THE BIRMINGHAM CANAL AND ITS STORY
What is known as the "Birmingham Canal" is really a perfect network
of waterways in and around Birmingham and South Staffordshire,
representing a total length of about 160 miles, exclusive of some
hundreds of private sidings in connection with different works in the
district.
[Illustration: Map of the Canals & Railways between
WOLVERHAMPTON & BIRMINGHAM
[_To face page 56._
]
The system was originally constructed by four different canal companies
under Acts of Parliament passed between 1768 and 1818. These companies
subsequently amalgamated and formed the Birmingham Canal Navigation,
known later on as the Birmingham Canal Company. From March 1816 to
March 1818 the company paid £36 per annum per share on 1,000 shares,
and in the following year the amount paid on the same number of shares
rose to £40 per annum. In 1823 £24 per annum per share was paid on
2,000 shares, in 1838 £9 to £16 on 8,000, in 1844 £8 on 8,800, and from
May 1845 to December 1846 £4 per annum per share on 17,600 shares.
The year 1845 was a time of great activity in railway promotion, and
the Birmingham Canal Company, who already had a canal between that town
and Wolverhampton, proposed to supplement it by a railway through the
Stour Valley, using for the purpose a certain amount of spare land
which they already owned. A similar proposal, however, in respect to a
line of railway to take practically the same route between Birmingham
and Wolverhampton, was brought forward by an independent company, who
seem to have had the support of the London and Birmingham Railway
Company; and in the result it was arranged among the different parties
concerned (1) that the Birmingham Canal Company should not proceed
with their scheme, but that they and the London and Birmingham Railway
Company should each subscribe a fourth part of the capital for the
construction of the line projected by the independent Birmingham,
Wolverhampton, and Stour Valley Railway Company; and (2) that the
London and Birmingham Railway Company should, subject to certain terms
and conditions, guarantee the future dividend of the Canal Company,
whenever the net income was insufficient to produce a dividend of £4
per share on the capital, the Canal Company thus being insured against
loss resulting from competition.
The building of the Stour Valley Line between Birmingham and
Wolverhampton, with a branch to Dudley, was sanctioned by an Act of
1846, which further authorised the Birmingham Canal Company and the
London and Birmingham Railway Company to contribute each one quarter
of the necessary capital. The canal company raised their quarter,
amounting to £190,087, by means of mortgages. In return for their
guarantee of the canal company's dividend, the London and Birmingham
Railway Company obtained certain rights and privileges in regard to
the working of the canal. These were authorised by the London and
Birmingham Railway and Birmingham Canal Arrangement Act, 1846, which
empowered the two companies each to appoint five persons as a committee
of management of the Birmingham Canal Company. Those members of the
committee chosen by the London and Birmingham Railway Company were
to have the same powers, etc., as the members elected by the canal
company; but the canal company were restricted from expending, without
the consent of the railway company, "any sum which shall exceed the sum
of five hundred pounds in the formation of any new canal, or extension,
or branch canal or otherwise, for the purpose of any single work to be
hereafter undertaken by the same company"; nor, without consent of the
railway company, could the canal company make any alterations in the
tolls, rates, or dues charged. In the event of differences of opinion
arising between the two sections of the committee of management, the
final decision was to be given by the railway representatives in such
year or years as the railway company was called upon to make good a
deficiency in the dividends, and by the canal representatives when no
such demand had been made upon the railway company. In other words the
canal company retained the deciding vote so long as they could pay
their way, and in any case they could spend up to £500 on any single
work without asking the consent of the railway company.
In course of time the Stour Valley Line, as well as the London
and Birmingham Company, became part of the system of the London
and North-Western Railway Company, which thus took over the
responsibilities and obligations, in regard to the waterways, already
assumed; while the mortgages issued by the Birmingham Canal Company,
when they undertook to raise one-fourth of the capital for the Stour
Valley Railway, were exchanged for £126,725 of ordinary stock in the
London and North-Western Railway.
