What was canal mania

Building of canals dates to ancient times but in Britain, the modern canal network came into being because the Industrial Revolution demanded an economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities. Some 29 river navigation improvements took place in the 16th and 17th centuries, starting with the Thames locks and the River Wey Navigation. The biggest growth was in the so-called narrow canals, which extended water transport to the emerging industrial areas of the Staffordshire potteries and Birmingham as well as a network of canals joining Yorkshire and Lancashire and extending to London.

Big canals began to be built in the 18th century to link the major manufacturing centers across the country. The Bridgewater Canal was a huge financial success: it repaid the cost of its construction within just a few years. This success helped inspire a period of intense canal building, known as Canal Mania. There was a dramatic rise in the number of schemes promoted. Only one canal was authorized by Act of Parliament in , but by it was twenty.

New canals were hastily built in the aim of replicating the commercial success of the Bridgewater Canal, the most notable being the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the Thames and Severn Canal which opened in and respectively. It required the construction of an aqueduct to cross the River Irwell, one of the first of its kind. Its success helped inspire a period of intense canal building in Britain, known as Canal Mania. By the s a national network — first in the world — was in existence.

The new canals proved highly successful. The boats on the canals were horse-drawn with a towpath alongside the canal for the horse to walk along. This horse-drawn system was highly economical and became standard across the British canal network. The canal boats could carry thirty tons at a time with only one horse pulling — more than ten times the amount of cargo per horse that was possible with a cart. It was this huge increase in supply that contributed to the reduction of the price of coal.

This success proved the viability of canal transport and soon industrialists in many other parts of the country wanted canals. After the Bridgewater Canal, the early canals were built by groups of private individuals with an interest in improving communications. In Staffordshire the famous potter Josiah Wedgwood saw an opportunity to bring bulky cargoes of clay to his factory doors and to transport his fragile finished goods to market in Manchester, Birmingham, or further afield by water, minimizing breakages.

The new canal system was both cause and effect of the rapid industrialization of the Midlands and the north. The period between the s and the s is often referred to as the Golden Age of British canals. For each canal, an Act of Parliament was necessary to authorize construction, and as people saw the high incomes achieved from canal tolls, canal proposals came to be put forward by investors interested in profiting from dividends, at least as much as by people whose businesses would profit from cheaper transport of raw materials and finished goods.

In a further development, there was often out-and-out speculation, in which people would try to buy shares in a newly floated company simply to sell them on for an immediate profit, regardless of whether the canal was ever profitable or even built. During this period of Canal Mania, huge sums were invested in canal building and although many schemes came to nothing, the canal system rapidly expanded to nearly 4, miles over 6, kilometers in length.

Many rival canal companies were formed and competition was rampant. For many years, a dispute about tolls meant that goods travelling through Birmingham had to be portaged from boats in one canal to boats in the other. On the majority of British canals the canal-owning companies did not own or run a fleet of boats, since this was usually prohibited by the Acts of Parliament setting them up to prevent monopolies.

Instead, they charged private operators tolls to use the canal. These tolls were also usually regulated by the Acts. From these tolls they would try, with varying degrees of success, to maintain the canal, pay back initial loans, and pay dividends to their shareholders. In winter special icebreaker boats with reinforced hulls would be used to break the ice. Packet boats carried packages up to pounds 51 kg in weight as well as passengers at relatively high speed day and night. To compete with railways, the flyboat was introduced, cargo-carrying boats working day and night.

These boats were crewed by three men, who operated a watch system whereby two men worked while the other slept. Horses were changed regularly. When steam boats were introduced in the late 19th century, crews were enlarged to four. The boats were owned and operated by individual carriers, or by carrying companies who would pay the captain a wage depending on the distance traveled and the amount of cargo.

The canal system grew rapidly at first, and became an almost completely connected network covering the South, Midlands, and parts of the North of England and Wales. There were canals in Scotland, but they were not connected to the English canals or, generally, to each other with some exceptions.

In the period of the most rapid development of the canal system, crews were all male and their families lived in cottages on the bank.

The practice of all male crews for steamers continued until after the First World War. Wives and children came aboard as extra labor and to save rental costs during the latter part of the 19th century. During this period, whole families lived aboard the boats. They were often marginalized from land-based society and perceived as strange outsiders living a nomadic lifestyle.

The last major canal to be built in Britain was the Manchester Ship Canal, which upon opening in was the largest ship canal in the world and opened Manchester as a port. However, it never achieved the commercial success its sponsors had hoped for and signaled that canals were a dying mode of transport. From about , railways began to threaten canals. Although they could not only carry more than the canals, they could transport people and goods far more quickly than the walking pace of the canal boats.

Most of the investment that had previously gone into canal building was diverted into railway building. Canal companies were unable to compete against the speed of the new railways and in order to survive they had to slash their prices. This put an end to the huge profits that canal companies had enjoyed and also had an effect on the boatmen who faced a drop in wages. Flyboat working virtually ceased, as it could not compete with the railways on speed and the boatmen found they could only afford to keep their families by taking them with them on the boats.

