn,
were not finished for several years later, by which time the receipts
derived by the Duke from the sale of his coals and the local traffic of
the undertaking enabled him to complete them with comparatively little
difficulty. Considerable delay was occasioned by the resistance of an
obstinate landowner near Runcorn, Sir Richard Brooke, who interposed
every obstacle which it was in his power to offer; but his opposition
too was at length overcome, and the new and complete line of
water-communication between Manchester and Liverpool was finally opened
throughout.

In a letter written from Runcorn, dated the 1st January, 1773, we find
it stated that "yesterday the locks were opened, and the Heart of Oak, a
vessel of 50 tons burden,

for Liverpool, passed through them. This day, upwards of six hundred of
his Grace's workmen were entertained upon the lock banks with an Ox
roasted whole and plenty of good liquor. The Duke's health and many
other toasts were drunk with--the loudest--acclamations by the
multitude, who crowded from all parts of the country to be spectators of
these astonishing works. The gentlemen of the country for a long time
entertained a very unfavourable opinion of this undertaking, esteeming
it too difficult to be accomplished, and fearing their lands would be
cut and defaced without producing any real benefit to themselves or the
public; but they now see with pleasure that their fears and
apprehensions were ill-grounded, and they join with one voice in
applauding the work, which cannot fail to produce the most beneficial
consequences to the landed property, as well as to the trade and
commerce of this part of the kingdom."

Whilst the canal works had been in progress, great changes had taken
place at Worsley. The Duke had year by year been extending the workings
of the coal; and when the King of Denmark, travelling under the title of
Prince Travindahl, visited the Duke in 1768, the tunnels had already
been extended for nearly two miles under the hill. When the Duke began
the works, he possessed only such of the coal-mines as belonged to the
Worsley estate; but he purchased by degrees the adjoining lands
containing seams of coal which run under the high ground between
Worsley, Bolton, and Bury; and in course of time the underground canals
connecting the different workings extended for a distance of nearly
forty miles. Both the hereditary and the purchased mines are worked upon
two main levels, though in all there are four different levels, the
highest being a hundred and twenty yards above the lowest. In opening up
the underground workings the Duke is said to have expended about
168,000l.; but the immense revenue derived from the sale of the coals by
canal rendered this an exceedingly productive outlay. Besides the
extension of the canal along these tunnels, the Duke subsequently
carried a branch by the edge of Chat-Moss to Leigh, by which means new
supplies of coal were introduced to Manchester from that district, and
the traffic was still further increased. It was a saying of the Duke's,
that "a navigation should always have coals at the heels of it."

The total coat of completing the canal from Worsley to Manchester, and
from Longford Bridge to the Mersey at Runcorn, amounted to 220,000l. A
truly magnificent undertaking, nobly planned and nobly executed. The
power imparted by riches was probably never more munificently exercised
than in this case; for, though the traffic proved a source of immense
wealth to the Duke, it also conferred incalculable blessings upon the
population of the district. It added much to their comforts, increased
their employment, and facilitated the operations of industry in all
ways. As soon as the canal was opened its advantages began to be felt.
The charge for water carriage between Liverpool and Manchester was
lowered one-half. All sorts of produce were brought to the latter town,
at moderate rates, from the farms and gardens adjacent to the
navigation, whilst the value of agricultural property was immediately
raised by the facilities afforded for the conveyance of lime and manure,
as well as by reason of the more ready access to good markets which it
provided for the farming classes. The Earl of Ellesmere has not less
truly than elegantly observed, that "the history of Francis Duke of
Bridgewater is engraved in intaglio on the face of the country he helped
to civilize and enrich."

Probably the most remarkable circumstance connected with the money
history of the enterprise is this: that although the canal yielded an
income which eventually reached about 80,000l. a year, it was planned
and executed by Brindley at a rate of pay considerably less than that of
an ordinary mechanic of the present day. The highest wage he received
whilst in the employment of the Duke was 3s. 6d. a day. For the greater
part of the time he received only half-a-crown. Brindley, no doubt,
accommodated himself to the Duke's pinched means, and the satisfactory
completion of the canal was with him as much a matter of disinterested
ambition and of professional character as of pay. lie seems to have kept
his own expenses down to the very lowest point. Whilst superintending
the works at Longford Bridge, we find him making an entry of his day's
personal charges at only 6d. for "ating and drink." On other days his
outgoings were confined to "2d. for the turnpike." When living at "The
Bull," near the works at Throstle Nest, we find his dinner costing 8d.
and his breakfast 6d. His expenditure throughout was on an equally low
scale, for he studied in all ways to economize the Duke's means, that
every available shilling might be devoted to the prosecution of the
works.

The Earl of Bridgewater, in his singular publication, the "Letter to the
Parisians,' above referred to, states that "Brindley offered to stay
entirely with the Duke, and do business for no one else, if he would
give him a guinea a week;" and this statement is repeated by the late
Earl of Ellesmere in his "Essays on History, Biography,' &c. But, on the
face of it, the statement looks untrue; and we have since found, from
Brindley's own note-book, that on the 25th of May, 1762, he was
receiving a guinea a day from the Earl of Warrington for performing
services for that nobleman; nor is it at all likely that he would prefer
the Duke's three-and-sixpence a day to the more adequate rate of payment
which he was accustomed to charge and to receive from other employers.
It is quite true, however--and the fact is confirmed by Brindley's own
record--that he received no more than a guinea a week whilst in the
Duke's service; which only affords an illustration of the fact that
eminent constructive genius may be displayed and engineering greatness
achieved in the absence of any adequate material reward.

In a statement of the claims of Brindley's representatives, forwarded to
the Earl of Bridgewater on the 3rd of November, 1803, it was stated that
"during the period of his employ under His Grace, many highly
advantageous and lucrative offers were made to him, particularly one
from the Prince of Hesse, in 1766, who at that time was meditating a
canal through his dominions in Germany, and who offered to subscribe to
any terms Mr. Brindley might stipulate. To this engagement his family
strongly urged him, but the solicitation of the Duke, in this as in
every other instance, to remain with him, outweighed all pecuniary
considerations; relying upon such a remuneration from His Grace as the
profits of his work might afterwards justify." [3]

The inadequate character of his remuneration was doubtless well enough
known to Brindley himself, and rendered him very independent in his
bearing towards the Duke. They had frequent differences as to the proper
mode of carrying on the works; but Brindley was quite as obstinate as
the Duke on such occasions, and when he felt convinced that his own plan
was the right one he would not yield an inch. It is said that, after
long evening discussions at the hearth of the old timbered hall at
Worsley, or at the Duke's house at Liverpool, while the works there were
in progress, the two would often part at night almost at daggers-drawn.
But next morning, on meeting at breakfast, the Duke would very frankly
say to his engineer, "Well, Brindley, I have been thinking over what we
were talking about last night. I find you may be right after all; so
just finish the work in your own way."

The Duke himself, to the end of his life, took the greatest personal
interest in the working of his coal-mines, his canals, his mills, and
his various branches of industry. These were his hobbies, and he took
pleasure in nothing else. He was utterly lost to the fashionable world,
and, as some thought, to a sense of its proprieties. Shortly after his
canal had been opened for the conveyance of coals, the Duke established
a service of passage-boats between Manchester and Worsley, and between
Manchester and a station within two miles of Warrington, by which
passengers were conveyed at the rate of a penny a mile.[4] The boats were
fitted up like the Dutch treekschuyts, and, being found cheap as well as
convenient, were largely patronized by the public. This service was
afterwards extended to Runcorn, and from thence to Liverpool.

The Duke took particular pleasure in travelling by his own boats,
preferring them to any more stately and aristocratic method. He often
went by them to Manchester to watch how the coal-trade was going on.
When the passengers alighted at the coal-wharf, there were usually many
poor people about, wheeling away their barrow-loads of coals. One of the
Duke's regulations was, that whenever any deficiency in the supply was
apprehended those people who came with their wheelbarrows, baskets, and
aprons for small quantities should be served first, and waggons, carts,
and horses sent away until the supply was more abundant. The numbers of
small customers who thus resorted to the Duke's coal-yard rendered it a
somewhat busy scene, and the Duke liked to look on and watch the
proceedings.

One day a customer of the poorer sort, having got his sack filled,
looked about for some one to help it on to his back. He observed a
stoutish man standing near, dressed in a spencer, with dark drab
smallclothes. "Heigh ! mester ! said the man, "come, gie me a lift wi'
this sack o' coal on to my shouder." Without any hesitation the person
in the spencer gave the man the required "lift," and off he trudged with
the load. Some one near, who had witnessed the transaction, ran up to
the man and asked "Dun yo know who's that yo've been speaking to?" "Naw!
who is he?" "Why, it's th' Duuke his-sen!" "The Duke!" exclaimed the
man, dropping the bag of coals from his shoulder, "Hey ! what'll he do
at me? Maun a goo an ax his pardon ?" But the Duke had disappeared.[5]

He was very fond of watching his men at work, especially when any new
enterprise was on foot. When they were boring for coal at Worsley the
Duke came every morning and looked on for a long time together. The men
did not like to leave off work whilst he remained there, and they became
so dissatisfied at having to work so long beyond the hour at which the
bell rang, that Brindley had difficulty in getting a sufficient number
of hands to continue the boring. On inquiry, he found out the cause and
communicated it to the Duke, who from that time made a point of
immediately walking off when the bell rang, returning when the men had
resumed work, and remaining with them usually until six o'clock. He
observed, however, that though the men dropped work promptly as the bell
rang, when he was not by, they were not nearly so punctual in resuming
work, some straggling in many minutes after time. He asked to know the
reason, and the men s excuse was, that though they could always hear the
clock when it struck twelve, they could not so readily hear it when it
struck only one. On this, the Duke had the mechanism of the clock
altered so as to make it strike thirteen at one o'clock; which it
continues to do to this day.

On another occasion, going into the yard at Worsley, he saw two men
employed in grinding an axe, and three others looking on, probably
waiting their turn at the grindstone. The Duke said nothing; but next
morning he was in the yard early, and said to the foreman that he had
observed it took five men to grind an axe. He then ordered that a
water-wheel should be put up to drive the grindstone, and it was set
about at once. The Duke was often after seen grinding the ferrule of his
walking-stick against the self-acting machine.

His time was very fully occupied with his various business concerns, to
which he gave a great deal of personal attention. Habit made him a
business man--punctual in his appointments, precise in his arrangements,
and economical both of money and time. When it was necessary for him to
see any persons about matters of business, he preferred going to them
instead of letting them come to him; "for," said he, "if they come to
me, they may stay as long as they please; if I go to them, I stay as
long as I please." His enforced habits of economy during the
construction of the canal had fully impressed upon his mind the value of
money. Yet, though "near," he was not penurious, but was usually
liberal, and sometimes munificent. When the Loyalty Loan was raised, he
contributed to it no less a sum than 100,000l. in cash. He was
thoroughly and strongly national, and a generous patron of many public
benevolent institutions.

The employer of a vast number of workpeople, he exercised his influence
over them in such a manner as to evoke their gratitude and blessings. He
did not "lord it" over them, but practically taught them, above all
things, to help themselves. He was the pattern employer of his
neighbourhood. With a kind concern for the welfare of his colliery
workmen--then a half-savage class--he built comfortable dwellings and
established shops and markets for them; by which he ensured that at
least a certain portion of their weekly earnings should go to. their
wives and families in housing, food, and clothing, instead of being
squandered in idle dissipation and drunkenness.

In order to put a stop to idle Mondays, he imposed a fine of
half-a-crown on any workman who did not go down the pit at the usual
hour on that morning; and hence the origin of what is called Half Crown
Row at Worsley, as thus described by one of the corners : "T'ould dook
fined ony mon as didn't go daown pit o' Mconday mornin auve a craown,
and abeaut thot toimne he made a new road to t'pit, so t'colliers caw'd
it Auve Craown Row."

Debts contracted by the men at public-houses were not recognised by the
pay-agents. The steadiest workmen were allowed to occupy the best and
pleasantest houses as a reward for their good conduct. The Duke also
bound the men to contribute so much of their weekly earnings to a
general sick club; and he encouraged a religious tone of character
amongst his people by the establishment of Sunday schools, which were
directly superintended by his agents, selected from the best available
class. The consequence was, that the Duke's corners soon held a higher
character for sobriety, intelligence, and good conduct, than the weavers
and other workpeople of the adjacent country.

He did not often visit London, where he had long ceased to maintain a
house; but when he went there he made an arrangement with one of his
friends, who undertook for a stipulated sum to provide a daily dinner
for His Grace and a certain number of guests whilst he remained in town.
He also made occasional visits to his fine estate of Ashridge, in
Buckinghamshire, taking the opportunity of spending a few days, going or
coming, with Earl Gower and his Countess, the Duke's only sister, Lady
Louisa Egerton, at Trentham Park. During his visits at the latter place,
the Duke would get ensconced on a sofa in some distant corner of the
room in the evenings, and discourse earnestly to those who would listen
to him about the extraordinary advantages of canals. There was a good
deal of fun made on these occasions about "the Duke's hobby." But he was
always like a fish out of water until he got back to Worsley, to John
Gilbert, his coal-pits, his drainage, his mills, and his canals.

No wonder he was fond of Worsley. It had been the scene of his triumphs,
and the foundation of his greatness. illustrious visitors from all parts
resorted thither to witness Brindley's "castle in the air," and to
explore the underground canals at Worsley-hill. Frisi, the Italian, the
King of Denmark, and others, regarded these subterranean works with
wonder and admiration when they were only from 1 .5 to 2 miles in
length; soon they extended to nearly 40 miles. Among the visitors
entertained by the Duke was Fulton, the American artist, with whose
speculations he was much interested. Fulton had given his attention to
the subject of canals, and was then speculating on the employment of
steam power for propelling canal boats. The Duke was so much impressed
with Fulton's ingenuity, that he urged him to give up the profession of
a painter and devote himself to that of a civil engineer. Fulton acted
on his advice, and shortly after we find him residing at Birmingham--the
central workshop of England--studying practical mechanics, and fitting
himself for superintending the construction of canals, on which he was
afterwards employed in the midland counties. [6]

The Duke did not forget the idea which Fulton had communicated to him as
to the employment of steam as a motive power for boats, instead of
horses; and when he afterwards heard that Symington's steam-boat, The
Dundas, had been tried successfully on the Forth and Clyde Canal, he
arranged to have six canal boats constructed after Symington's model;
for he was a man to shrink from no expense in carrying out an enterprise
which, to use his own words, had "utility at the heels of it." The Earl
of Ellesmere, in his 'Essay on Aqueducts and Canals,' states that the
Duke made actual experiment of a steam-tug, and quotes the following
from the communication of one of the Duke's servants, alive in 1844: "I
well remember the steam-tug experiment on the canal. It was between 1796
and 1799. Captain Shanks, R.N., from Deptford, was at Worsley many weeks
preparing it, by the Duke's own orders and under his own eye. It was set
going and tried with coal-boats, but it went slowly, and the paddles
made sad work with the bottom of the canal, and also threw the water on
the bank. The Worsley people called it Bonaparte."[7] But the Duke dying
shortly after, the trustees refused to proceed with the experiment, and
the project consequently fell through. Had the Duke lived, canal
steam-tugs would doubtless have been fairly tried; and he might thus
have initiated the practical introduction of steam navigation in
England, as he unquestionably laid the foundations of the canal system.
He lived long enough, however, to witness the introduction of
tram-roads, and he saw considerable grounds for apprehension in them.
"We may do very well," he once observed to Lord Kenyon, "if we can keep
clear of these ------ tram-roads."

He was an admirable judge of character, and was rarely deceived as to
the men he placed confidence in. John Gilbert was throughout his
confidential adviser--a practical out-doors man, full of energy and
perseverance. When any proposal was made to the Duke, he would say,
"Well, thou must go to Gilbert and tell him all about it; I'll do
nothing without l consult him." From living so much amongst his people,
he had contracted their style of speaking, and "thee'd" and "thou'd"
those whom he addressed, after the custom of the district. He was rough
in his speech, and gruff and emphatic in his manner, like those amidst
whom he lived; but with the rough word he meant and did the kindly act.
His early want of education debarred him in a measure from the refining
influences of letters; for he read little, except perhaps an occasional
newspaper, and he avoided writing whenever he could. He also denied
himself the graces of female society; and the seclusion which his early
disappointment in love had first driven him to, at length grew into a
habit. He lived wifeless and died childless. He would not even allow a
woman servant to wait upon him.