The Birmingham Canal Company was able down to 1873 (except only in one
year, 1868, when it required £835 from the London and North-Western
Company) to pay its dividend of £4 per annum on each share, without
calling on the railway company to make good a deficiency. In 1874,
however, there was a substantial shortage of revenue, and since that
time the London and North-Western Railway Company, under the agreement
already mentioned, have had to pay considerable sums to the canal
company, as the following table shows:--
Year
1874 £10,528 18 0
1875 nil.
1876 4,796 10 9
1877 361 7 9
1878 11,370 5 7
1879 20,225 0 5
1880 13,534 19 6
1881 15,028 9 3
1882 6,826 7 1
1883 8,879 4 7
1884 14,196 7 9
1885 25,460 19 10
1886 35,169 9 6
1887 31,491 14 1
1888 15,350 10 11
1889 5,341 19 3
1890 22,069 9 8
1891 17,626 2 3
1892 29,508 4 2
1893 31,618 19 4
1894 27,935 8 9
1895 39,065 15 2
1896 22,994 0 10
1897 10,186 19 7
1898 10,286 13 3
1899 18,470 18 1
1900 34,075 19 6
1901 62,644 2 8
1902 27,645 2 3
1903 34,047 4 6
1904 37,832 5 8
1905 39,860 13 0
The sum total of these figures is £685,265, 2s. 11d.
It will have been seen, from the facts already narrated, that for a
period of over twenty years from the date of the agreement the canal
company continued to earn their own dividend without requiring any
assistance from the railway company. Meantime, however, various
local, in addition to general, causes had been in operation tending
to affect the prosperity of the canals. The decline of the pig-iron
industry in the Black Country had set in, while though the conversion
of manufactured iron into plates, implements, etc., largely took
its place, the raw materials came more and more from districts not
served by the canals, and the finished goods were carried mainly by
the railways then rapidly spreading through the district, affording
facilities in the way of sidings to a considerable number of
manufacturers whose works were not on the canal route. Then the local
iron ore deposits were either worked out or ceased to be remunerative,
in view of the competition of other districts, again facilitated by the
railways; and the extension of the Bessemer process of steel-making
also affected the Staffordshire iron industry.
These changes were quite sufficient in themselves to account for
the increasing unprofitableness of the canals, without any need for
suggestions of hostility towards them on the part of the railways.
In point of fact, the extension of the railways and the provision of
"railway basins" brought the canals a certain amount of traffic they
might not otherwise have got. It was, indeed, due less to an actual
decrease in the tonnage than to a decrease in the distance carried
that the amount received in tolls fell off, that the traffic ceased to
be remunerative, and that the deficiencies arose which, under their
statutory obligations, the London and North-Western Railway Company
had to meet. The more that the traffic actually left the canals, the
greater was the deficiency which, as shown by the figures I have
given, the railway company had to make good.[6]
The condition of the canals in 1874, when the responsibilities
assumed by the London and North-Western Railway Company began to
fall more heavily upon them, left a good deal to be desired, and the
railway company found themselves faced with the necessity of finding
money for improvements which eventually represented a very heavy
expenditure, apart altogether from the making up of a guaranteed
dividend. They proceeded, all the same, to acquit themselves of these
responsibilities, and it is no exaggeration to say that, during the
thirty years which have since elapsed, they have spent enormous sums in
improving the canals, and in maintaining them in what--adverse critics
notwithstanding--is their present high state of efficiency, considering
the peculiarities of their position.
One of the greatest difficulties in the situation was in regard to
water supply. At Birmingham, portions of the canal are 453 feet above
ordnance datum; Wolverhampton, Wednesfield, Tipton, Dudley, and Oldbury
are higher still, for their elevation is 473 feet, while Walsall,
Darlaston, and Wednesbury are at a height of 408 feet. On high-lands
like these there are naturally no powerful streams, and such is the
lack of local water supplies that, as every one knows, the city of
Birmingham has recently had to go as far as Wales in order to obtain
sufficient water to meet the needs of its citizens.
In these circumstances special efforts had to be made to obtain water
for the canals in the district, and to ensure a due regard for economy
in its use. The canals have, in fact, had to depend to a certain extent
on water pumped from the bottom of coal pits in the Black Country, and
stored in reservoirs on the top levels; the water, also, temporarily
lost each time a canal boat passed through one of the many locks in the
district being pumped back to the top to be used over again.
