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The Leeds and Liverpool Canal, with Tate and Lyle's Sugar Refinery in background © National Trust Herdman |
Liverpool’s status as ‘second city of the Empire' was to
some extent dependent on the ability of the Corporation and the city merchants
to maintain, improve and expand dock facilities. Improving transport links
between Liverpool and other city's like Leeds, Manchester and London was also
very important. Coastal shipping was of course important and continued to
provide an excellent service well into the 20th century. Initially, many of the
developments in inland transport were in order to gain economic advantage. The
first road out of Liverpool to be turnpiked, in 1729, led to collieries around
Prescot, but also enabled the booming business of refining salt from Cheshire.
Turnpike trusts were set up by individual acts of Parliament, with powers to
collect road tolls for maintaining the principal roads in Britain from the 17th
century but especially during the 18th and 19th centuries. Similarly, the early
18th-century improvement of the rivers Irwell and Weaver, and the opening in
1757 of the first section of the Sanlcey Navigation, gave Liverpool local and
regional advantages, much of it based on improving access to coal. But
long-haul traffic into the interior was slower and inadequate.
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Canning dock circa 1840 |
Almost all goods traffic in the early 18th century was horse
drawn and, as late as 1750, the road to Warrington was unfit for coaches. In
1753, packhorses between Liverpool and London took nine days at an average of
23 miles per day. Even in the city itself roads were bad. An act of 1786 gave
the Corporation powers to widen its streets at a time when there was not one
wide or well-constructed street in Liverpool. The Corporation spent the then
astonishing sum of £150,000 on improvements under the powers of the act.
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Bridgewater Canal, 3 top locks, Runcorn 1905 |
Meanwhile, the growth of a nationwide canal network allowed
Liverpool's increasingly advantageous location for trade with Ireland and North
America to be exploited to the full. Canals provided reliable inland transport
for goods and it was recognised that the use of a canal system would provide
immense prosperity for the city and docks. With the movement of coal providing
the initial stimulus, it led the Duke of Bridgewater to promote the canal that
was to bear his name, opening in 1761 initially to take coal from his pits into
Manchester, and later also to Runcorn and the Mersey tideway.
The Trent and Mersey Canal was also given the go ahead
in the 1760s, to run from the River Trent at Shardlow to the Runcorn Gap, and a
junction with an extension of the Bridgewater. When it was opened in 1777
represented the first step in connecting Liverpool to a national inland
transport network that was both economical and reliable, also providing an
opportunity for trade with the industrial heartlands of the Midlands. From its
earliest days it was also known as the Grand Trunk Canal and it was hoped that
other waterways would soon attach themselves to it like branches to a tree.
Significantly, its chief advocate (besides the Staffordshire potter Josiah
Wedgwood) was the Liverpool merchant Thomas Bentley, anticipating the
widespread use of Liverpool capital to build the links on which the city’s
growth depended.
Despite all of this, Liverpool still lacked a route into the
industrial areas of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and to the North Sea. Therefore
in 1770, plans were authorised for what
was to become the Leeds and Liverpool (L andL) Canal. A commencement ceremony
was held at
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The Leeds Liverpool Canal at Burlington Street Bridge |
Halsall, north of Liverpool on 5 November 1770, with the
first sod being dug by the Hon. Charles Mordaunt of Halsall Hall. The first
section of the canal opened from Bingley to Skipton in 1773. By 1774 the canal
had been completed from Skipton to Shipley, including significant engineering
features such as the Bingley Five Rise Locks, Bingley Three Rise Locks and the
seven-arch aqueduct over the River Aire. Also completed was the branch to
Bradford, but the section from Liverpool to Wigan only completed in 1777. The
main line through to Leeds took until 1816, with a branch to join the
Bridgewater at Leigh opening in 1820. The Liverpool end, the Leeds and Liverpool
canal was later spanned by several road and rail bridges. Due to changes in the
methods of transporting goods, the surviving Liverpool sections are today used
solely by pleasure craft.
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Leeds Liverpool Canal Route |
Sources
Liverpool Central Library
Liverpool Records Office
Wikipedia
Robert F Edwards