In person he was large and corpulent; and the slim youth on whom the bet
had been laid that he would be blown off his horse when riding the race
in Trentham Park so many years before, had grown into a bulky and
unwieldy man. His features strikingly resembled those of George III. and
other members of the Royal Family. He dressed carelessly, and usually
wore a suit of brown--something of the cut of Dr. Johnson's--with dark
drab breeches, fastened at the knee with silver buckles. At dinner he
rejected, with a kind of antipathy, all poultry, veal, and such like,
calling them "white meats," and wondered that everybody, like himself,
did not prefer the brown. He was a great smoker, and smoked far more
than he talked. Smoking was his principal evening's occupation when
Brindley and Gilbert were pondering with him over the difficulty of
raising funds to complete the navigation, and the Duke continued his
solitary enjoyment through life. One of the droll habits to which he was
addicted was that of rushing out of the room every five minutes, with
the pipe in his mouth, to look at the barometer. Out of doors he
snuffed, and he would pull huge pinches out of his right waiscoat pocket
and thrust the powder up his nose, accompanying the operation with
sundry strong short snorts.

He would have neither conservatory, pinery, flower-garden, nor shrubbery
at Worsley; and once, on his return from London, finding some flowers
which had been planted in his absence, he whipped their heads off with
his cane, and ordered them to be rooted up. The only new things
introduced about the place were some Turkey oaks, with which his
character seemed to have more sympathy. But he took a sudden fancy for
pictures, and with his almost boundless means the formation of a
valuable collection of pictures was easy.[8]

Lord Ellesmere says: "An accident laid the foundation of the Bridgewater
collection. Dining one day with his nephew, Lord Gower, afterwards Duke
of Sutherland, the Duke saw and admired a picture which the latter had
picked up a bargain, for some 10l., at a broker's in the morning. 'You
must take me,' he said, 'to that ------ fellow to-morrow.' Whether this
impetuosity produced any immediate result we are not informed, but
plenty of such 'fellows' were doubtless not wanting to cater for the
taste thus suddenly developed."

Fortunately the Duke's investments in paintings appear to have been well
directed; and a discerning eye seems to have guided a liberal hand in
selecting fine separate works, as well as the gems from Continental
collections which were then dispersed and found their way hither, thus
enabling him to lay the foundation of the famous Bridgewater Gallery,
one of the finest private collections in Europe. At his death, in 1803,
its value was estimated at 150,000l.

The Duke very seldom took part in politics, but usually followed the
lead of his relative Earl Gower, afterwards Marquis of Stafford, who was
a Whig. In l 762, we find his name in a division on a motion to withdraw
the British troops from Germany, and on the loss of the motion he joined
in a protest on the subject. When the repeal of the American Stamp Act
was under discussion His Grace was found in the ranks of the opposition
to the measure. He strongly supported Mr. Fox's India Bill, and
generally approved the policy of that statesman.

The title of Duke of Bridgewater died with him. The Earldom went to his
cousin General Egerton, seventh Earl of Bridgewater, and from him to his
brother the crazed Francis Henry, eighth Earl; and on his death at
Parisians, in February, 1829, that title too became extinct. The Duke
bequeathed about 600,000l. in legacies to his relatives, General
Egerton, the Countess of Carlisle, Lady Anne Vernon, and Lady Louisa
Macdonald. He devised most of his houses, his pictures, and his canals,
to his nephew George Granville (son of Earl Gower), second Marquis of
Stafford and first Duke of Sutherland, with reversion to his second son,
Lord Francis Egerton, first Earl of Ellesmere, who thus succeeded to the
principal part of the vast property created by the Duke of Bridgewater.
The Duke was buried in the family vault at Little Gaddesden,
Hertfordshire, in the plainest manner, without any state, at his own
express request. On his monument was inscribed the simple and
appropriate epitaph Impulit ille rates ubi duxit aratra Colonus.

The Duke was a great public benefactor. The boldness of his enterprise,
and the salutary results which flowed from its execution, entitle him to
be regarded as one of the most useful men of his age. A Liverpool letter
of 1765 says, "The services the Duke has rendered to the town and
neighbourhood of Manchester have endeared him to the country, more
especially to the poor, who, with grateful benedictions, repay their
noble benefactor."[9] If he became rich through his enterprise, the public
grew rich with him and by him; for his undertaking was no less
productive to his neighbours than it was to himself. His memory was long
venerated by the people amongst whom he lived,--a self-reliant,
self-asserting race, proud of their independence, full of persevering
energy, and strong in their attachments. The Duke was a man very much
after their own hearts, and a good deal after their own manners. In
respecting him, they were perhaps but paying homage to those qualities
which they most cherished in themselves. Long after the Duke had gone
from amongst them, they spoke to each other of his rough words and his
kindly acts, his business zeal and his indomitable courage. He was the
first great "Manchester man. His example deeply penetrated the
Lancashire character, and his presence seems even yet to hover about the
district. "The Duke's canal" still carries a large proportion of the
merchandise of Manchester and the neighbouring towns; "the Duke's
horses"[10] still draw "the Duke's boats;" "the Duke's coals" still issue
from "the Duke's levels;" and when any question affecting the traffic of
the district is under consideration, the questions are still asked of
"What will the Duke say?" "What will the Duke do?".[11]

Manchester men of this day may possibly be surprised to learn that they
owe so much to a Duke, or that the old blood has helped the new so
materially in the development of England's modern industry. But it is
nevertheless true that the Duke of Bridgewater, more than any other
single man, contributed to lay the foundations of the prosperity of
Manchester, Liverpool, and the surrounding districts. The cutting of the
canal from Worsley to Manchester conferred upon that town the immediate
benefit of a cheap and abundant supply of coal; and when Watt's
steam-engine became the great motive power in manufactures, such supply
became absolutely essential to its existence as a manufacturing town.
Being the first to secure this great advantage, Manchester thus got the
start forward which she has never since lost.[12]

But, besides being a waterway for coal, the Duke's canal. when opened
out to Liverpool, immediately conferred upon Manchester the immense
advantage of direct connection with an excellent seaport. New canals,
supported by the Duke and constructed by the Duke's engineer, grew out
of the original scheme between Manchester and Runcorn, which had the
further effect of placing the former town in direct water-communication
with the rich districts of the north-west of England. Then the Duke's
canal terminus became so important, that most of the new navigations
were laid out to join it; those of Leigh, Bolton, Stockport, Rochdale,
and the West Riding of Yorkshire, being all connected with the Duke's
system, whose centre was at Manchester. And thus the whole industry of
these districts was brought, as it were, to the very doors of that town.

But Liverpool was not less directly benefited by the Duke's enterprise.
Before his canal was constructed, the small quantity of Manchester
woollens and cottons manufactured for exportation was carried on horses'
backs to Bewdley and Bridgenorth on the Severn, from whence they were
floated down that river to Bristol, then the chief seaport on the west
coast. No sooner, however, was the new water-way opened out than the
Bridgenorth pack-horses were taken off, and the whole export trade of
the district was concentrated at Liverpool. The additional accommodation
required for the increased business of the port was promptly provided as
occasion required. New harbours and docks were built, and before many
years had passed Liverpool had shot far ahead of Bristol, and became the
chief port on the west coast, if not in all England. Had Bristol been
blessed with a Duke of Bridgewater, the result might have been
altogether different; and the valleys of Wilts, the coal and iron fields
of Wales, and the estuary of the Severn, might have been what South
Lancashire and the Mersey are now. Were statues any proof of merit, the
Duke would long since have had the highest statue in Manchester as well
as Liverpool erected to his memory, and that of Brindley would have been
found standing by his side; for they were both heroes of industry and of
peace, though even in commercial towns men of war are sometimes more
honoured.

We can only briefly glance at the extraordinary growth of Manchester
since the formation of the Duke's canal, as indicated by the annexed
plan.

Though Manchester was a place of some importance about the middle of
last century, it was altogether insignificant in extent, trade, and
population, compared with what it is now. It consisted of a few
principal streets--narrow, dark, and tortuous--one of them leading from
the Market Place to St. Ann's Square, being very appropriately named
"Dark Entry." Deansgate was the principal original street of the town,
and so called because of its leading to the dean or valley along which
it partly extended. From thence a few streets diverged in different
directions into the open country. St. Ann's Square, the fashionable
centre of modern Manchester, was in 1770 a corn-field surrounded with
lofty trees, and known by the name of "Acre's Field." The cattle-fairs
of the town were held there, the entrance from Deansgate being by Toll
Lane, a narrow, dirty, unpaved way, so called because toll was there
levied on the cattle proceeding towards the fair. The ancient seat of
the Radcliffe family still stood at Pool Fold, close to the site of the
modem Cross Street, and the water in the moat was used as a ducking-pond
for scolds. When the pool became filled up, the ducking-pond was removed
to Daub Holes, then on the outskirts of the town, where the Infirmary
now stands. The site of King Street, now the very heart of Manchester,
was as yet comparatively retired, a colony of rooks having established
themselves in the tall trees at its upper end, from which they were only
finally expelled about forty years ago. Cannon Street was the principal
place of business, the merchants and their families living in the
comparatively humble tenements fronting the street, the equally humble
warehouses in which their business was done standing in the rear. The
ground on which the crowded thoroughfares of Oldham Street, London Road,
Mosley Street, and their continuations now exist, was as yet but garden
or pasture-land. Salford itself was only a hamlet occupying the bend of
the Irwell. It consisted of a double line of mean houses, extending from
the Old Bridge (now Victoria Bridge) to about the end of Gravel Lane,
then a country road containing only a few detached cottages. The
comparatively rural character of Manchester may be inferred from the
circumstance that the Medlock and the Irk, the Tib and Shooter's Brook,
were favourite fishing streams. Salmon were caught in the Medlock and at
the mouth of the Irk; and the others were well stocked with trout.

The Medlock and the Irk are now as black as old ink, and as thick; but
the Tib and Shooter's Brook are entirely lost,--having been absorbed,
like the London Fleet, in the sewage system of the town. Tib Street and
Tib Lane indicate the former course of the Tib; but of Shooter's Brook
not a trace is left.

The townships of Ardwick Green, Hulme, and Chorlton-upon-Medlock
(formerly called Chorlton Row), were entirely rural. The old rate-books
of Chorlton Row exhibit some curious facts as to the transformations
effected in that township. In 1720, a "lay" of 144. in the pound
produced a sum of 26l. 18s., the whole disbursements for the year
amounting to 28l. 8s. 5d. From the highway rate laid in 1722, it appears
that the contribaitors were only twenty persons in all, whose payments
ranged from 8d. to 1l. 13s. 4d., producing a total levy of 6l. 18s. 10d.
for the year. From the disbursements, it appears that the regular wage
paid to the workmen employed was a shilling a-day. In 1750, a lay of 3d.
in the pound produced only 6l. 2s. 1.5d.; so that the population and
value of property in Chorlton Row had not much increased during the
thirty years that had passed. In 1770, two levies brought 57l. 8s. 6d.;
and in 1794, four, made in that year, produced 208l. 2s. 4d..[13] Among
the list of contributors in the latter year we find "Mrs. Quincey 16s.
6d."--the mother of De Quincey, the English opium-eater, who was brought
up in Chorlton Row. De Quincey descrmbes the home of his childhood as a
solitary house, "beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cottages,
composing the little hamlet of Greenhill." It was connected by a winding
lane with the Rusholme road. The house, called Greenheys
--the nucleus of an immense sub-urban district--built by De Quincey's
father, "was then," he says, "a clear mile from the outskirts of
Manchester," Princess Street being then the termination of the town on
that side.[14] Now it is enveloped by buildings in all directions, and
nothing of the former rural character of the neighbourhood remains but
the names of Greenhill, Rusholme, and Greenheys.

Coming down to the second expansion of Manchester, as exhibited on our
plan, it will be observed that a considerable increase of buildings had
taken place in the interval between 1770 and 1804. The greater part of
the town was then contained in the area bounded by Deans-gate, the
crooked lanes leading to Princess Street, Bond Street, and David Street,
to the Rochdale Canal, and round by Ancoats Lane (now Great Ancoats
Street) and Swan Street, to Long Millgate, then a steep narrow lane
forming the great highway into North Lancashire. Very few buildings
existed outside the irregular quadrangle indicated by the streets we
have named. The straggling houses of Deansgate, which were principally
of timber, ended at Knott Mill. A few dye-works stood at intervals along
the Medlock, now densely occupied by buildings for miles along both
banks. Salford had not yet extended to St. Stephen's Street in one
direction, nor above half way to Broughton Bridge in another.[15] The
comparatively limited spaces thus indicated sufficed, however, for
places of business and habitations for the population. Now the central
districts are almost exclusively occupied for business purposes, and
houses for dwellings have rapidly extended in all directions. The
populous districts of Broughton, Higher and Lower, did not exist
thirty-five years ago. They contained no buildings excepting Strangeways
Hall and a few cottages which lay scattered beyond the bottom of the
workhouse brow; the locality where the new Assize Courts have been
erected, which the citizens of Manchester claim to be unequalled in the
kingdom for magnificence and accommodation.

But pastures, corn-fields, and gardens rapidly gave place to streets and
factory buildings.[16] The suburban districts of Ardwick, Hulme, and
Cheetham, became wholly absorbed in the great city. Stretford Now Road,
a broad street nearly a mile and a half long, forms the main highway for
a district occupied during the life of the present generation by a
population greater than that of many cities. Not fifty years since, a
few farina-houses and detached dwellings were all the buildings it
contained, and Chester Road, the principal one in the district, was a
narrow winding lane, with hedges on each side. J Jackson's Lane,
remembered as a mere farm-road through corn-fields, has become a
thoroughfare dignified with the name of Great Jackson Street, that
contains a relic of rural Hulme in the remnant of "Jackson's Farm"
buildings, which gave the name, first to the "lane" and then to the
"street." It is a single-storey building, covered within grey flags, and
stands in an oblique recess on the left-hand side, about halfway between
Chester Load and the recently formed City Road. Higher imp, at the
junction of Chapman amid Preston Streets, the houses, also covered with
grey flags, still remain, which, within a comparatively recent period,
stood amidst fields, and were known as "Geary's Farm,"--these buildings
are now surrounded by streets on every side. About thirty years since,
the part of Hulme nearest to Manchester was occupied by "tea gardens,"
and places of resort much used by the "town" population. The principal
of these was at the White House; and it is said of late roysterers at
that place, that unless they could form a party or secure the services
of "the patrol," they had frequently to sojourn there all night. The
officers constituting the patrol [17] carried swords and horn lanterns;
and, clad as they were in heavy greatcoats with many capes, they were by
no means light of foot, or at all formidable adversaries to the footpads
who "worked" the district.

Among the most remarkable improvements in Manchester of late years, have
been the numerous spacious thoroughfares which have been opened up in
all directions. In this respect, the public spirit of Manchester has not
been surpassed by any town in the kingdom,--the new streets being laid
out on a settled plan with a view to future extension, and executed with
admirable judgment. Narrow, dark, and crooked ways have been converted
into wide and straight streets, admitting light, air, and health to the
inhabitants, and affording spacious highways for the great and growing
traffic of the district. The important street-improvements executed in
Manchester during the last thirty years have cost an aggregate of about
800,000l. The central and oldest part of the town has thus undergone a
complete transformation. So numerous are the dark and narrow entries
that have been opened up--the obstructive buildings that have been swept
away, the projecting angles that have been cut off, and the crooked ways
that have been made straight--that the denizen of a former age would be
very unlikely to recognise the Manchester of to-day, were it possible
for him to revisit it.

Some of the street-improvements have their peculiar social aspects, and
call up curious reminiscences. The stocks, pillory, and Old Market
Cross, were removed from the Market Place in 1816. The public whipping
of culprits on the pillory stage is within the recollection of the elder
portion of the present inhabitants. Another "social institution," of a
somewhat different character, was extinguished much more recently, by
the construction of the splendid piece of terrace-road in front of the
cathedral, known as the Hunt's Bank improvement. This road swept away a
number of buildings, shown on the old plans of Manchester as standing on
the water's edge, close to the confluence of the Irk with the Irwell.
They were reached by a flight of some thirty steps, and consisted of a
dye-work, employing three or four hands, two public-houses, and about a
dozen cottages and other buildings. The public-houses, the "Ring o'
Bells' and the "Blackamoor,' particularly the former, were famous places
in their day. On Mondays, wedding-parties from the country, consisting
sometimes of from twenty to thirty couples, accompanied by fiddlers,
visited "t' Owd Church" to get married. The "Ring o' Bells' was the
rendezvous until the parties were duly married and ready to form and
depart homewards, in a more or less orderly manner, headed by their
fiddlers as they had come. The "Ring o' Bells' was also a favourite
resort of the recruiting-serjeant, and more recruits, it is said, were
enlisted there than at any other public-house in the kingdom. But these,
and many curious characteristics of old Manchester, have long since
passed away; and not only the town but its population have become
entirely new.