To this end pumping machinery had already been provided by the old
canal companies, but the London and North-Western Railway Company, on
taking over the virtual direction of the canals for which they were
financially responsible, substituted new and improved plant, and added
various new pumping stations. Thanks to the changes thus effected--at,
I need hardly say, very considerable cost--the average amount of water
now pumped from lower to higher levels, during an average year, is
25,000,000 gallons per day, equal to 1,000 locks of water. On occasions
the actual quantity dealt with is 50,000,000 gallons per day, while
the total capacity of the present pumping machinery is equal to about
102,000,000 gallons, or 4,080 locks, per day. There is absolutely no
doubt that, but for the special provisions made for an additional
water supply, the Birmingham Canal would have had to cease operations
altogether in the summer of 1905--probably for two months--because
of the shortage of water. The reservoirs on the top level were
practically empty, and it was solely owing to the company acquiring new
sources of supply, involving a very substantial expenditure indeed,
that the canal system was kept going at all. A canal company with no
large financial resources would inevitably have broken down under the
strain.
Then the London and North-Western Company are actively engaged in
substituting new pumping machinery--representing "all the latest
improvements"--for old, the special aim, here, being the securing of a
reduction of more than 50 per cent. over the former cost of pumping. An
expenditure of from £15,000 to £16,000 was, for example, incurred by
them so recently as 1905 at the Ocker Hill pumping station. In this way
the railway company are seeking both to maintain the efficiency of the
canal and to reduce the heavy annual demands made upon them in respect
to the general cost of operation and shareholders' dividend.
For reasons which will be indicated later on, it is impossible to
improve the Black Country canals on any large scale; but, in addition
to what I have already related, the London and North-Western Railway
Company are constantly spending money on small improvements, such as
dredging, widening waterway under-bridges, taking off corners, and
putting in side walls in place of slopes, so as to give more space for
the boats. In the latter respect many miles have been so treated, to
the distinct betterment of the canal.
All this heavy outlay by the railway company, carried on for a series
of years, is now beginning to tell, to the advantage alike of the
traders and of the canal as a property, and if any scheme of State
or municipal purchase were decided on by the country the various
substantial items mentioned would naturally have to be taken into
account in making terms.
Another feature of the Birmingham Canal system is that it passes to a
considerable extent through the mining districts of the Black Country.
This means, in the first place, that wherever important works have been
constructed, as in the case of tunnels, (and the system passes through
a number of tunnels, three of these being 3,172 yards, 3,027 yards,
and 3,785 yards respectively in length) the mineral rights underneath
have to be bought up in order to avoid subsidences. In one instance
the railway company paid no less than £28,500 for the mining rights
underneath a short length (754 yards) of a canal tunnel. In other
words, this £28,500 was practically buried in the ground, not in order
to work the minerals, but with a view to maintain a secure foundation
for the canal. Altogether the expenditure of the company in this one
direction, and for this one special purpose alone, in the Black Country
district, must amount by this time to some hundreds of thousands of
pounds.
Actual subsidences represent a great source of trouble. There are
some parts of the Birmingham Canal where the waterway was originally
constructed on a level with the adjoining ground, but, as more and
more coal has been taken from the mines underneath, and especially as
more and more of the ribs of coal originally left to support the roof
have been removed, the land has subsided from time to time, rendering
necessary the raising of the canal. So far has this gone that to-day
the canal, at certain of these points, instead of being on a level with
the adjoining ground, is on an embankment 30 feet above. Drops of from
10 to 20 feet are of frequent occurrence, even with narrow canals, and
the cost involved in repairs and restoration is enormous, as the reader
may well suppose, considering that the total length of the Birmingham
Canal subject to subsidences from mining is about 90 miles.
I come next to the point as to the comparative narrowness of
the Birmingham Canal system and the small capacity of the
locks--conditions, as we are rightly told, which tell against the
possibility of through, or even local, traffic in a larger type of
boat. Such conditions as these are generally presented as one of the
main reasons why the control should be transferred to the State, to
municipalities, or to public trusts, who, it is assumed, would soon get
rid of them.