By the s, the railway system had become well established and the amount of cargo carried on the canals had fallen by nearly two-thirds. In many cases struggling canal companies were bought out by railway companies. Sometimes this was a tactical move by railway companies to close the canal company down and remove competition or to build a railway on the line of the canal. Larger canal companies survived independently and were able to continue to make profits.

The canals survived through the 19th century largely by occupying the niches in the transport market that the railways had missed, or by supplying local markets such as the coal-hungry factories and mills of the big cities. During the 19th century, in much of continental Europe the canal systems of many countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, were drastically modernized and widened to take much larger boats, often able to transport up to two thousand tonnes, compared to the thirty to one hundred tonnes that was possible on the much narrower British canals.

As it is economic to transport freight by canal only if this is done in bulk, the widening ensured that in many of these countries, canal freight transport is still economically viable. This provided Manchester manufacturers with an alternative way of transporting their goods to the port of Liverpool.

As this reduced the costs of transporting goods between these two cities from 12s to 6s a ton 20 cwt , Bridgewater had little difficulty in persuading people to use his canal. The financial success of the Bridgewater Canal encouraged other business people to join together to build canals. Josiah Wedgwood , from Burslem , in Staffordshire , had been transporting his pottery by pack-horses. The poor state of the roads meant a great number of breakages. The canal began within a few miles of the River Mersey , near Runcorn and finished in a junction with the River Trent in Derbyshire.

It is just over ninety miles long with more than 70 locks and five tunnels. The success of this canal resulted in Brindley being employed as the principal engineer on the Coventry Canal, the Oxford Canal, and the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal.

In an attempt to increase profits canals were now built all over Britain. By there were 2, miles of canal and 1, miles of navigable river. These waterways linked almost every factory and industrial town in Britain.

This system of waterways also provided a route to Britain's ports and the profitable overseas market. At the same time, goods imported from the rest of the world could be efficiently distributed throughout Britain. By , approximately 4, miles 7,km of inland waterway had been constructed in Britain. Read the next chapter in the history of our canals. Making life better by water. Specialist teams Find out how our expert teams work together to make life better by water.

Work for us We have vacancies across all of our waterways and in the offices, museums and attractions that support them. Contact us If you're thinking of getting in touch then please take a moment to look through these pages as we probably have the answer on our website. How we make a difference. Our publications Annual report Document library. Work for us Find out about working for us. Summer safety by the water As the weather is warming up we want everyone to be able to enjoy our canals and rivers in the safest possible way.

Boating Licensing your boat Mooring Plan your trip Notices and stoppages Boater's handbook Getting afloat - new to boating A guide to boating Trips and holidays Boat services Boat based businesses. Stoppages and notices We're continually carrying out work to improve our canals and rivers.

Canoeing and kayaking Getting started Licensing your canoe Keep yourself safe Kayak fishing Canoeing and the environment The canoeing and kayaking quiz Paddle boarding. Share the Space Take a look at our common sense guide to sharing the towpath. Events Planning an event Find an event Open days. Winter open days Our open days offer a different perspective of our waterways, a behind-the-scenes look at the great work we do. Fishing Places to fish Fishery list Waterway wanderers Commercial fisheries Seven reasons why fishing is good for you Let's fish!

Find a place to fish From reservoirs to club-managed canals and river stretches - find your nearest place to fish. Nature and wildlife Canals and climate change Canal habitats Keeping our ducks healthy A spotter's guide to waterway wildlife The rogues' gallery.

Get your free guide Download your free guide today and start exploring the waterway nature near you. Download your free guides You've nine free days out guides to choose from - where will you go first?

Safety on our waterways Open water swimming Safety during flooding Summer water safety Winter water safety James' story. Find a walk near you Are you ready to ramble? Wellbeing with Well-B Discover how you can recharge when spending time by water. Art Events Take a look at our upcoming events here.

Back Volunteer with the Trust Volunteering opportunities Volunteer in partnership Ways to volunteer Volunteer gallery Volunteer articles Volunteer on a boat Why volunteer? And the river navigations, like those on the River Irwell, opposed the canals in order to preserve their river transportation toll revenue. But as work moved from cottage to factory, power shifted from humans to the steam engine, and workers moved from the country to cities, the demand for coal continued to grow.

So while just one new canal was approved in , six were approved in , seven in , and twenty-one in And with so many new canals requiring so much new capital, speculators eyed the development as an opportunity to get in on good deals and turn a quick profit.

In one such example, only those who were present at the church in Stony Stratford could subscribe to shares in the Grand Junction Canal. And once investors were entitled to shares, they could start trading those shares. But this time, remembering the South Sea Bubble, in March , Parliament debated whether or not to limit trading in canal shares.

Many canals were built, with some earning substantial profits for many years, while others were abandoned during construction or never started at all. By the end of the s, the boom was over. Most canals were completed by , and by the s, the lure of the locomotive would capture contemporary speculators. Dark Fiber and the Great Housing Convulsion Like many speculative bubbles, rising prices fuel optimistic expectations and overinvestment.

And sometimes just a slowing of price growth as supply outstrips demand—at least in the short-term—can drive down expectations of future price growth, and the bubble ends. And often, the investment turns out to be premature, but perhaps prudent in the long run.

A recent example was the overinvestment in fiber-optic cabling in the dot-com bust of the late s.