Civilisation Module Transportation Revolution Innovations in Transportation 1. Turnpike Trusts at the End of the 17Th Century, B

Civilisation Module Second Year/ LMD [email protected] Transportation Revolution Innovations in Transportation 1. Turnpike Trusts At the end of the 17th century, British roads were in a terrible state. The rapid increase in industrial production between 1700 and 1750 resulted in the need for an improved transport system. Whenever possible, factory owners used Britain's network of rivers to transport their goods. However, their customers did not always live by rivers and they therefore had to make use of Britain's roads. This was a major problem for mine-owners as transport costs were crucial. If they could not get their coal to market at a competitive price, they were out of business. The appalling state of Britain's roads created serious problems for factory owners. Bad weather often made roads impassable. When fresh supplies of raw materials failed to arrive, factory production came to a cut. Flooded roads also meant that factory owners had difficulty transporting the finished goods to their customers. Merchants and factory owners appealed to Parliament for help. After much discussion it was decided that this problem would only be solved if road building could be made profitable. Groups of businessmen were therefore encouraged to form companies called Turnpike Trusts. These companies were granted permission by Parliament to build and maintain roads. So that they could make a profit from this venture, companies were allowed to charge people to use these roads. Between 1700 and 1750 Parliament established over 400 of these Turnpike companies. The quality of the roads built by these companies varied enormously. Some companies tried to increase their profits by spending very little money on repairing their roads. Other companies made every effort to provide a good service. In 1765, Harrogate Turnpike Trust employed John Metcalf to build a three-mile stretch of road in Yorkshire. Although blind since the age of six, Metcalfe was able to make an extremely good road. Metcalfe was aware 1 Civilisation Module Second Year/ LMD [email protected] of the importance of efficient drainage, and his decision to dig ditches along the sides of his convex roads considerably reduced the possibility of flooding. This road was so successful he was commissioned to build a series of roads that were able to carry heavy wagons and withstand wet weather. Another important road builder was Thomas Telford. This talented engineer adapted ideas first used by the Romans. On top of foundations made from large stone blocks, Telford spread layers of large and small stones. Telford's method was based on the idea that vehicles could assist rather than destroy roads. He pointed out that by using small stones on the surface of the road, the more traffic that used the road, the more tightly compacted the stones would become. Telford's roads were very impressive, but they were also expensive and the Turnpike companies found it difficult to make profits from this method of road building. Eventually another Scottish engineer, John Macadam, came up with a cheaper method of making good roads. In 1816, Macadam was employed by the Bristol Turnpike Trust. Macadam developed the view that roads did not need stone foundations. His method was to spread a series of thin layers of small angular stones over a subsoil base. After each layer was laid, it was left for a while so that the weight of vehicles using the road could compact the stones together. These 'macadamized' roads enabled horses to pull three times the load they could on other road surfaces. Wagons and coaches could also travel much faster on this surface. 2. Canals 2.1. Canal Mania The British canal system of water transport played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution, 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 2 Civilisation Module Second Year/ LMD [email protected] 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. Known for its huge commercial success, the Bridgewater Canal in North West England opened in 1761. It connected Worsley with the rapidly growing town of Manchester, but its advantages over land and river transport meant that within a year of its opening, the price of coal in Manchester fell by about half. 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. Within just a few years of the Bridgewater’s opening, an embryonic national canal network came into being, with the construction of canals such as the Oxford Canal and the Trent & Mersey Canal. There was a dramatic rise in the number of schemes promoted. Only one canal was authorized by Act of Parliament in 1790, but by 1793 it was twenty. The capital authorized in 1790 was £90,000 but rose to nearly £3 million by 1793. 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 1774 and 1789 respectively. By the 1820s a national network – first in the world – was in existence. The new canals proved highly successful. The boats on the canals were horse-drawn with a towpath alongside the canal for the horse to walk along. This horse-drawn system was highly economical and became standard across the British canal network. 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. 2.2. Competition 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, 3 Civilisation Module Second Year/ LMD [email protected] 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 1770s and the 1830s 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 4,000 miles (over 6,400 kilometers) in length. Many rival canal companies were formed and competition was out of control. Perhaps the best example was Worcester Bar in Birmingham, a point where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal and the Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line were only 7 feet (2.1 m) apart. 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. 2.3. Flyboats 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. 4 Civilisation Module Second Year/ LMD [email protected] In winter special icebreaker boats with reinforced hulls would be used to break the ice. Packet boats carried packages up to 112 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. 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. 3. Locomotives 3.1. Introduction of Steam Locomotives The first steam railway locomotive was introduced by Richard Trevithick in 1804.

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