The reader must have fully realised by this time that the original
size of the waterways and locks on the Birmingham Canal was determined
by the question of water supply. But any extensive scheme of widening
would involve much beyond the securing of more water.
During the decades the Birmingham Canal has been in existence important
works of all kinds have been built alongside its banks, not only in
and around Birmingham itself, but all through the Black Country. There
are parts of the canal where almost continuous lines of such works on
each side of the canal, flush up to the banks or towing path, are to be
seen for miles together. Any general widening, therefore, even of the
main waterways, would involve such a buying up, reconstruction of, or
interference with extremely valuable properties that the expenditure
involved--in the interests of a problematical saving in canal
tolls--would be alike prodigious and prohibitive.
There is the less reason for incurring such expenditure when we
consider the special purposes which the canals of the district already
serve, and, I may even say, efficiently serve. The total traffic
passing over the Birmingham Canal system amounts to about 8,000,000
tons per annum,[7] and of this a considerable proportion is collected
for eventual transport by rail. Every few miles along the canal in
the Black Country there is a "railway-basin" put in either by the
London and North-Western Railway Company, who have had the privilege
of finding the money to keep the canal going since 1874, or by the
Great Western or the Midland Railway Companies. Here, again, very
considerable expenditure has been incurred by the railway companies
in the provision alike of wharves, cranes, sheds, etc., and of branch
railways connecting with the main lines of the company concerned.
From these railway-basins narrow boats are sent out to works all over
the district to collect iron, hardware, tinplates, bricks, tiles,
manufactured articles, and general merchandise, and bring them in for
loading into the railway trucks alongside. So complete is the network
of canals, with their hundreds of small "special" branches, that for
many of the local works their only means of communication with the
railway is by water, and the consignments are simply conveyed to the
railway by canal boat, instead of, as elsewhere, by collecting van or
road lorry.
The number of these railway-basins--the cost of which is distinctly
substantial--is constantly being increased, for the traffic through
them grows almost from day to day.
The Great Western Railway Company, for example, have already several
large transhipping basins on the canals of the Black Country. They
have one at Wolverhampton, and another at Tipton, only 5 miles away;
yet they have now decided to construct still another, about half-way
between the two. The matter is thus referred to in the _Great Western
Railway Magazine_ for March, 1906:--
"The Directors have approved a scheme for an extensive depôt adjoining
the Birmingham Canal at Bilston, the site being advantageously central
in the town. It will comprise a canal basin and transfer shed, sidings
for over one hundred and twenty waggons, and a loop for made-up
trains. A large share of the traffic of the district, mainly raw
material and manufactured articles of the iron trade, will doubtless
be secured as a result of this important step--the railway and canal
mutually serving each other as feeders."
The reader will see from this how the tendency, even on canals that
survive, is for the length of haul to become shorter and shorter, so
that the receipts of the canal company from tolls may decline even
where there is no actual decrease in the weight of the traffic handled.
In the event of State or municipal purchase being resorted to, the
expenditure on all these costly basins and the works connected
therewith would have to be taken into consideration, equally with the
pumping machinery and general improvements, and, also, the purchase of
mining rights, already spoken of; but I fail to see what more either
Government or County Council control could, in the circumstances, do
for the Birmingham system than is being done already. Far more for
the purposes of maintenance has been spent on the canal by the London
and North-Western Railway Company than had been so spent by the canal
company itself; and, although a considerable amount of traffic arising
in the district does find its way down to the Mersey, the purpose
served by the canal is, and must necessarily be, mainly a local one.
That Birmingham should become a sort of half-way stage on a continuous
line of widened canals across country from the Thames to the Mersey
is one of the most impracticable of dreams. Even if there were not
the question of the prodigious cost that widenings of the Birmingham
Canal would involve, there would remain the equally fatal drawback
of the elevation of Birmingham and Wolverhampton above sea level. In
constructing a broad cross-country canal, linking up the two rivers in
question, it would be absolutely necessary to avoid alike Birmingham
and the whole of the Black Country. That city and district, therefore,
would gain no direct advantage from such a through route. They would
have to be content to send down their commodities in the existing
small boats to a lower level, and there, in order to reach the Mersey,
connect with either the Shropshire Union Canal or the Trent and Mersey.