CHAPTER VI.

BRINDLEY CONSTRUCTS THE GRAND TRUNK CANAL.

Before the Duke's Canal was finished, Brindley was actively employed in
carrying out a still larger enterprise,--a canal to connect the Mersey
with the Trent, and both with the Severn,--thus uniting by a grand line
of water-communication the ports of Liverpool, Hull, and Bristol. lie
had, as we have already seen, made a survey of such a canal, at the
instance of Earl Gower, before his engagement as engineer for the
Bridgewater undertaking. Thus, in the beginning of February, 1 758,
before the Duke's bill had been even applied for, we find him occupied
for days together "about the novogation." and he then surveyed the
country between Longbridge in Staffordshire, and King's Mills in
Derbyshire.

The enterprise, however, made very little progress, The success of
canals in England was as yet entirely problematical; and this was of too
formidable a character to be hastily undertaken. But again, in 1739, we
find Brindley proceeding with his survey of the Staffordshire Canal; and
in the middle of the following year he was occupied about twenty days in
levelling from Harecastle, at the summit of the proposed canal, to
Wilden, near Derby. During that time he had many interviews with Earl
Gower at Trentham, and with the Earl of Stamford at Enville, discussing
the project.

The next step taken was the holding of a public meeting at Sandon, in
Staffordshire, as to the proper course which the canal should take, if
finally decided upon. Considerable difference of opinion was expressed
at the meeting, in consequence of which it was arranged that Mr. Smeaton
should be called upon to co-operate with Brindley in making a joint
survey and a joint report.

A second meeting was held at Wolseley Bridge, at which the plans of the
two engineers were ordered to be engraved and circulated amongst the
landowners and others interested in the project. Here the matter rested
for several years more, without any further action being taken. Brindley
was hard at work upon the Duke's Canal, and the Staffordshire projectors
were disposed to wait the issue of that experiment; but no sooner had it
been opened, and its extraordinary success become matter of fact, than
the project of the canal through Staffordshire was again revived. The
gentlemen of Cheshire and Staffordshire, especially the salt
manufacturers of the former county and the earthenware-manufacturers of
the latter, now determined to enter into co-operation with the leading
landowners in concerting the necessary measures with the object of
opening up a line of water-communication with the Mersey and the Trent.

The earthenware manufacture, though in its infancy, had already made
considerable progress; but, like every other branch of industry in
England at that time, its further development was greatly hampered by
the wretched state of the roads. Throughout Staffordshire they were as
yet, for the most part, narrow, deep, circuitous, miry, and
inconvenient; barely passable with rude waggons in summer, and almost
impassable, even with pack-horses, in winter. Yet the principal
materials used in the manufacture of pottery, especially of the best
kinds, were necessarily brought from a great distance--flint-stones from
the south-eastern ports of England, and clay from Devonshire and
Cornwall. The flints were brought by sea to Hull, and the clay to
Liverpool. From Hull the materials were brought up the Trent in boats to
Willington; and the clay was in like manner brought from Liverpool up
the Weaver to Winsford, in Cheshire. Considerable quantities of clay
were also conveyed in boats from Bristol, up the Severn, to Bridgenorth
and Bewdley. From these various points the materials were conveyed by
land-carriage, mostly on the backs of horses, to the towns in the
Potteries, where they were worked up into earthenware and china.

The manufactured articles were returned for export in the same rude way.
Large crates of pot-ware were slung across horses' backs, and thus
conveyed to their respective ports, not only at great risk of breakage
and pilferage, but also at a heavy cost. The expense of carriage was not
less than a shilling a ton per mile, and the lowest charge was eight
shillings the ton for ten miles. Besides, the navigation of the rivers
above mentioned was most uncertain, arising from floods in winter and
droughts in summer. The effect was, to prevent the expansion of the
earthenware manufacture, and very greatly to restrict the distribution
of the lower-priced articles in common use.

The same difficulty and cost of transport checked the growth of nearly
all other branches of industry, and made living both dear and
uncomfortable. The indispensable article of salt, manufactured at the
Cheshire Wiches, was in like manner carried on horses' backs all over
the country, and reached almost a fabulous price by the time it was sold
two or three counties off. About a hundred and fifty pack-horses, in
gangs, were occupied in going weekly from Manchester, through Stafford,
to Bewdley and Bridgenorth, loaded with woollen and cotton cloth for
exportation;[1] but the cost of the carriage by this mode so enhanced the
price, that it is clear that in the ease of many articles it must have
acted as a prohibition, and greatly checked both production and
consumption. Even corn, coal, lime, and iron-stone were conveyed in the
same way, and the operations of agriculture, as of manufacture, were
alike injuriously impeded. There were no shops then in the Potteries,
the people being supplied with wares and drapery by packmen and
hucksters, or from Newcastle-under-Lyne, which was the only town in the
neighbourhood worthy of the name.

The people of the district in question were quite as rough as their
roads. Their manners were coarse, and their amusements brutal,
Bull-baiting, cock-throwing, and goose-riding were their favourite
sports. When Wesley first visited Burslem, in 1760, the potters
assembled to jeer and laugh at him. They then proceeded to pelt him.
"One of them," he says, "threw a clod of earth which struck me on the
side of the head; but it neither disturbed me nor the congregation." At
that time the whole population of the Potteries did not amount to more
than about 7000 souls. The villages in which they lived were poor and
mean, scattered up and down, and the houses were mostly covered with
thatch. Hence the Rev. Mr. Middleton, incumbent of Stone--a man of great
shrewdness and quaintness, distinguished for his love of harmless mirth
and sarcastic humour--when enforcing the duty of humility upon his
leading parishioners, took the opportunity, on one occasion, after the
period of which we speak, of reminding them of the indigence and
obscurity from which they had risen to opulence and respectability. He
said they might be compared to so many sparrows, for that all of them
had been hatched under the thatch. When the congregation of this
gentleman, growing rich, beuught an organ and placed it in the church,
he persisted in calling it the hurdy-gurdy, and often took occasion to
lament tIme loss of his old psalm-singers.

The people towards the north were no better, nor were these further
south. When Wesley preached at Congleton, four years later, he said,
"even the poor potters [though they had pelted himj are a more civilized
people than the better sort (so called) at Congleton." Arthur Young
visited the neighbourhood of Newcastle-under-Lyne in 1770, and found
poor-rates high, wages low, and employment scarce. "Idleness," said he,
"is the chief employment of the women and children. All drink tea, and
fly to the parishes for relief at the very time that even a woman for
washing is not to be had. By many accounts I received of the poor in
this neighbourhood, I apprehend the rates are burthened for the
spreading of laziness, drunkenness, tea-drinking, and debauchery,--the
general effect of them, indeed, all over the kingdom." [2]

Hutton's account of the population inhabiting the southern portion of
the same county is even more dismal. Between Hales Owen and Stourbridge
was a district usually called the Lie Waste, and sometimes the Mud City.
Houses stood about in every direction, composed of clay scooped out into
a tenement, hardened by the sun, and often destroyed by time frost. The
males were half-naked, the children dirty and hung over with rags. "One
might as well look for the moon in a coal-pit," says Hutton, "as for
stays or white linen in the City of Mud. The principal tool in business
is the hammer, and the beast of burden the ass."[3]

The district, however, was not without its sprinkling of public-spirited
men who were actively engaged in devising new sources of employment for
the population; and, as one of the most effective means of accomplishing
this object, opening up the communications, by road and canal, with near
as well as distant parts of the country. One of the most zealous of such
workers was the illustrious Josiah Wedgwood. He was one of those
indefatigable men who from time to time spring from the ranks of the
common people, and by their energy, skill, and enterprise, not only
practically educate the working population in habits of industry, but,
by the example of diligence and perseverance which they set before them,
largely influence public action in all directions, and contribute in a
great measure to form the national character.

Josiah Wedgwood was born in a humble position in life; and though he
rose to eminence as a man of science as well as a manufacturer, he
possessed no greater advantages at starting than Brindley himself did.
His grandfather and granduncle were both potters, as was also his father
Thomas, who died when Josiah was a mere boy, the youngest of a family of
thirteen children. He began his industrial life as a thrower in a small
pot-work, conducted by his elder brother; and he might have continued
working at the wheel but for an attack of virulent small-pox, which,
being neglected, led to a disease in his right leg, which in a great
measure unfitted him for following even that humble employment. When he
returned to his work, most probably before he was sufficiently recovered
from his illness, the pain in his limb was such that he had to keep it
almost constantly rested upon a stool before him.[4] The disease continued
increasing as he advanced in years, and it was greatly aggravated by an
unfortunate bruise, which kept him to his bed for months, and reduced
him to the last extremity of debility. At length the disorder reached
the knee, and threatened to endanger his life, when amputation was found
necessary. During the enforced leisure of his many illnesses arising
from this cause, Wedgwood took to reading and thinking, and turned over
in his mind the various ways of making a living by his trade, now that
he could no longer work at the potter's wheel. It has been no less
elegantly than truthfully observed by Mr. Gladstone, that "it is not
often that we have such palpable occasion to record our obligations to
the small-pox. But in the wonderful ways of Providence, that disease,
which came to him as a two-fold scourge, was probably the occasion of
his subsequent excellence. It prevented him from growing up to be the
active, vigorous English workman, possessed of all his limbs, and
knowing right well the use of them; but it put him upon considering
whether, as he could not be that, he might not be something else, and
something greater. It sent his mind inwards; it drove him to meditate
upon the laws and secrets of his art. The result was, that he arrived at
a perception and a grasp of them which might, perhaps, have been envied,
certainly have been owned, by an Athenian potter." [5]

Wedgwood began operations on his own account by making various
ornamental objects out of potter's clay, such as knife-shafts, boxes,
and sundry curious little articles for domestic use. He joined in
several successive partnerships with other workmen, but made
comparatively small progress until he began business for himself, in 1
759, in a humble cottage near the Market House in Burslem, known by the
name of the Ivy House. He there pursued his manufacture of knife-handles
and other small wares, striving at the same time to acquire such a
knowledge of practical chemistry as might enable him to improve the
quality of his work in respect of colour, glaze, and durability. Success
attended Wedgwood's diligent and persistent efforts, and he proceeded
from one stage of improvement to another, until at length, after a
course of about thirty years' labour, he firmly established a new branch
of industry, which not only added greatly to the conveniences of
domestic life, but proved a source of remunerative employment to many
thousand families throughout England.

His trade having began to expand, an extensive demand for his articles
sprang up, not only in London, but in foreign countries.[7] But there was
this great difficulty in his way,--that the roads in his neighbourhood
were so bad that he was at the same time prevented from obtaining a
sufficient supply of the best kinds of clay and also from disposing of
his wares in distant markets. This great evil weighed heavily upon the
whole industry of the district, and Wedgwood accordingly appears to have
bestirred himself at an early period in his career to improve the local
communications. In conjunction with several of the leading potters he
promoted an application to Parliament for powers to repair and widen the
read from the Red Bull, at Lawton, in Cheshire, to Cliff Bank, in
Staffordshire. This line, if formed, would run right through the centre
of the Potteries, open them to traffic, and fall at either end into a
turnpike road.

The measure was, however, violently opposed by the people of
Newcastle-under-Lyne, on the ground that the proposed new road would
enable waggons and packhorses to travel north and south from the
Potteries without passing through their town. The Newcastle innkeepers
acted as if they had a vested interest in the bad roads; but the bill
passed, and the new line was made, stopping short at Burslem. This was,
no doubt, a great advantage, but it was not enough. The heavy carriage
of clay, coal, and earthenware needed some more convenient means of
transport than waggons and roads; and, when the subject of water
communication came to be discussed, Josiah Wedgwood at once saw that a
canal was the very thing for the Potteries. Hence he immediately entered
with great spirit into the movement again set on foot for the
construction of Brindley's Grand Trunk Canal.

The field was not, however, so clear now as it had been before. The
success of the Duke's canal led to the projection of a host of competing
schemes in the county of Chester, and it appeared that Brindley's Grand
Trunk project would have to run the gauntlet of a powerful local
opposition. There were two other schemes besides his, which formed the
subject of much pamphleteering and controversy at the time, one entering
the district by the river Weaver, and another by the Dee. Neither of
these proposed to join the Duke of Bridgewater's canal, whereas the
Grand Trunk line was laid out so as to run into his at
Preston-on-the-Hill near Runcorn. As the Duke was desirous of placing
his navigation--and through it Manchester, Liverpool, and the
intervening districts--in connection with the Cheshire Wiches and the
Staffordshire Potteries, he at once throw the whole weight of his
support upon the side of Brindley's Grand Trunk. Indeed, he had himself
been partly at the expense of its preliminary survey, as we find from an
entry in Brindley's memorandum-book, under date the 12th of April, 1762,
as follows: "Worsley  -  Recd from Mr Tho Gilbert for ye Staffordshire
survey, on account, 33l. 10s, 11d."

The Cheshire gentlemen protested against the Grand Trunk scheme, as
calculated to place a monopoly of the Staffordshire and Cheshire traffic
in the hands of the Duke; but they concealed the fact, that the adoption
of their respective measures would have established a similar monopoly
in the hands of the Weaver Canal Company, whose line of navigation, so
far as it went, was tedious, irregular, and expensive. Both parties
mustered their forces for a Parliamentary struggle, and Brindley exerted
himself at Manchester and Liverpool in obtaining support and evidence on
behalf of his plan. The following letter from him to Gilbert, then at
Worsley, relates to the rival schemes.

"21 Decr. 1765

"On Tusdey Sr Georg [Warren] sent Nuton in to Manchester to make what
intrest he could for Sir Georg and to gather ye old Navogtors togather
to meet Sir Georg at Stoperd to make Head a gaast His Grace

"I sawe Docter Seswige who sese Hee wamits to see you aimout pamant of
His Land in Cheshire

"On Wednesday ther was not much transpired but was so dark I could carse
do aneything

"On Thursdey Wadgwood of Burslem came to Dunham & sant for mee and wee
dined with Lord Gree [Grey] & Sir Hare Mainwering and others   Sir Hare
cud not ceep His Tamer [temper]   Mr. Wedgwood came to seliset Lord Gree
in faver of the Staffordshire Canal & stade at Mrs Latoune all night & I
whith him & on frydey sat out to wate on Mr Edgerton to seliset Him   
Hee sase Sparrow and others are indavering to gat ye Land owners
consants from Hare Castle to Agden

"I have ordered Simcock to ye Langth falls of Sanke Navegacion.

"Ryle wants to have coals sant faster to Alteringham that Hee may have
an opertunety dray of ye sale Moor Canal in a bout a weeks time.

"I in tend being back on Tusdy at fardest."

The first public movement was made by the supporters of Brindley's
scheme. They held an open meeting at Wolseley Bridge, Staffordshire, on
the 30th of December, 1765, at which the subject was fully discussed.
Earl Gower, the lord-lieutenant of the county, occupied the chair; and
Lord Grey and Mr. Bagot, members for the county, -- Mr. Anson, member
for Lichfield,--Mr. Thomas Gilbert, the agent for Earl Gower, then
member for Newcastle-under-Lyne,--Mr. Wedgwood, and many other
influential gentlemen, were present to take part in the proceedings. Mr.
Brindley was called upon to explain his plans, which he did to the
satisfaction of the meeting; and these having been adopted, with a few
immaterial alterations, it was determined that steps should be taken to
apply for a bill conferring the necessary powers in the next session of
Parliament Mr. Wedgwood put his name down for a thousand pounds towards
the preliminary expenses, and promised to subscribe largely for shares
besides.[8] The promoters of the measure proposed to designate the
undertaking "The Canal from the Trent to the Mersey;" but Brindley, with
sagacious foresight, urged that it should be called The Grand Trunk,
because, in his judgment, numerous other canals would branch out from it
at various points of its course, in like manner as the arteries of the
human system branch out from the aorta; and before many years had
passed, his anticipations in this respect were fully realized. The
Staffordshire potters were greatly pleased with the decision of the
meeting, and on the following evening they assembled round a large
bonfire at Burslem, and drank the healths of Lord Gower, Mr. Gilbert,
and the other promoters of the scheme, with fervent demonstrations of
joy.

The opponents of the measure also held meetings, at which they strongly
declaimed against the Duke's proposed monopoly, and set forth the
superior merits of their respective schemes. One of these was a canal
from the river Weaver, by Nantwich, Eccleshall, and Stafford, to the
Trent at Wilden Ferry, without touching the Potteries at all. Another
was for a canal from the Weaver at Northwich, passing by Macclesfield
and Stockport, round to Manchester, thus completely surrounding the
Duke's navigation, and preventing its extension southward into
Staffordshire or any other part of the Midland districts.

But there was also a strong party opposed to all canals whatever--the
party of croakers, who are always found in opposition to improved
communications, whether in the shape of turnpike reads, canals, or
railways. They prophecied that if the proposed canals were made, the
country would be ruined, the breed of English horses would be destroyed,
the innkeepers would be made bankrupts, and the pack-horses and their
drivers would be deprived of their subsistence. It was even said that
the canals, by putting a stop to the coasting trade, would destroy the
race of seamen. It is a fortunate thing for England that it has
contrived to survive these repeated prophecies of ruin. But the manner
in which our countrymen contrive to grumble their way along the high
road of enterprise, thriving and grumbling, is one of the peculiar
features in our character which perhaps only Englishmen can understand
and appreciate.

It is a curious illustration of the timidity with which the projectors
of those days entered upon canal enterprise, that one of their most able
advocates, in order to mitigate the opposition of the pack-horse and
waggon interest, proposed that "no main trunk of a canal should be
carried nearer than within four miles of any great manufacturing and
trading town; which distance from the canal would be sufficient to
maintain the same number of carriers and to employ almost the same
number of horses as before." [9] But as none of the towns in the Potteries
were as yet large manufacturing or trading places, this objection did
not apply to them, nor prevent the canals from being carried quite
through the centre of what has since become a continuous district of
populous manufacturing towns and villages. The vested interests of some
of the larger towns were, however, for this reason, preserved, greatly
to their own ultimate injury; and when the canal, to conciliate the
local opposition, was so laid out as to leave them at a distance, not
many years elapsed before they became clamorous for branches to join the
main trunk--but not until the mischief had been done, and a blow dealt
to their own trade, in consequence of their being left so far outside
the main line of water communication, from which many of them never
after recovered.

It is not necessary to describe the Parliamentary contest upon the Grand
Trunk Canal Bill. There was the usual muster of hostile interests,--the
river navigation companies uniting to oppose the new and rival
company--the array of witnesses on both sides,--Brindley, Wedgwood,
Gilbert, and many more, giving their evidence in support of their own
scheme, and a powerful array of the Cheshire gentry and Weaver
Navigation Trustees appearing on behalf of the others,--and the
whipping-up of votes, in which the Duke of Bridgewater and Earl Gower
worked their influence with the Whig party to good purpose.

Brindley's plan was, on the whole, considered the best. It was the
longest and the most circuitous, but it appeared calculated to afford
the largest amount of accommodation to the public. It would pass through
important districts, urgently in need of an improved communication with
the port of Liverpool on the one hand, and with Hull on the other. But
it was not so much the connection of those ports with each other that
was needed, as a more convenient means of communication between them and
the Staffordshire manufacturing districts; and the Grand Trunk
system--somewhat in the form of a horse-shoe, with the Potteries lying
along its extreme convex part--promised effectually to answer this
purpose, and to open up a ready means of access to the coast on both
sides of the island.

A glance at the course of the proposed line will show its great
importance. Starting from the Duke's canal at Preston-on-the-Hill, near
Runcorn, it passed southwards by Northwich and Middlewich, through the
great salt-manufacturing districts of Cheshire, to the summit at
Harecastle. It was alleged that the difficulties presented by the long
tunnel at that point were so great that it could never be the intention
of the projectors of the canal to carry their "chimerical idea," as it
was called, into effect. Brindley however insisted, not only that the
tunnel was practicable, but that, if the necessary powers were granted,
he would certainly execute it.[10] Descending from the summit level into
the valley of the Trent, the canal proceeded southwards through the
Pottery districts, passing close to Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, and Lane
End, It then passed onward, still south, by Trentham, Stone, and
Shutborough, to Haywood, where it joined the canal projected to unite
the Severn with the Mersey. Still following the valley of the Trent, the
canal near Rugeley, turning sharp round, proceeded in a north-easterly
direction, nearly parallel with the river, passing Burton and Ashton, to
a junction with the main stream at Wilden Ferry, a little above where
the Derwent falls into the Trent near Derby. From thence there was a
clear line of navigation, by Nottingham, Newark, and Gainsborough, to
the Humber. Provided this admirable project could be carried out, it
appeared likely to meet all the necessities of the case. Ample evidence
was given in support of the allegations of its promoters; and the result
was, that Parliament threw out the bills promoted by the Cheshire
gentlemen on behalf of the old river navigation interest, and the Grand
Trunk Canal Act passed into law. At the same time another important Act
was passed, empowering the construction of the Wolverhampton Canal, from
the river Severn, near Bewdley, to the river Trent, near Haywood Mill;
thus uniting the navigation of the three rivers which had their termini
at the ports of Liverpool, Hull, and Bristol, on the opposite sides of
the island.

There was great rejoicing at Burslem on the news arriving at that place
of the passing of the bill; and very shortly after, on the 26th of July,
1766, the works were formally commenced by Josiah Wedgwood on the
declivity of Bramhills, in a piece of land within a few yards of the
bridge which crosses the canal at that place. Brindley was present at
the ceremony, when due honours were paid him by the assembled potters.
After Mr. Wedgwood had cut the first sod, many of the leading persons of
the neighbourhood followed his example, putting their hand to the work
by turns, and each cutting a turf or wheeling a barrow of earth in
honour of the occasion. It was, indeed, a great day for the Potteries,
as the event proved. In the afternoon a sheep was roasted whole in
Burslem market-place, for the good of the poorer class of potters; a feu
de joie was fired in front of Mr. Wedgwood's house, and sundry other
demonstrations of local rejoicing wound up the day's proceedings.

Wedgwood was of all others the most strongly impressed with the
advantages of the proposed canal. He knew and felt how much his trade
had be. n hindered by the defective communications of the neighbourhood,
and to what extent it might be increased provided a ready means of
transit to Liverpool, Hull, and Bristol could be secured; and, confident
in the accuracy of his anticipations, he proceeded to make the purchase
of a considerable estate in Shelton, intersected by the canal, on the
banks of which he built the celebrated Etruria--the finest manufactory
of the kind up to that time erected in England, alongside of which he
built a mansion for himself and cottages for his workpeople. He removed
his works thither from Burslem, partially in 1769, and wholly in 1771,
shortly before the works of the canal had been completed.

The Grand Trunk was the most formidable undertaking of the kind that had
yet been attempted in England. Its whole length, including the junctions
with the Birmingham Canal and the river Severn, was 139.5 miles. In
conformity with Brindley's practice, he laid out as much of the
navigation as possible upon a level, concentrating the locks in this
case at the summit, near Harecastle, from which point the waters fell in
both directions, north and south. Brindley's liking for long flat
reaches of dead water made him keep clear of rivers as much as possible.
He likened water in a river flowing down a declivity, to a furious giant
running along and overturning everything; whereas (said he) "if you lay
the giant flat upon his back, tie loses all his force, and becomes
completely passive, whatever his size may be." Hence he contrived that
from Middlewich, a distance of seventeen miles, to the Duke's Canal at
Preston Brook, there should not be a lock; but goods might be conveyed
from the centre of Cheshire to Manchester, for a distance of about
seventy miles, along one uniform water level. He carried out the same
practice, in like manner, on the Trent side of Harecastle, where he laid
out the canal in as many long lengths of dead water as possible.

The whole rise of the canal from the level of the Mersey, including the
Duke's locks at Runcorn, to the summit at Harecastle, is 395 feet; and
the fall from thence to the Trent at Wilden is 288 feet 5 inches, The
locks of the Grand Trunk proper, on the northern side of Harecastle, are
thirty-five, and on the southern side forty. The dimensions of the
canal, as originally constructed, were twenty-eight feet in breadth at
the top, sixteen at the bottom, and four and a half feet in depth; but
from Wilden to Burton, and from Middlewich to Preston-on-the-Hill, it
was thirty-one feet broad at the top, eighteen at the bottom, and five
and a half feet deep, so as to be navigable by large barges; and the
locks at those parts of the canal were of correspondingly large
dimensions. The width was afterwards made uniform throughout. The canal
was carried over the river Dove on an aqueduct of twenty-three arches,
approached by an embankment on either side--in all a mile and two
furlongs in length. There were also aqueducts over the Trent, which it
crosses at four different points--one of these being of six arches of
twenty-one feet span each--and over the Dane and other smaller streams.

The number of minor aqueducts was about 160, and of road-bridges 109.
But the most formidable works on the canal were the tunnels, of which
there were five--the Harecastle, 2880 yards long; the Hermitage, 130
yards; the Barnton, 580 yards; the Saltenford, 350 yards; and the
Preston-on-the-Hill, 1241 yards. The Harecastle tunnel (subsequently
duplicated by Telford) was constructed only nine feet wide and twelve
feet high;[11] but the others were seventeen feet four inches high, and
thirteen feet six inches wide. The most extensive ridge of country to be
penetrated was at Harecastle, involving by far the most difficult work
in the whole undertaking. This ridge is but a continuation of the high
ground, forming what is called the "back-bone of England," which extends
in a south-westerly direction from the Yorkshire mountains to the Wrekin
in Shropshire. The flat county of Cheshire, which looks almost as level
as a bowling-green when viewed from the high ground near New Chapel,
seems to form a deep bay in the land, its innermost point being almost
immediately under the village of Harecastle; and from thence to the
valley of the Trent the ridge is at the narrowest. That Brindley was
correct in determining to form his tunnel at this point has since been
confirmed by the survey of Telford, who there constructed his parallel
tunnel for the same canal, and still more recently by the engineers of
the North Staffordshire Railway, who have also formed their railway
tunnel almost parallel with the line of both canals.

When Brindley proposed to cut a navigable way under this ridge, it was
declared to be chimerical in the extreme. The defeated promoters of the
rival projects continued to make war upon it in pamphlets, and in the
exasperating language of mock sympathy proclaimed Brindley's proposed
tunnel to be "a sad misfortune," [13] inasmuch as it would utterly waste
the capital raised by the subscribers, and end in the inevitable ruin of
the concern. Some of the small local wits spoke of it as another of
Brindley's "Air Castles;" but the allusion was not a happy one, as his
first "castle in the air," despite all prophecies to the contrary, had
been built, and continued to stand firm at Barton: and judging by the
issue of that undertaking, it was reasonable to infer that he might
equally succeed in this, difficult though it was on all hands admitted
to be.

The Act was no sooner passed than Brindley set to work to execute the
impossible tunnel. Shafts were sunk from the hill-top at different
points down to the level of the intended canal. The stuff was drawn out
of the shafts in the usual way by horse-gins; and so long as the water
was met with in but small quantities, the power of windmills and
watermills working pumps over each shaft was sufficient to keep the
excavators at work. But as the miners descended and cut through the
various strata of the hill on their downward progress, water was met
with in vast quantities; and here Brindley's skill in pumping machinery
proved of great value. The miners were often drowned out, and as often
set to work again by his mechanical skill in raising water. He had a
fire-engine, or atmospheric steam-engine, of the best construction
possible at that time, erected on the top of the hill, by the action of
which great volumes of water were pumped out night and day.

This abundance of water, though it was a serious hinderance to the
execution of the work, was a circumstance on which Brindley had
calculated, and indeed depended, for the supply of water for the summit
level of his canal. When the shafts had been sunk to the proper line of
the intended waterway, the excavation then proceeded in opposite
directions, to meet the other driftways which were in progress. The work
was also carried forward at both ends of the tunnel, and the whole line
of excavation was at length united by a continuous driftway--it is true,
after long and expensive labour--when the water ran freely out at both
ends, and the pumping apparatus on the hilltop was no longer needed. At
a general meeting of the Company, held on the 1st October, 1768, after
the works had been in progress about two years, it appeared from the
report of the Committee that four hundred and nine yards of the tunnel
were cut and vaulted, besides the vast excavations at either end for the
purpose of reservoirs; and the Committee expressed their opinion that
the work would be finished without difficulty.

Active operations had also been in progress at other parts of the canal.
About six hundred men in all were employed, and Brindley went from point
to point superintending and directing their labours. A Burslem
correspondent, in September, 1767, wrote to a distant friend thus :--
"Gentlemen come to view our eighth wonder of the world, the subterraneous
navigation, which is cutting by the great Mr. Brindley, who handles
rocks as easily as you would plum-pies, and makes the four elements
subservient to his will. He is as plain a looking man as one of the
boors of the Peak, or as one of his own carters; but when he speaks, all
ears listen, and every mind is filled with wonder at the things he
pronounces to be practicable. He has cut a mile through bogs, which he
binds up, embanking them with stones which he gets out of other parts of
the navigation, besides about a quarter of a mile into the hill Yelden,
on the side of which he has a pump worked by water, and a stove, the
fire of which sucks through a pipe the damps that would annoy the men
who are cutting towards the centre of the hill. The clay he cuts out
serves for bricks to arch the subterraneous part, which we heartily wish
to see finished to Wilden Ferry, when we shall be able to send Coals and
Pots to London, and to different parts of the globe."

In the course of the first two years' operations, twenty-two miles of
the navigation had been cut and finished, and it was expected that
before eighteen months more had elapsed the canal would be ready for
traffic by water between the Potteries and Hull on the one hand, and
Bristol on the other. It was also expected that by the same time the
canal would be ready for traffic from the north end of Harecastle Tunnel
to the river Mersey. The execution of the tunnel, however, proved so
tedious and difficult, and the excavation and building went on so
slowly, that the Committee could not promise that it would be finished
in less than five years from that time. As it was, the completion of the
Harecastle Tunnel occupied nine years more; and it was not finished
until the year 1777, by which time the great engineer had finally rested
from all his labours.

It is scarcely necessary to describe the benefits which the canal
conferred upon the inhabitants of the districts through which it passed.
As we have already seen, Staffordshire and the adjoining counties had
been inaccessible during the chief part of each year. The great natural
wealth which they contained was of little value, because it could with
difficulty be got at; and even when reached, there was still greater
difficulty in distributing it. Coal could not be worked at a profit, the
price of land-carriage so much restricting its use, that it was placed
altogether beyond the reach of the great body of consumers.

It is difficult now to realise the condition of poor people situated in
remote districts of England less than a century ago. In winter time they
shivered over scanty wood-fires, for timber was almost as scarce and as
dear as coal. Fuel was burnt only at cooking times, or to cast a glow
about the hearth in the winter evenings. The fireplaces were little
apartments of themselves, sufficiently capacious to enable the whole
family to sit within the wide chimney, where they listened to stories or
related to each other the events of the day. Fortunate were the
villagers who lived hard by a bog or a moor, from which they could cut
peat or turf at will. They ran all risks of ague and fever in summer,
for the sake of the ready fuel in winter. But in places remote from
bogs, and scantily timbered, existence was scarcely possible; and hence
the settlement and cultivation of the country were in no slight degree
retarded until comparatively recent times, when better communications
were opened up.

When the canals were made, and enabled coals to be readily conveyed
along them at comparatively moderate rates, the results were immediately
felt in the increased comfort of the people. Employment became more
abundant, and industry sprang up in their neighbourhood in all
directions. The Duke's canal, as we have seen, gave the first great
impetus to the industry of Manchester and that district. The Grand Trunk
had precisely the same effect throughout the Pottery and other districts
of Staffordshire; and their joint action was not only to employ, but
actually to civilize the people. The salt of Cheshire could now be
manufactured in immense quantities, readily conveyed away, and sold at a
comparatively moderate price in all the midland districts of England.
The potters of Burslem and Stoke, by the same mode of conveyance,
received their gypsum from Northwich, their clay and flints from the
sea-ports now directly connected with the canal, and returned their
manufactures by the same route. The carriage of all articles being
reduced to about one-fourth of their previous rates,[14] articles of
necessity and comfort, such as had formerly been unknown except amongst
the wealthier classes, came into common use amongst the people.
Employment increased, and the difficulties of subsistence diminished.
Led by the enterprise of Wedgwood and others like him, new branches of
industry sprang up, and the manufacture of earthenware, instead of being
insignificant and comparatively unprofitable, which it was before his
time, became a staple branch of English trade. Only about ten years
after the Grand Trunk Canal had been opened, Wedgwood stated in evidence
before the House of Commons, that from 15,000 to 20,000 persons were
then employed in the earthenware-manufacture alone, besides the large
number of labourers employed in digging coals for their use, and the
still larger number occupied in providing materials at distant parts,
and in the carrying and distributing trade by land and sea. The annual
import of clay and flints into Staffordshire at that time was from fifty
to sixty thousand tons; and yet, as Wedgwood truly predicted, the trade
was but in its infancy. The tonnage outwards and inwards at the
Potteries is now upwards of three hundred thousand tons a year.

The moral and social influences exercised by the canals upon the Pottery
districts were not less remarkable. From a half-savage, thinly-peopled
district of some 7000 persons in 1760, partially employed and
ill-remunerated, we find them increased, in the course of some
twenty-five years, to about treble the population, abundantly employed,
prosperous, and comfortable.[15] Civilization is doubtless a plant of very
slow growth, and does not necessarily accompany the rapid increase of
wealth. On the contrary, higher earnings, without improved morale, may
only lead to wild waste and gross indulgence. But the testimony of
Wesley to the improved character of the population of the Pottery
district in 1781, within a few years after the opening of Brindley's
Grand Trunk Canal, is so remarkable, that we cannot do better than quote
it here; and the more so, as we have already given the account of his
first visit in 1760, on the occasion of his being pelted. "I returned to
Burslem," says Wesley; "how is the whole face of the country changed in
about twenty years! Since which, inhabitants have continually flowed in
from every side. Hence the wilderness is literally become a fruitful
field. Houses, villages, towns, have sprung up, and the country is not
more improved than the people."


CHAPTER VII.

BRINDLEY'S LAST CANALS -- HIS DEATH AND CHARACTER.

IT is related of Brindley that, on one occasion, when giving evidence
before a Committee of the House of Commons, in which he urged the
superiority of canals over rivers for purposes of inland navigation, the
question was asked by a member, "Pray, Mr. Brindley, what then do you
think is the use of navigable rivers?" "To make canal navigations, to be
sure," was his instant reply. It is easy to understand the gist of the
engineer's meaning. For purposes of trade he regarded regularity and
certainty of communication as essential conditions of any inland
navigation; and he held that neither of these could be relied upon in
the case of rivers, which are in winter liable to interruption by
floods, and in summer by droughts. In his opinion, a canal, with enough
of water always kept banked up, or locked up where the country would not
admit of the level being maintained throughout, was absolutely necessary
to satisfy the requirements of commerce. Hence he held that one of the
great uses of rivers was to furnish a supply of water for canals. It was
only another illustration of the "nothing like leather" principle;
Brindley's head being so full of canals, and his labours so much
confined to the making of canals, that he could think of little else.

In connection with the Grand Trunk--which proved, as Brindley had
anticipated, to be the great aorta of the canal system of the midland
districts of England--numerous lines were projected and afterwards
carried out under our engineer's superintendence. One of the most
important of these was the Wolverhampton Canal, connecting the Trent
with the Severn, and authorised in the same year as the Grand Trunk
itself. It is now known as the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal,
passing close to the towns of Wolverhampton and Kidderminster, and
falling into the Severn at Stourport. This branch opened up several
valuable coal-fields, and placed Wolverhampton and the intermediate
districts, now teeming with population and full of iron manufactories,
in direct connection with the ports of Liverpool, Hull, and Bristol. Two
years later, in 1768, three more canals, laid out by Brindley, were
authorised to be constructed: the Coventry Canal to Oxford, connecting
the Grand Trunk system by Lichfield with London and the navigation of
the Thames; the Birmingham Canal, which brought the advantages of inland
navigation to the very doors of the central manufacturing town in
England; and the Droitwich Canal, to connect that town by a short branch
with the river Severn. In the following year a further Act was obtained
for a canal laid out by Brindley, from Oxford to the Coventry Canal at
Longford, eighty-two miles in length.

These were highly important works; and though they were not all carried
out strictly after Brindley's plans, they nevertheless formed the
groundwork of future Acts, and laid the foundations of the midland canal
system. Thus, the Coventry Canal was never fully carried out after
Brindley's designs; a difference having arisen between the engineer and
the Company during the progress of the undertaking, in consequence, as
is supposed, of the capital provided being altogether inadequate to
execute the works considered by Brindley as indispensable. He probably
foresaw that there would be nothing but difficulty, and very likely
there might be discredit attached to himself by continuing connected
with an undertaking the proprietors of which would not provide him with
sufficient means for carrying it forward to completion; and though he
finished the first fourteen miles between Coventry and Atherstone, he
shortly after gave up his connection with the undertaking, and it
remained in an unfinished state for many years, in consequence of the
financial difficulties in which the Company had become involved through
the insufficiency of their capital. The connection of the Coventry Canal
with the Grand Trunk was afterwards completed, in 1785, by the
Birmingham and Fazeley and Grand Trunk Companies conjointly, and the
property eventually proved of great value to all parties concerned.

The Droitwich Canal, though only a short branch five and a half miles in
length, was a very important work, opening up as it did an immense trade
in coal and salt between Droitwich and the Severn. The works of this
navigation were wholly executed by Brindley, and are considered superior
to those of any others on which he was engaged. Whilst residing at
Droitwich, we find our engineer actively engaged in pushing on the
subscription to the Birmingham Canal, the capital of which was taken
slowly. Matthew Boulton, of Birmingham, was one of the most active
promoters of the scheme, and Josiah Wedgwood also bestirred himself in
its behalf. In a letter written by him about this time, we find him
requesting one of his agents to send out plans to gentlemen whom he
names, in the hope of completing the subscription-list.[1] Brindley did
not live to finish the Birmingham Canal; it was carried out by his
successors,--partly by his pupil, Mr. Whitworth, and partly by Smeaton
and Telford. Brindley's plan was, as usual, to cut the canal as flat as
possible, to avoid the necessity for lockage; but his successors, in
order to relieve the capital expenditure, as they supposed, constructed
it with a number of locks to carry it over the summit at Smithwick.
Shortly after its opening, however, the Company found reason to regret
their rejection of Mr. Brindley's advice, and they lowered the summit by
cutting a tunnel, as he had originally recommended, thereby incurring an
extra expense of about 30,000l.

Another of Brindley's canals, authorised in 1769, was that between
Chesterfield and the river Trent, at Stockwith, about forty-six miles in
length, intended for the transport of coal, lime, and lead from the rich
mineral districts of Derbyshire, and the return trade of deals, corn,
and groceries to the same districts. It would appear that Mr. Grundy,
another engineer, of considerable reputation in his day, was consulted
about the project, and that he advised a much more direct route than
that pointed out by Brindley, who looked to the accommodation of the
existing towns, rather than shortness of route, as the main thing to be
provided for. Brindley, in this respect, took very much the same view in
laying out his canals as was afterwards taken by George Stephenson
--a man whom he resembled in many respects--in laying out railways. He
would rather go round an obstacle in the shape of an elevated range of
country, than go through it, especially if in going round and avoiding
expense he could accommodate a number of towns and villages. Besides, by
avoiding the hills and following the course of the valleys, along which
the population usually lies, he avoided expense of construction and
secured flatness of canal; just as Stephenson secured flatness of
railway gradient. Although the length of canal to be worked was longer,
yet the cost of tunnelling and lockage was avoided. The population of
the district was also fully accommodated, which could not have been
accomplished by the more direct route through unpopulated districts or
under barren hills. The proprietors of the Chesterfield Canal concurred
in Brindley's view, adopting his plan in preference to Grundy's, and it
was accordingly carried into effect. This navigation was, nevertheless,
a work of considerable difficulty, proceeding, as it did, across a very
hilly country, the summit tunnel at Hartshill being 2850 yards in
extent. Like many of Brindley's other works projected about this time,
it was finished by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, and opened for
traffic several years after the great engineer's death.[2]

The whole of these canals were laid out by Brindley, though they were
not all executed by him, nor precisely after his plans. No record of any
kind has been preserved of the manner in which the works were carried
out Brindley himself made few reports, and these merely stated results,
not methods; yet he had doubtless many formidable difficulties to
encounter, and must have overcome them by the adoption of those
ingenious expedients, varying according to the circumstances of each
case, in which he was always found so fertile. He had no treasury of
past experience, as recorded in books, to consult, for he could scarcely
read English; and certainly he could neither read French nor Italian, in
which languages the only engineering works of any value were then
written; nor had he any store of native experience to draw from, he
himself being the first English canal engineer of eminence, and having
all his methods and expedients to devise for himself.

It would doubtless have been most interesting could we have had some
authentic record of this strong original man's struggles with opposition
and difficulty, and the means by which he contrived not only to win
persons of high station to support him with their influence but also
with their purses, at a time when money was comparatively a much rarer
commodity than it is now. "That want of records, journals, and
memoranda," says Mr. Hughes, "which is ever to be deplored when we seek
to review the progress of engineering works, is particularly felt when
we have to look back upon those undertakings which first called for the
exercise of engineering skill in many new and untried departments. In
Brindley's day, the entire absence of experience derived from former
works, the obscure position which the engineer occupied in the scale of
society, the imperfect communication between the profession in this
country and the engineers and works of other countries, and, lastly, the
backward condition of all the mechanical arts and of the physical
sciences connected with engineering, may all be ranked in striking
contrast with the vast appliances which are placed at the command of
modern engineers." [3]

Moreover, the great canal works upon which Brindley was engaged during
the later part of his career, were as yet scarcely appreciated as
respects the important influences which they were calculated to exercise
upon society at large. The only persons who seem to have regarded them
with interest were far-sighted men like Josiah Wedgwood, who saw in them
the means not only of promoting the trade of his own county, but of
developing the rich natural resources of the kingdom, and diffusing
amongst the people the elements of comfort, intelligence, and
civilization. The literary and scientific classes as yet took little or
no interest in them. The most industrious and observant literary man of
the age, Dr. Johnson, though he had a word to say upon nearly every
subject, never so much as alluded to them, though all Brindley's canals
were finished in Johnson's lifetime, and he must have observed the works
in progress when passing on his various journeys through the midland
districts. The only reference which he makes to the projects set on foot
for opening up the country by means of better roads, was to the effect,
that whereas there were before cheap places and dear places, now all
refuges were destroyed for elegant or genteel poverty.

Before leaving this part of the subject, it is proper to state that
during the latter part of Brindley's life, whilst canals were being
projected in various directions, he was, on many occasions, called upon
to give his opinion as to the plans which other engineers had prepared.
Among the most important of the new projects on which he was thus
consulted were, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal; the improvement of the
navigation of the Thames to Reading; the Calder Navigation; the Forth
and Clyde Canal; the Salisbury and Southampton Canal; the Lancaster
Canal; and the Andover canal. Many of these schemes were of great
importance in a national point of view. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal,
for instance, brought the whole manufacturing district of Yorkshire
along the valley of the Aire into communication with Liverpool and the
intermediate districts of Lancashire. The advantages of this navigation
to Leeds, Bradford, Keighley, and the neighbouring towns, are felt to
this day, and their extraordinary prosperity is doubtless in no small
degree attributable to the facilities which the canal has provided for
the ready conveyance of raw materials and manufactured produce between
those places and the towns and sea-ports of the west. Brindley surveyed
and laid out the whole line of this navigation, 130 miles in length, and
he framed the estimate on which the Company proceeded to Parliament for
their bill. On the passing of the Act in 1768-9, the Directors appointed
him their engineer; but, being almost overwhelmed with other business at
the time, and feeling that he could not give the proper degree of
personal attention to carrying out so extensive an undertaking, he was
under the necessity of declining the appointment. The works were
immediately begun at both ends of the canal, and portions were speedily
made use of; but the difficulty and expensiveness of the remaining works
greatly delayed their execution, and the canal was not finished until
the year 1816. Twenty miles, extending from near Bingley to the
neighbourhood of Bradford, were opened on 21st March, 1774. A
correspondent of 'Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser' thus describes the
opening: "From Bingley and about three miles down, the noblest works of
the kind that perhaps are to be found in the universe are exhibited,
namely, a five-fold, a three-fold, a two-fold, and a single lock, making
together a fall of 120 feet; a large aqueduct-bridge of seven arches
over the river Aire, and an aqueduct on a large embankment over Shimley
valley. Five beats of burden passed the grand lock, the first of which
descended through a fall of sixty-six feet in less than twenty-nine
minutes. This much wished-for event was welcomed with ringing of bells,
a band of music, the firing of guns by the neighbouring militia, the
shouts of spectators, and all the marks of satisfaction that so
important an acquisition merits." On the 21st October of the same year
the following paragraph appeared :--"The Liverpool end of the canal was
opened from Liverpool to Wigan on Wednesday, the 19th instant, with
great festivity and rejoicings. The water had been led into the basin
the evening before. At nine A.M. the proprietors sailed up the canal in
their barge, preceded by another with music, colours flying, &c., and
returned to Liverpool about one. They were saluted with two royal
salutes of twenty-one guns each, besides the swivels on board the boats,
and welcomed with the repeated shouts of the numerous crowds assembled
on the banks, who made a most cheerful and agreeable sight. The
gentlemen then adjourned to a tent, on the quay, where a cold collation
was set out for themselves and their friends. From thence they went in
procession to George's coffee-house, where an elegant dinner was
provided. The workmen, 215 in number, walked first, with their tools on
their shoulders, and cockades in their hats, and were afterwards
plentifully regaled at a dinner provided for them. The bells rang all
day, and the greatest joy and order prevailed on the occasion.

Brindley being now the recognised head of his profession, and the great
authority on all questions of navigation, he was, in 1770, employed by
the Corporation of London to make a survey of the Thames above
Battersea, with the object of having it improved for purposes of
navigation. As usual, Brindley strongly recommended the construction of
a canal in preference to carrying on the navigation by the river, where
it was liable to be interrupted by the tides and floods, or by the
varying deposits of silt in the shallow places. In his first report to
the Common Council, dated the 16th of June, 1770, he pointed out that
the cost of hauling the barges was greatly in favour of the canal. For
example, he stated that the expense of taking a vessel of 100 or 120
tons from Isleworth to Sunning, and back again to Isleworth, was 80l.,
and sometimes more; whilst the cost by the canal would only be 16l. The
saving in time would be still greater, for the double voyage might
easily be performed in fifteen hours; whereas by the river the boats
were sometimes three weeks in going up, and almost as much in coming
down. He estimated that there would be a saving to the public of at
least 64l. on every voyage, besides the saving of time in performing it.
After making a further detailed examination of the district, and
maturing his news on the whole subject, he sent in a report, accompanied
by a profile of the river about seven feet long, which is still to be
seen amongst the records of the Corporation of London. His plan was not,
however, carried out; the proposal to construct a canal parallel with
the Thames having been abandoned so soon as the Grand Junction Canal was
undertaken.

These and numerous other schemes in various parts of the country--at
Stockton, at Leeds, at Cambridge, at Chester, at Salisbury and
Southampton, at Lancaster, and in Scotland--fully occupied the attention
of Brindley; in addition to which, there was the personal
superintendence which he must necessarily give to the canals in active
progress, and for the execution of which he was responsible. In fact,
there was scarcely a design of a canal navigation set on foot throughout
the kingdom during the later years of his life, on which he was not
consulted, and the plans of which he did not entirely make, revise, or
improve.

In addition to his canal works, Brindley was also consulted as to the
best means of draining the low lands in different parts of Lincolnshire,
and the Great Level in the neighbourhood of the Isle of Ely. He supplied
the corporation of Liverpool with a plan for cleansing the docks and
keeping them clear of mud, which is said to have proved very effective;
and he pointed out to them an economical method of building walls
against the sea without mortar, which long continued to be employed with
complete success. In such cases he laid his plans freely open to the
public, not seeking to secure them by patent, nor shrouding his
proceedings in any mystery. He was perfectly open with professional men,
harbouring no petty

jealousy of rivals. His pupils had free access to all his methods, and
he took a pride in so training them that they should reflect credit on
the engineer's profession, then rising into importance, and be enabled,
after he left the scene, to carry on those great industrial enterprises
which he probably foresaw dearly enough in England's future.

It will be observed, from what we have said, that Brindley's engagements
as an engineer extended over a very wide district. Even before his
employment by the Duke of Bridgewater, he was under the necessity of
travelling great distances to fit up water-mills, pumping-engines, and
manufacturing machinery of various kinds, in the counties of Stafford,
Cheshire, and Lancashire. But when he had been appointed to superintend
the construction of the Duke's canals, his engagements necessarily
became of a still more engrossing character, and he had very little
leisure left to devote to the affairs of private life. He lived
principally at inns, in the immediate neighbourhood of his work; and
though his home was at Leek, he sometimes did not visit it for weeks
together.

Brindley had very little time for friendship, and still less for
courtship. Nevertheless, he did contrive to find time for marrying,
though at a comparatively advanced period of his life. In laying out the
Grand Trunk Canal, he was necessarily brought into close connection with
Mr. John Henshall, of the Bent, near New Chapel, land-surveyor, who
assisted him in making the survey. He visited Henshall at his house in
September, 1762, and then settled with him the preliminary operations.
During his visits Brindley seems to have taken a special liking for Mr.
Henshall's daughter Anne, then a girl at school, and when he went to see
her father, he was accustomed to take a store of gingerbread for Anne in
his pocket. She must have been a comely girl, judging by the portrait of
her as a woman, which we have seen.

In due course of time, the liking ripened into an attachment; and
shortly after the girl had left school, at the age of only nineteen,
Brindley proposed to her, and was accepted. By that time he was close
upon his fiftieth year, so that the union may possibly have been quite
as much a matter of convenience as of love on his part. He had now left
the Duke's service for the purpose of entering upon the construction of
the Grand Trunk Canal, and with that object resolved to transfer his
home to the immediate neighbourhood of Harecastle, as well as of his
colliery at Golden Hill. Shortly after the marriage, the old mansion of
Turnhurst fell vacant, and Brindley with his young wife became its
occupants. The marriage took place on the 8th December, 1765, in the
parish church of Wolstanton, Brindley being described in the register as
"of the parish of Leek, engineer;" but from that time until the date of
his death his home was at Turnhurst.

The house at Turnhurst was a comfortable, roomy, old-fashioned dwelling,
with a garden and pleasure-ground behind, and a little lake in front. It
was formerly the residence of the Bellot family, and is said to have
been the last mansion in England in which a family fool was maintained.
Sir Thomas Bellot, the last of the name, was a keen sportsman, and the
panels of several of the upper rooms contain pictorial records of some
of his exploits in the field. In this way Sir Thomas seems to have
squandered his estate, and it shortly after became the property of the
Alsager family, from whom Brindley rented it. A little summer-house,
standing at the corner of the outer courtyard, is still pointed out as
Brindley's office, where he sketched his plans and prepared his
calculations. As for his correspondence, it was nearly all conducted,
subsequent to his marriage, by his wife, who, notwithstanding her youth,
proved a most clever, useful, and affectionate partner.

Turnhurst was conveniently near to the works then in progress at
Harecastle Tunnel, which was within easy walking distance, whilst the
colliery at Golden Hill was only a few fields off. From the elevated
ground at Golden Hill, the whole range of high ground may be seen under
which the tunnel runs--the populous Pottery towns of Tunstall and
Burslem filling the valley of the Trent towards the south. At Golden
Hill, Brindley carried out an idea which he had doubtless brought with
him from Worsley. He and his partners had an underground canal made from
the main line of the Harecastle Tunnel into their coal-mine, about a
mile and a half in length; and by that tunnel the whole of the coal
above that level was afterwards worked out, and conveyed away for sale
in the Pottery and other districts, to the great profit of the owners
and much to the convenience of the public.

These various avocations involved a great amount of labour as well as
anxiety, and probably considerable tear and wear of the vital powers.
But we doubt whether mere hard work ever killed any man, or whether
Brindley's labours, extraordinary though they were, would have shortened
his life, but for the far more trying condition of the engineer's
vocation--irregular living, exposure in all weathers, long fasting, and
then, perhaps, heavy feeding when the nervous system was exhausted,
together with habitual disregard of the ordinary conditions of physical
health. These are the main causes of the shortness of life of most of
our eminent engineers, rather than the amount and duration of their
labours. Thus the constitution becomes strained, and is ever ready to
break down at the weakest place. Some violation of the natural laws more
flagrant than usual, or a sudden exposure to cold or wet, merely
presents the opportunity for an attack of disease which the ill-used
physical system is found unable to resist.

Such an accidental exposure unhappily proved fatal to Brindley. 'While
engaged one day in surveying a branch canal between Leek and Froghall,
he got drenched near Ipstones, and went about for some time in his wet
clothes. This he had often before done with impunity, and he might have
done so again; but, unfortunately, he was put into a damp bed in the inn
at Ipstones, and this proved too much for his constitution, robust
though he naturally was. He became seriously ill, and was disabled from
all further work. Diabetes shortly developed itself, and, after an
illness of some duration, he expired at his house at Turnhurst, on the
27th of September, 1772, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was
interred in the burying-ground at New Chapel, a few fields distant from
his dwelling.

James Brindley was probably one of the most remarkable instances of
self-taught genius to be found in the whole range of biography. The
impulse which he gave to social activity, and the ameliorative influence
which he exercised upon the condition of his countrymen, seem out of all
proportion to the meagre intellectual culture which he had received in
the course of his laborious and active career. We must not, however,
judge him merely by the literary test. It is true, he could scarcely
read, and he was thus cut off, to his own great loss, from familiar
intercourse with a large class of cultivated minds, living and dead; for
he could with difficulty take part in the conversation of educated men,
and he was unable to profit by the rich stores of experience treasured
up in books. Neither could he write, except with difficulty and
inaccurately, as we have shown by the extracts above quoted from his
note-books, which are still extant.

Brindley was, nevertheless, a highly-instructed man in many respects. He
was full of the results of careful observation, ready at devising the
best methods of overcoming material difficulties, and possessed of a
powerful and correct judgment in matters of business. When any emergency
arose, his quick invention and ingenuity, cultivated by experience,
enabled him almost at once unerringly to suggest the best means of
providing for it. His ability in this way was so remarkable, that those
about him attributed the process by which he arrived at his conclusions
rather to instinct than reflection--the true instinct of genius. "Mr.
Brindley," said one of his contemporaries, "is one of those great
geniuses whom Nature sometimes rears by her own force, and brings to
maturity without the necessity of cultivation. His whole plan is
admirable, and so well concerted that he is never at a loss; for, if any
difficulty arises, he removes it with a facility which appears so much
like inspiration, that you would think Minerva was at his fingers'
ends."

His mechanical genius was indeed most highly cultivated. From the time
when he bound himself apprentice to the trade of a millwright--impelled
to do so by the strong bias of his nature--he had been undergoing a
course of daily and hourly instruction. There was nothing to distract
his attention, or turn him from pursuing his favourite study of
practical mechanics. The training of his inventive faculty and
constructive skill was, indeed, a slow but a continuous process; and
when the time and the opportunity arrived for turning these to
account--when the silk-throwing machinery of the Congleton mill, for
instance, had to be perfected and brought to the point of effectively
performing its intended work--Brindley was found able to take it in hand
and carry out the plan, when even its own designer had given it up in
despair. But it must also be remembered that this extraordinary ability
of Brindley was in a great measure the result of close observation,
painstaking study of details, and the most indefatigable industry.

The same qualities were displayed in his improvements of the
steam-engine, and his arrangements to economise power in the pumping of
water from drowned mines. It was often said of his works, as was said of
Columbus's discovery, "How easy! how simple !" but this was after the
fact. Before he had brought his fund of experience and clearness of
vision to bear upon a difficulty, every one was equally ready to exclaim
"How difficult! how absolutely impracticable I" This was the case with
his "castle in the air," the Barton Viaduct--such a work as had never
before been attempted in England, though now any common mason would
undertake it. It was Brindley's merit always to be ready with his
simple, practical expedient; and he rarely failed to effect his purpose,
difficult although at first sight its accomplishment might seem to be.

Like men of a similar stamp, Brindley had great confidence in himself
and in his powers and resources. Without this, it had been impossible
for him to have accomplished so much as he did. It is said that the King
of France, hearing of his wonderful genius, and the works he had
performed for the Duke of Bridgewater at Worsley, expressed a desire to
see him, and sent a message inviting him to view the Grand Canal of
Languedoc. But Brindley's reply was characteristic: "I will have no
journeys to foreign countries," said he, "unless to be employed in
surpassing all that has been already done in them."

His observation was remarkably quick. In surveying a district, he
rapidly noted the character of flue country, the direction of the hills
and the valleys, and, after a few journeys on horseback, he clearly
settled in his mind the best line to be selected for a canal, which
almost invariably proved to be the right one. In like manner he would
estimate with great rapidity the fall of a brook or river while walking
along the banks, and thus determined the height of his cuttings and
embankments, which he afterwards settled by a more systematic survey. In
these estimates he was rarely, if ever, found mistaken.

His brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall, has said of him, "when any
extraordinary difficulty occurred to Mr. Brindley in the execution of
his works, having little or no assistance from books or the labours of
other men, his resources lay within himself. In order, therefore, to be
quiet and uninterrupted whilst he was in search of the necessary
expedients, he generally retired to his bed;[4] and he has been known to
be there one, two, or three days, till he had attained the object in
view. He would then get up and execute his design, without any drawing
or model. Indeed, it was never his custom to make either, unless he was
obliged to do it to satisfy his employers. His memory was so remarkable
that he has often declared that he could remember, and execute, all the
parts of the most complex machine, provided he had time, in his survey
of it, to settle in his mind the several parts and their relations to
each other. His method of calculating the powers of any machine invented
by him was peculiar to himself. He worked the question for some time in
his head, and then put down the results in figures. After this, taking
it up again at that stage, he worked it further in his mind for a
certain time, and set down the results as before. In the same way he
still proceeded, making use of figures only at stated parts of the
question. Yet the ultimate result was generally true, though the road he
travelled in search of it was unknown to all but himself, and perhaps it
would not have been in his power to have shown it to another." [5]

The statement about his taking to bed to study his more difficult
problems is curiously confirmed by Brindley's own note-book, in which he
occasionally enters the words "lay in bed," as if to mark the period,
though he does not particularise the object of his thoughts on such
occasions. It was a great misfortune for Brindley, as it must be to
every man, to have his mental operations confined exclusively within the
limits of his profession. Anthony Trollope well observes, that "industry
is a good thing, and there is no bread so sweet as that which is eaten
in the sweat of a man's brow; but the sweat that is ever running makes
the bread hitter." Brindley thought and lived mechanics, and never rose
above them. He found no pleasure in anything else; amusement of every
kind was distasteful to him; and his first visit to the theatre, when in
London, was also his last. Shut out from the humanising influence of
books, and without any taste for the politer arts, his mind went on
painfully grinding in the mill of mechanics. "He never seemed in his
element," said his friend Bentley, "if he was not either planning or
executing some great work, or conversing with his friends upon subjects
of importance." To the last he was full of projects and full of work;
and then the wheels of life came to a sudden stop, when be could work no
longer.

It is related of him that, when dying, some eager canal undertakers
insisted on having an interview with him.

They had encountered a serious difficulty in the course of constructing
their canal, and they must have the advice of Mr. Brindley on the
subject. They were introduced to the apartment where he lay scarce able
to gasp, yet his mind was clear. They explained their difficulty--they
could not make their canal hold water. "Then puddle it," said the
engineer. They explained that they had already done so. "Then puddle it
again--and again." This was all he could say, and it was enough.

It remains to be added that, in his private character, Brindley
commanded general respect and admiration. His integrity was inflexible;
his manner, though rough and homely, was kind; and his conduct
unimpeachable.[6] He was altogether unassuming and unostentatious, and
dressed and lived with great plainness. His was the furthest possible
from a narrow or jealous temper, and nothing gave him greater pleasure
than to assist others with their inventions, and to train up a
generation of engineers in his pupils, qualified to carry out the works
he had himself designed, when he should be no longer able to conduct
them. The principal undertakings in which he was engaged up to the time
of his death were carried on by his brother-in-law, Mr. Henshall,
formerly his clerk of the works on the Grand Trunk Canal, and by his
able pupil, Mr. Robert Whitworth, for both of whom he had a peculiar
regard, and of whose integrity and abilities he had the highest opinion.

Brindley left behind him two daughters, one of whom, Susannah, married
Mr. Bettington, of Bristol, merchant, afterwards the Honourable Mr.
Bettington, of Brindley's Plains, Van Diemen's Land, where their
descendants still live. His other daughter, Anne, died unmarried, on her
passage home from Sydney, in 1838. His widow, still young, married
again, and died at Longport in 1826. Brindley had the sagacity to invest
a considerable portion of his savings in Grand Trunk shares, the great
increase in the value of which, as well as of his colliery property at
Golden Hill, enabled him to leave his family in affluent circumstances.

Before finally dismissing the subject of Brindley's canals, we may
briefly allude to the influence which they exercised upon the enterprise
as well as the speculation of the time. "When these fellows," says
Sheridan in the 'Critic', "have once got hold of a good thing, they do
not know when to stop." This might be said of the speculative projectors
of canals, as afterwards of railways. The commercial success which
followed the opening of the Duke's Canal, and shortly after it the Grand
Trunk, soon infected the whole country, and canal schemes were projected
in great numbers for the accommodation even of the most remote and
unlikely places.

In those districts where the demand for improved water communication
grew out of an actual want--as, for instance, where it was necessary to
open up a large coal-field for the supply of a population urgently in
need of fuel--or where two large towns, such as Manchester and
Liverpool, required to be provided with a more cheap and convenient
means of trading intercourse than had formerly existed--or where
districts carrying on extensive and various manufactures, such as
Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and the Potteries, needed a more ready means
of communication with other parts of the kingdom--there was no want of
trade for the canals; and those constructed for such purposes very soon
had as much traffic as they could carry. The owners of land discovered
that their breed of horses was not destroyed, and that their estates
were not so cut up as to be rendered useless, as many of them had
prognosticated. On the contrary, the demand for horses to carry coals,
lime, manure, and goods to and from the canal depots, rapidly increased.
The canals meandering through their green fields were no such unsightly
objects after all, and they very soon found that inasmuch as the new
waterways readily enabled agricultural produce to reach good markets in
the large towns, they were likely even to derive considerable pecuniary
advantages from their formation.

Another objection alleged against canals, on public grounds, was alike
speedily disproved. It was said that inland navigation, by reason of its
greater cheapness, ease, and certainty, must necessarily diminish the
coasting trade, and consequently discourage the training of seamen, who
formed the constitutional bulwark of the kingdom But the extraordinarily
rapid growth of the shipping-trade of Liverpool, and the vastly
increased number of seagoing vessels required to accommodate the traffic
converging on that seaport, very soon showed that canals, instead of
diminishing, were calculated immensely to promote the naval power and
resources of England. Thus it was found that in the thirty years which
elapsed subsequent to the opening of the Duke's Canal between Worsley
and Manchester,--during which time the navigation had also been opened
to the Mersey, and the Grand Trunk and other main canals had been
constructed, connecting the principal inland towns with the
seaports,--the tonnage of English ships had increased threefold, and the
number of sailors been more than doubled.

So great an impulse had thus been given to the industry of the country,
and it had become so clear that facility or communication must be an
almost unmixed good, that a desire for the extension of canals sprang up
in all districts; and instead of being resisted and denounced, they
became everywhere the rage. They were advocated in pamphlets, in
newspapers, and at public meetings. One enthusiastic pamphleteer,
advocating the formation of a canal between Kendal and Manchester,
denounced the wretched state of the turnpike-roads, which were
maintained by "an enormous tax," and exclaimed, "May we all scorn to
plod through the dirt as we long have done at so large an expense; and
for the support of our drooping manufactories, let canals be made
through the whole nation as common as the public highways." [7]

There seemed, indeed, to be every probability that this desire would be
shortly fulfilled; for so soon as the canals which had been made began
to pay dividends, the strong motive of personal gain became superadded
to that of public utility. The rapid increase of wealth which they
promoted served to stimulate the projection of new schemes; and in a
very few years after Brindley's death we find an immense number of
Navigation Acts receiving the sanction of the legislature, and canal
works in progress in all parts of the country. The shares were quoted
upon Change, where they became the subject of commerce, and very shortly
of wild speculation.

By the year 1792, the country was in a perfect ferment about canal
shares. Notices of eighteen new canals were published in the 'Gazette'
of the 18th August in that year. The current premiums on single shares
in those companies for which Acts had been obtained were as follows:
Grand Trunk, 350l.; Birmingham and Fazeley, 1170l.; Coventry, 350l.;
Leicester, 155l.; and so on. There was a rush to secure allotments in
the new schemes, and the requisite capitals were at once eagerly
subscribed. At the first meeting, held in 1790, of the promoters of the
Ellesmere Canal, 112 miles in extent, to connect the Mersey, the Dee,
and the Severn, applications were made for four times the disposable
number of shares.

A great number of worthless and merely speculative schemes were thus set
on foot, which brought ruin upon many, and led to waste both of labour
and capital. But numerous sound projects were at the same time launched,
and an extraordinary stimulus was given to the prosecution of measures,
too long delayed, for effectually opening up the communications of the
country. The movement extended to Scotland, where the Forth and Clyde
Canal, and the Crinan Canal, were projected; and to Ireland, where the
Grand Canal and Royal Canal were undertaken. But, as Arthur Young
pithily remarked, in reference to these latter projects, "a history of
public works in Ireland would be a history of jobs."

In the course of the four years ending in 1794, not fewer than
eighty-one Canal and Navigation Acts were obtained: of these, forty-five
were passed in the two latter years, authorising the expenditure of not
less than 5,300,000l. As in the case of the railways at a subsequent
period, works which might, without pressure upon the national resources,
easily have been executed if spread over a longer period, were
undertaken all at once; and the usual consequences followed, of panic,
depreciation, and loss.

But though individuals lost, the public were eventually the gainers.
Many projects fell through, but the greater number were commenced, and
after passing through the usual financial difficulties, were finished
and used for traffic. The country became thoroughly opened up in all
directions by about 2600 miles of navigable canals in England, 276 miles
in Ireland, and 225 miles in Scotland. The cost of executing these great
waterways is estimated to have amounted to about fifty millions
sterling. There was not a place in England south of Durham, more than
fifteen miles from water communication; and most of the large towns,
especially in the manufacturing districts, were directly accommodated
with the means of easy transport of their goods to the principal
markets. "At the beginning of the present century," says Dr. Aiken,
writing in 1795, "it was thought a most arduous task to make a high road
practicable for carriages over the hills and moors which separate
Yorkshire from Lancashire, and now they are pierced through by three
navigable canals !"

Notwithstanding the great additional facilities for conveyance of
merchandise which have been provided of late years by the construction
of railways, a very large proportion of the heavy carrying trade of the
country still continues to be conducted upon canals. It was indeed at
one time proposed, during the railway mania, and that by a somewhat
shrewd engineer, to fill up the canals and make railways of them. It was
even predicted, during the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, that "within twelve months of its opening, the Bridgewater
Canal would be closed, and the place of its waters be covered over with
rushes." But canals have stood their ground, even against railways; and
the Duke's Canal, instead of being closed, continues to carry as much
traffic as ever. It has lost the conveyance of passengers by the
fly-boats,[8] it is true; but it has retained and in many respects
increased its traffic in minerals and merchandise. The canals have stood
the competition of railways far more successfully than the old
turnpike-roads, though these too are still, in their way, as
indispensable as canals and railways themselves. Not less than twenty
millions of tons of traffic are estimated to be carried annually upon
the canals of England alone, and this quantity is steadily increasing.
In 1835, before the opening of the London and Birmingham Railway, the
through tonnage carried on the Grand Junction Canal was 310,475 tons;
and in 1845, after the railway had been open for ten years, the tonnage
carried on the canal had increased to 480,626 tons. At a meeting of
proprietors of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, held in October, 1860,
the chairman said, "the receipts for the last six months were, with one
exception, the largest they had ever had."

Railways are a great invention, but in their day canals were as highly
valued, and indeed quite as important; and it is fitting that the men by
whom they were constructed should not be forgotten. We may be apt to
think lightly of the merits and achievements of the early engineers, now
that works of so much greater magnitude are accomplished without
difficulty. The appliances of modern mechanics enable men of this day to
dwarf by comparison the achievements of their predecessors, who had
obstructions to encounter which modern engineers know nothing of. The
genius of the older men now seems slow, although they were the wonder of
their own age. The canal, and its barges tugged along by horses, may
appear a cumbersome mode of communication, beside the railway and the
locomotive with its power and speed. Yet canals still are, and will long
continue to form, an essential part of our great system of commercial
communication,--as much so as roads, railways, or the ocean itself.

LIFE OF JAMES BRINDLEY
Samuel Smiles, 1874

- All OCR and input by Richard Fairhurst, Waterway Archive
- www.waterwayarchive.co.uk           richard@systemeD.net
- Version 1, 22nd March 2000


FOOTNOTES


CHAPTER I

1. (refers to a picture)
The site of the Croft is very elevated, and commands an extensive view as far
as Topley Pike, between Bakewell and Buxton, at the top of what is called the
Long Hill. Topley Pike is behind the spectator in looking at the Croft in the
above aspect. The rising ground behind the ash tree is called Wormhill Common,
though now enclosed. The old road from Buxton to Tideswell skirts the front of
the rising ground.

2.
Kippis's 'Biographica Britannica', Art. Brindley.

3.
Brindley's father seems afterwards to have somewhat recovered himself; for we
find him, in 1729, purchasing an undivided share of a small estate at Lowe
Hill, within a mile of Leek, in Staffordshire, where he had before gone to
settle; and he contrived to realise the remaining portion before his death, and
to leave it to his son James. None of the Brindley family remained at Wormhill,
and the name has disappeared in the district.


CHAPTER II

1.
In the possession of Joseph Mayer, Esq., of Liverpool, who has kindly permitted
the author to inspect the whole of his valuable manuscripts relating to
Brindley, so curiously illustrative of his start in life as a working and
consulting Engineer.

2.
The low remuneration paid for skilled labour of the same sort long before
Brindley's time is worthy of passing notice. In 1544 John of Padua was paid
only two shillings a-day as "devizomur of His Majestie's works," in other words
as Royal  architect, Still later, Inigo Jones was paid only eight shillings and
fourpence a-day as architect and \b surveyor \plain of the Whitehall
Banquet-big House, and forty-six pounds a-year for house-rent, clerks, and
incidental expenses; whilst Nicholas Stowe, the master mason, was allowed but
four and tenpence a-day. When the Duchess of Marlborough was afterwards engaged
in resisting the claims of one of her Blenheim surveyors, she told him
indignantly "that Sir Christopher Wren, while employed upon Saint Paul's, was
content to be dragged up to the top of the building three times a-week in a
hasket, at the great hamrd of his life, for only 200l. a-year"--the actual
amount of his salary as architect of that magnificent Cathedral. Brindley,
however, fared worse still, and for a long time does not seem to have risen
above mere mechanic's pay, even whilst engaged in constructing the celebrated
canal for the Duke of Bridgewater, which laid the foundation of so many
gigantic fortunes.

3.
'History of the Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent.' By John Ward. 1853. P. 164.

4.
We find the following memorandum in Brindley's pocket-book, relating to the
expense of working the engine in the year 1760:-

    Miss Clare Maria Broad's fire engine at fentan vivian.

    First yeer's work and repare night and day  164
    Do. torn back                               025
                                                ---
    Due for the first yeer                      139
    Due for the second yeer                     102

5.
He describes it as "A Fire-Engine for Drawing Water out of Mines, or for
Draining of Lands, or for Supplying of Cityes, Townes, or Gardens with Water,
or which may be applicable to many other great and usefull Purposes, in a
better and more effectual Manner than any Engine or Machine that hath hitherto
been made or used for the like Purpose." - 'Specification of Patents,' No. 730.

6.
Stuart's 'Anecdotes of Steam-Engines,' p. 626.


CHAPTER III

1.
See Appendix, Grand Canal of Languedoc, and its execution by Riquet de
Bonrepos.

2.
'Essays in History, Biography, Geograhpy, Engineering,' &c. By the late Earl of
Ellesmere. London, 1858. P. 226.

3.
'Walpole to Mann' Feb. 27th, 1752.

4.
Chalmers, in his 'Biographical Dictionary,' vol. xiii., 94, gives another
account of the rumoured cause of the Duke's subsequent antipathy to women; but
the above statement of the late Earl of Ellesmere, confirmed as it is by
certain passages in Walpole's Letters, is more likely to be the correct one.

5.
Aikin's 'Description of the Country from Thirty to Forty Miles round
Manchester.' London 1795.

6.
Thomas Walker: The Original, No. xi. Article entitled "Change in Commerce."

7.
March 3rd, 1760, the Flying Machine was started, and advertised to perform the
journey, "if God permit," in three days, by John Hanforth Matthew Howe, Samuel
Granville, and William Richardson. Fare inside, 2l 5s, outside, half-price.

8.
This "load" is still used as a measure of weight, though the practice of
carrying all sorts of commodities on horses' backs, in which it originated, has
long since ceased.

9.
We have heard the name of Smeaton mentioned as that of the engineer consulted
on the occasion, but are unable to speak with certainty on the point. Excepting
Smeaton, however, there was then no other engineer in the country of recognised
eminence in the profession.

10.
The process of puddling is of considerable importance in canal engineering.
Puddle is formed by a mixture of well-tempered clay and sand reduced to a
semi-fluid state, and rendered impervious to water by manual labour, as by
working and chopping it about with spades. It is usually applied in three or
more strata to a depth or thickness of about three feet: and care is taken at
each operation so to work the new layer of puddling stuff as to unite it with
the stratum immediately beneath. Over the top course a layer of common soil is
usually laid. It is only by the careful employment of puddling that the
filtration of the water of canals into the neighbouring lower lands through
which they pass can be effectually prevented.

11.
'Six Months' Tour through the North of England,' vol. iii, p. 258. Ed. 1770.

12.
The barges are narrow and long, each conveying about ten tons of coal. They are
drawn along the tunnels by means of staples fastened to the sides. When they
are empty, and consequently higher in the water, they are so near the roof that
the bargemen, lying on their backs, can propel them with their feet.

13.
A writer in the 'St. James's Chronicle,' under date the 30th of September,
1763, gives the following account of this apparatus, long since removed:- "At
the mouth of the cavern is erected a water-bellows, being the body of a tree,
forming a hollow cylinder, standing upright. Upon this a wooden basin is fixed,
in the form of a funnel, which receives a current of water from the higher
ground. This water falls into the cylinder, and issues out at the bottom of it,
but at the same time carries a quantity of air with it, which is received into
the pipes and forced to the innermost recesses of the coalpits, where it issues
out as if from a pair of bellows, and rarefies the body of thick air, which
would otherwise prevent the workmen from subsisting on the spot where the coals
are dug."

14.
'Six Months' Tour,' vol. iii., p. 270-1. Mr. Hughes, CE., says of this
discovery: "The lime thus made would appear to he the first cement of which we
have any knowledge in this country; since the calcareous marl here spoken of
would probably produce, when burnt, a lime of strong hydraulic properties."

15.
This story was first set on foot, we believe, by the Earl of Bridge-water, in
his singularly incoherent publication entitled, 'A Letter to the Parisians and
the French Nation upon Inland Navigation, containing a defence of the public
character of His Grace Francis Egerton, late Duke of Bridgewater. By the Hon.
Francis Henry Egerton.' The first pert of this curious book (published at
Paris) was dated "Hotel Egerton, Paris, 21st Dec., 1818;" the second part was
published two years later; and a third part, consisting entirely of a note
about Hebrew interpretations, was published subsequently. He had in the mean
time become Earl of Bridgewater, in October, 1823, having formerly been
prebendary of Durham and rector of Whitchurch in Shropshire. The late Earl of
Ellesmere, in his 'Essays on History, Biography,' &c., says of this nobleman
that "he died at Paris in the odour of eccentricity." But this is a mild
description of his lordship, who bad at lesat a dozen distinct crazes--about
canals, the Jews, punctuation, the wonderful merits of the Egertons, the proper
translation of Hebrew, the ancient languages generally, but more especially
about prophecy and poodle-dogs. When he drove along the Boulevards in Paris,
nothing could be seen of his lordship for poodle-dogs looking out of the
carriage-windows. The poodles sat at table with him at dinner, each being
waited on by a special yalet. The most creditable thing the Earl did was to
leave the sum of 12,000l. to the British Museum, and 8000l. to meritorious
literary men for writing the well-known 'Bridgewater Treatises.' He died in
February, 1829.


CHAPTER IV

1.
It would almost seem as if the extension of the canal to the Mersey had formed
part of the Duke's original plan; for Brindley was engaged in making a survey
from Longford to Dunham in the autumn of the preceding year, as appears from
the following account, preserved at the Bridgewater Canal Office in Manchester,
of his expenses in making the survey:-

    "Expenses in Surveying from Longford Bridge to Dunham.
    Oct'r 21st 1760.
    Spent at Stretford                  0 4
    At Altringham all Night             6 0
    Gave the Men to Drink that assisted 1 0
    22nd
    More at Altringham                  2 6
                                        ---
                                        0 0
    Paid Mr. Brinley this."
    
2.
Progress of Liverpool.

    Years.  Vessels entered.    Tonnage.    Duties Paid.
    1701    102                 8,619       ..
    1760    1,245               ..          2,330
    1800    4,746               450,060     23,379
    1858    21,352              4,441,913   347,889

3.
Mr. Baines says: "Carriages were then very rare, and it is mentioned as a
singular fact that at the period in question (1750) there was but one
gentleman's carriage in the town of Liverpool, and that carriage was kept by a
lady of the name of Clayton." - 'History of Lancashire,' vol. iv., p. 90.

4.
Search has been made at the Bridgewater Estate Offices at Manchester, and in
the archives of the Houses of Parliament, but no copy can be found. It is
probable that the Parliamentary papers connected with this application to
Parliament were destroyed by the fire which consumed so many similar documents
about twenty-five years ago.

5.
Stated by Mr. Hughes, in his 'Memoir of Brindley,' as having been communicated
to him by James Lech, Esq., M.P., formerly agent for the Duke's Trustees.

6.
'Memoir of Brindley,' by S. Hughes, C.E., in 'Weale's Papers on Civil
Engineering.'

7.
As the reader may possibly desire information on the same point, we may here
briefly explain the nature of a Canal Lock. It is employed as a means of
carrying navigations through an uneven country, and raising the boats from one
water level to another, or vice versa. The lock is a chamber formed of masonry,
occupying the bed of the canal where the difference of level is to be overcome.
It is provided with two pairs of gates, one at each end; and the chamber is so
contrived that the level of the water which it contains may be made to coincide
with either the higher level above, or the lower level below it. The following
diagrams will explain the form and construction of the lock. A represents what
is called the upper pond, B the lower, C is the left wall, and DD side
culverts. When the gates at the lower end of the chamber (E) are opened, and
those at the upper end (F) are closed, the water in the chamber will stand at
the lower level of the canal; but when the lower gates are closed, the water
will naturally coincide with that in the upper part of the canal. In the first
case, a boat may be floated into the lock from the lower part, and then, if the
lower gates be closed and water is admitted from the upper level, the
canal-boat is raised, by the depth of water thus added to the lock, to the
upper level, and on the complete opening of the gates it is thus floated
onward. By reversing the process, it will readily be understood how the boat
may, in like manner, be lowered from the higher to the lower level. The greater
the lift or the lowering, the more water is consumed in the process of exchange
from one level to another; and where the traffic of the canal is great, a large
supply of water is required to carry it on, which is usually provided by
capacious reservoirs situated above the summit level. Various expedients are
adopted for economising water: thus, when the width of the canal will admit of
it, the lock is made in two compartments, communicating with each other by a
valve, which can be opened and shut at pleasure; and by this means one-half of
the water which it would otherwise be necessary to discharge to the lower level
may be transferred to the other compartment.

8.
The following statement of the lengths of the different proportions of the
Duke's canal, including those originally executed, is from the map published by
Brindley in 1769:-

                                           Miles.furl.chains
        From Worsley to Longford Bridge             6   0  0  Level.
        From Longford Bridge to Manchester          4   2  0  "
        From Longford Bridge to Preston Brook       19  0  0  "
        From Preston Brook to upper part of Runcorn 4   4  0  "
        From upper part of Runcorn to the Mersey    0   5  7  79 feet fall.

9.
The following bill is preserved amongst the Bridgewater Canal papers. Simcox
was a skilled mechanic, and acted as foreman of the carpenters:-

    "His Grace the Duke of Bridgewater to Sam'l Simcox.
    
                                                    Dr.
                                                l.  s.  d.
    23 March 1760   To 12 days work at 21d per  1   1   0
    23 August       To 6 days more do at do     0   10  6
    6 September     To 5 days more do at do     0   14  0
                                                ------------
                                                2   5   6
                                                
    1 November 1760. Rec'd the Contents above by the Hands of John Gilbert for
    the Use of Sam'l Simcox. Paid James Brindley."

The wages of what was called a "right-hand man" at that time were from 14d. to
16d. a day, and of a "left-hand man" from 1s. to 14d.

10.
The Earl of Bridgewater, in his rambling 'Letter to the Parisians,' above
referred to, alleges that the quarrel originated in Gilbert's horse breaking
into the field where Brindley's mare was grazing, and doing her such injury
that the engineer was for a time prevented using the animal in the pursuit of
his business. The mare was a great favourite of Brindley's, and he is said to
have taken the thing very much to heart. The Earl alleges that Brindley was
under the impression Gilbert had contrived the trick out of spite.

11.
R. Rawlinson. Esq., C.E., Engineer to the Bridgewater Canal.

12.
Mr. Bennet Woodcroft, of the Patent Office, writes us as follows with reference
to Earnshaw's alleged invention of a spinning machine:- "The fact really is,
that the machine in question was invented by John Kay of Bury; and when, in
1758, a mob broke into Kay's house, and completely gutted it, the model of the
spinning machine was saved by Earnshaw who subsequently destroyed it."

13.
St James's Chronicle, July 1st, 1765.

14.
'A History of Inland Navigations. Particularly those of the Duke of Bridgewater
in Lancashire and Cheshire.' 2nd Ed., p. 39.

15.
This bold scheme, so earnestly advocated by Brindley, was thus noticed by a
Liverpool paper of the time:- "On Monday last, Mr. Brindley waited upon several
of the principal gentlemen of this town and others at Runcorn, in order to
ascertain the expense that may attend the building of a bridge over the river
Mersey at the latter place, which is estimated at a sum inferior to the
advantages that must arise both to the counties of Lancaster and Chester from a
communication of this sort." - Williamson's 'Liverpool Advertser,' July 19th,
1768.


CHAPTER V

1.
There is now to be seen at Worsley, in the hands of a private person, a
promissory note given by the Duke, bearing interest, for as low a sum as five
pounds. Amongst the persons known to be lenders of money, to whom the Duke
applied at the time, was Mr. C. Smith, a merchant at Rochdale; but he would not
lend a farthing, believing the Duke to be engaged in a perfectly ruinous
undertaking.

2.
The Earl of Ellesmere's 'Essays on History, Biography,' &c., p. 236.

3.
We regret to have to add that Brindley's widow (afterwards the wife of Mr.
Williamson, of Longport) in vain petitioned the Duke and his representatives,
as well as the above Earl of Bridgewater, for payment of a balance said to have
been due to Brindley for services, at the time of the engineer's death. In her
letter to Robert Bradshaw, M.P., dated the 2nd May, 1803, Mrs. Williamson says:
"It will doubtless appear to you extraordinary that so very late an application
should now be made... but I must beg leave to state that repeated applications
were made by me (after Mr. Brindley's sudden and unexpected death) to the late
Mr. Thomas Gilbert and also to his brother, but without any other effect than
that of constant promises to lay the matter before His Grace; and I conceive it
owing to this channel of application that no settling ever took place. A letter
was also written to His Grace on this subject so late as the year 1801, but no
answer was received. From the year 1765 to 1772, Mr. Brindley received no money
on account of his salary. At that time he was frequently in very great want,
and made application to the Duke, whose answer (to use the Duke's expression)
was, 'I am much more distressed for money than you; however, as soon as I can
recover myself, your services shall not go unrewarded.' In consequence of this,
Mr. Brindley was under the necessity of borrowing several sums to make good
engagements he was then under to various canal companies. In the year 1774, two
years after Mr. Brindley's death, the late Mr. John Gilbert paid my brother,
Mr. Henshall, the trifling sum of 100l. on account of Mr. Brindley's time,
which is all that has been received. I beg leave to suggest how small and
inadequate a return this is for his services during a period of seven years.
Mr. B's travelling expenses on His Grace's account during that time were
considerable, towards which, when he had not sufficient money to carry him the
whole journey, he now and then received a small sum. How far his plans and
undertakings have been beneficial to His Grace's interest is well known."

4.
When the Duke had put on the boats and established the service, he offered to
let them for 60l a year; but not being able to find any person to take them at
that price, he was under the necessity of conducting the service himself, by
means of an agent. In the course of a short time the boats were found to yield
a clear profit of 1600l. a year.

5.
A similar story is told of him at Worsley. A boy had been fetching some coal
from the mouth of the tunnel, and having rested his load could not get it
cleverly on his back again. Seeing but not knowing the Duke, he called out,
"Here, felly, gie us a hoist up." The Duke asked the boy a number of questions
before helping him up with the sack; but when the youth felt it safe for
carrying, he expressed his acknowledgements by observing "Wal, thou's a big
chap, but thou's a lazy un!"

6.
The treatise which Fulton afterwards published, entitled 'A Treatise on Canal
Navigation, exhibiting the numerous advantages to be derived from small Canals,
&c., with a description of the machinery for facilitating conveyance by water
through the most mountainous countries, independent of Locks and Aqueducts,'
(London, 1796,) is well known amongst engineers.

7.
Lord Ellesmere's 'Essays,' p. 241.

8.
"His purchases from Italy and Holland were judicious and important, and,
finally, the distractions of France forcing the treasures of the Orleans
Gallery into this country, he became a principal in the fortunate speculation
of its purchase." - 'Essays on History, Biography,' &c.

9.
'History of Inland Navigation,' p. 76.

10.
The Duke at first employed mules in hauling the canal-boats, because of the
greater endurance and freedom from disease of those animals, and also because
they could eat almost any description of provender. The Duke's mules was for a
long time the finest that had been known in England. The popular impression in
Manchester is, that the Duke's Acts of Parliament authorising the construction
of his canals, forbade the use of horses, in order that men might be employed;
and that the Duke consequently dodged the provisions of the Acts by employing
mules. But this is not the case, there being no clause in any of them
prohibiting the use of horses.

11.
There is even a tradition surviving at Worsley, that "the Duke" rides through
the village once in every year at midnight, drawn by six coal-black horses!

12.
The cotton trade was not of much importance at first, though it rapidly
increased when the steam-engine and spinning-jenny had become generally
adopted. It may be interesting to know that sixty years since it was considered
satisfactory if one cotton-flat a day reached Manchester from Liverpool. In the
Duke's time the flats always "cast anchor" on their way, or at least laid up
for the night, at six o'clock precisely, starting again at six o'clock on the
following morning.

13.
Recent "poor-lays" exhibit a very different result from what they did in former
years. In 1860-1 the poor-rate levied in Chorlton-upon-Medlock yielded (at 2s.
10d. in the pound) 18,798l.; the property in the township being of the rateable
value of 145,844l.

14.
De Quincey's 'Autobiographic Sketches,' pp. 34, 48.

15.
The corner of Irwell Street, Salford, as recently as 1828, was occupied by an
old canal "flat," tenanted by an eccentric character, after whom it was
designated "Bannister's Ship." Opposite it was a row of cottages with gardens
in front. Oldfield and Ordsall Lanes were country roads, and the streets
adjance to them were not yet in existence.

16.
The growth of Manchester, and the sister borough of Salford, will be more
readily appreciated, perhaps, by a glance at the population at different
periods than by any other illustration:

    Population in   1774.   1801.   1821.   1861.
                    41,032  84,020  187,031 460,028.

17.
On the subject of watchment, it may be mentioned that the first watchman was
appointed for Chorlton-on-Medlock in 1814. In 1832 an Act was obtained for
improving and regulating that township, and so recently as 1833 it was first
lighted with gas. The Police Act for the Township of Hulme was obtained in
1834.


CHAPTER VI

1.
In a curious book published in 1766, by Richard Whitworth, of Balcham Grange,
Staffordshire, afterwards Sir Richard Whitworth, member for Stafford, entitled
'The Advantages of Inland Navigation,' he points to the various kinds of
traffic that might be expected to come upon the canal then proposed by him, and
amongst other items he enumerates the following:- "There are three pot-waggons
go from Newcastle and Burslem weekly, through Eccleshall and Newport to
Bridgenorth, and carry about eight tons of pot-ware every week, at 3l. per ton.
The same waggons load back with ten tons of close goods, consisting of white
clay, grocery, and iron, at the same price, delivered on their road to
Newcastle. Large quantities of pot-ware are conveyed on horses' backs from
Burslem and Newcastle to Bridgenorth and Bewdley for exportation - about one
hundred tons yearly, at 2l. 10s. per ton. Two broad-wheel waggons (exclusive of
150 pack-horses) go from Manchester through Stafford weekly, and may be
computed to carry 312 tons of cloth and Manchester wares in the year, at 3l.
10s. per ton. The great salt-trade that is carried on at Northwich may be
computed to send 600 tons yearly along this canal, together with Nantwich 400,
chiefly carried now on horses' backs, at 10s. per ton on a medium."

2.
Young's 'Six Months' Tour.' Ed. 1770. Vol. iii., p. 317.

3.
'History of Birmingham.' Ed. 1836, p. 24.

4.
The Papers of Mr. Llewellynn Jewitt, F.S.A., on 'Wedgwood and Etruria,'
published in the Art Journal, 1864, contain many interesting particulars
relating to the life and labours of Wedgwood, and are well worthy of perusal.

5.
'Wedgwood;' an Address delivered at Burslem, Oct. 26, 1863. By the Right Hon.
W. E. Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer. London: Murray.

6.
(refers to a picture) The Ivy House, in which Wedgwood began business on his
own account, is the cottage shown on the right-hand of the engraving. The other
house is the old "Turk's Head."

7.
Faujas Saint Ford, in his 'Travels in England,' thus writes respecting
Wedgwood's ware:- "Its excellent workmanship, its solidity, the advantage which
it possesses of standing the action of fire, its fine glaze, impenetrable to
acids, the beauty, convenience, and variety of its forms, and its moderate
price, hted a commerce so active, and so universal, that in travelling from
Paris to St. Petersburg, from Amsterdam to the farthest point of Sweden, from
Dunkirk to the southern extremity of France, one is served at every inn from
English earthenware. The same fine article adorns the tables of Spain, Portugal
and Italy; and it provides the cargoes of ships to the East Indies, the West
Indies, and America."

8.
Wedgwood even entered the lists as a pamphleteer in aid of the Grand Trunk
project, and, in 1765, he and his partner, Mr. Bentley, formerly of Liverpool,
drew up a very able statement, showing the advantages likely to be derived from
the construction of the proposed canal, under the title of 'A View of the
Advantages of Inland Navigation, with a plan of a Navigable Canal intended for
a communication between the ports of Liverpool and Hull.' It pointed out in
glowing language the advantages to be derived from opening up the internal
communications of a country by means of roads, canals, &c.; and showed how the
comfort and even the necessity of all classes must be so much better provided
for by a reduction in the cost of carriage of useful and necessary commodities.

9.
'The Advantages of Inland Navigation,' by R. Whitworth. 1766.

10.
In one of the many angry pamphlets published at the time, the 'Supplement to a
pamphlet entitled Seasonable Considerations on a Navigable Canal intended to be
cut from the Trent to the Mersey,' &c., the following passage occurs: "When our
all is at stake, these gentlemen [the promoters of the Grand Trunk Canal] must
not be surprised at bold truths. We conceive more favourably of their
understanding than of their motive; we cannot suspect them of entertaining the
chimerical idea of cutting through Hare Castle! We rather believe that they are
desirous of cutting their canal at both ends, and of leaving the middle for the
project of a futre day. Are these projectors jealous of their honour? Let them
adopt a clause (which reason and justice strongly enforce) to restrain them
from meddling with either end till they have finished the great trunk. This,
and this alone, will shield them from suspicion.

11.
Brindley's tunnel had only space for a narrow canal-boat to pass through, and
it propelled by the tedious and laborious process of what is called "legging."
It still continues to be worked in the same way, while horses haul the boats
through the whole length of Telford's wider tunnel. The men who "leg" the boat,
literally kick it along from one end to the other. They lie on their backs on
the boat-cloths, with their shoulders resting against some package, and propel
it along by means of their feet pressing against the top or sides of the
tunnel.

12. (refers to a picture)
The smaller opening into the hill on the right-hand of the view is Brindley's
tunnel; that on the left is Telford's, executed some forty years since.
Harecastle church and village occupy the ground over the tunnel entrances.

13.
'Seasonable Considerations,' &c.; Canal pamphlet dated 1766.

14.
The following comparison of the rates per ton at which goods were conveed by
land-carriage before the opening of the Grand Trunk Canal, and those at which
they were subsequently carried by it, will show how great was the advantage
conferred on the country by the introduction of navigable canals:- "The cost of
carrying a ton of goods from Liverpool to Etruria, the centre of the
Staffordshire Potteries, by land-carriage, was 50s.; the Trent and Mersey
reduced it to 13s. 4d. The land-carriage from Liverpool to Wolverhampton was
5l. a ton; the canal reduced it to 1l. 5s. The land-carriage from Liverpool to
Birmingham, and also to Stourport, was 5l. a ton; the canal reduced both to 1l.
10s.... Thus the cost of inland transport was reduced, on the average, to about
one-fourth of the rate paid previous to the introduction of canal navigation.
The advantages were enormous: wheat, for example, which formerly could not be
conveyed a hundred miles, from corn-growing districts to the large towns and
manufacturing districts, for less than 20s. a quarter, could be conveyed for
about 5s. a quarter. These facts show how great was the service conferred on
the country by Brindley and the Duke of Bridgewater." - Baines's 'History of
the Commerce and Town of Liverpool.'

15.
The population of the same district in 1861 was found to be upwards of 120,000.


CHAPTER VII

1.
The letter is so characteristic of Josiah Wedgwood that we here insert it at
length, as copied from the original in the possession of Mr. Mayer of
Liverpool:--

    "Burslem, 12th July, 1769

    "Dear Sir,--I should have wrote to you about young Wilson, but the
multiplicity of branches you wrote me he was expected to learn, made me despair
of teaching him any. Pray give my compliments to his father, and if he chooses
to have his son to learn to be a warehouseman and book-keeper, which is quits
sufficient and better than more for any one person, I will learn him those in
the best manner; but, even then. Mr. Wilson must not expect him to be set on
the top of a ladder without setting his feet upon the lowermost steps; and
unless he will let the Boy pursue that method, I would not be concerned with
him on any account. I will not attempt to teach him any more trades; it would
injure the Boy, and do me no good. If he has a mind at his leisure time to
amuse himself with drawing I have no objection, and would encourage him in it,
as an innocent amusement, and what may be of use to him, but would not make
this a branch of his business. If the business I propose is too humble for Mr.
Wilson's son, I would not by any means have him accept of it.

    "Mr. Brindley desires you'll send 30 plans to each of the undermentioned
Gentlemen by the first Waggons, and let us know when they are sent, as we shall
advertise them to several of the country papers: Mr Walker, of Oxford, Steward
to D. of Marlbro'--you may perhaps get them sent from Marlbro' house; Mr.
Dudley, Attorney-at-Law, Coventry; Mr. Richardson, Silversmith, in Chester; Mr.
Perry, Wolverhampton.

    "We shall send you this week end, double salts, creams, pott'y potts, table
plates of all sorts, sallad dishes, covered do., pierced desert plates, &c. We
cannot get Sadler to send us any pierced desert ware, &c. Pay Addison 5 or 6
guineas.

    "Yours, &c., J W."

2.
The following were the canals laid out and principally executed by Brindley:-

                                                       Miles.furl.chains

    The Duke's Canals: Worsley to Manchester                     10 2 0
     Longford Bridge to the Mersey below Runcorn                 24 1 7
    Grand Trunk Canal Proper, from Wilden Ferry to Preston Brook 88 7 9
    Wolverhampton Canal                                          46 4 0
    Coventry        "                                            36 7 8
    Birmingham      "                                            24 2 0
    Droitwich       "                                            5  4 9
    Oxford          "                                            82 7 3
    Chesterfield    "                                            46 0 0

3.
'Memoir,' by Samuel Hughes, C.E. Weales 'Quarterly Papers,' 1844.

4.
The younger Pliny seems to have adopted almost a similar method: "Clausae
fenestrae manent. Mire enim silentio et tenebris animus alitur. Ab iis quae
avocant abductus, et liber, et mihi relictus, non oculos animo sed animum
oculis sequor, qui eadem quae mens vident quoties non vident alia." - Epist.
lib. ix., ep. 36.

5.
'Biographia Britannica,' 2nd Ed. Edited by Dr. Kippis. The materials of the
article are acknowledge to have been obtained principally from Mr. Henshall by
Messrs. Wedgwood and Bentley, who wrote and published the memoir in testimnoy
of their admiration and respect for their deceased friend, the engineer of the
Grand Trunk Canal.

6.
It has, indeed, been stated in the strange publication of the last Earl of
Bridgewater, to which we have already alluded, that when in the service of the
Duke, Brindley was "drunken." But this is completely contradicted by the
testimony of Brindley's own friends; by the evidence of Brindley's notebook,
from repeated entries in which it appears that his "ating and drink" at dinner
cost no more than 8d.; by the confidence generally reposed in him, and the
friendship entertained for him, by such men as Josiah Wedgwood; and by the fact
of the vast amount of work that he subsequently contrived to get through. No
man of "drunken" habits could possibly have done this. We should not have
referred to this topic but for the circumstance that the late Mr. Baines, of
Leeds, has quoted the Earl's statement, without contradiction, in his excellent
'History of Lancashire.'

7.
'A Cursory View of a proposed Canal from Kendal to the Duke of Bridgewater's
Canal, leading to the great manufacturing town of Manchester." 1785.

8.
The following curious paragraph is from the 'Times' of the 19th December, 1806.
It relates to the despatching of troops from London for Ireland, during a time
of great excitement:- "The first division of the troops that are to proceed by
Paddington Canal for Liverpool, and thence by transports for Dublin, will leave
Paddington to-day, and will be followed by others to-morrow, and on Sunday. By
this mode of conveyance the men will be only seven days in reaching Liverpool,
and with comparatively little fatigue, and it would take them above fourteen
days to march that distance. Relays of fresh horses for the canal-boats have
been ordered to be in readiness at all the stations."