One of these two waterways would certainly have to be selected for a
widened through route to the Mersey.
Assume that the former were decided upon, and that, to meet the
present-day agitation, the State, or some Trust backed by State or
local funds, bought up the Shropshire Union, and resolved upon a
substantial widening of this particular waterway, so as to admit of a
larger type of boat and the various other improvements now projected.
In this case the _crux_ of the situation (apart from Birmingham and
Black Country conditions), would be the city of Chester.
For a distance of 1-1/2 miles the Shropshire Union Canal passes
through the very heart of Chester. Right alongside the canal one sees
successively very large flour mills or lead works, big warehouses, a
school, streets which border it for some distance, masses of houses,
and, also, the old city walls. At one point the existing canal makes
a bend that is equal almost to a right angle. Here there would have
to be a substantial clearance if boats much larger than those now in
use were to get round so ugly a corner in safety. This bend, too, is
just where the canal goes underneath the main lines of the London and
North-Western and the Great Western Railways, the gradients of which
would certainly have to be altered if it were desired to employ larger
boats.
[Illustration: WHAT CANAL WIDENING WOULD MEAN.
(The Shropshire Union Canal at the Northgate, Chester, looking East.)
[_To face page 70._
]
The widening of the Shropshire Union Canal at Chester would, in effect,
necessitate a wholesale destruction of, or interference with, valuable
property (even if the city walls were spared), and an expenditure of
hundreds of thousands of pounds. Such a thing is clearly not to be
thought of. The city of Chester would have to be avoided by the through
route from the Midlands to the Mersey, just as the canals of Birmingham
and the Black Country would have to be avoided in a through route
from the Thames. If the Shropshire Union were still kept to, a new
branch canal would have to be constructed from Waverton to connect
again with the Shropshire Union at a point half-way between Chester and
Ellesmere Port, leaving Chester in a neglected bend on the south.
On this point as to the possibility of enlarging the Shropshire Union
Canal, I should like to quote the following from some remarks made by
Mr G. R. Jebb, engineer to the Shropshire Union Railways and Canal
Company, in the discussion on Mr Saner's paper at the Institution of
Civil Engineers:--
"As to the suggestion that the railway companies did not consider
it possible to make successful commercial use of their canals in
conjunction with their lines, and that the London and North-Western
Railway Company might have improved the main line of the Shropshire
Union Canal between Ellesmere Port and Wolverhampton, and thus have
relieved their already overburdened line, as a matter of fact about
twenty years ago he went carefully into the question of enlarging
that particular length of canal, which formed the main line between
the Midlands and the sea. He drew up estimates and plans for wide
canals, of different cross sections, one of which was almost identical
with the cross section proposed by Mr Saner. After very careful
consideration with a disposition to improve the canal if possible, it
was found that the cost of the necessary works would be too heavy.
Bridges of wide span and larger headway--entailing approaches which
could not be constructed without destroying valuable property on
either side--new locks and hydraulic lifts would be required, and
a transhipping depôt would have been necessary where each of the
narrow canals joined. The company were satisfied, and he himself was
satisfied, that no reasonable return for that expenditure could be
expected, and therefore the work was not proceeded with.... He was
satisfied that whoever found the money for canal improvements would
get no fair return for it."
The adoption of the alternative route, _viâ_ the Trent and Mersey,
would involve (1) locking-up to and down a considerable summit, and (2)
a continuous series of widenings (except along the Weaver Canal), the
cost of which, especially in the towns of Stoke, Etruria, Middlewich,
and Northwich, would attain to proportions altogether prohibitive.
The conclusion at which I arrive in regard to the Birmingham Canal
system is that it cannot be directly included in any scheme of
cross-country waterways from river to river; that by reason alike
of elevation, water supply, and the existence of a vast amount of
valuable property immediately alongside, any general widening of the
present system of canals in the district is altogether impracticable;
that, within the scope of their unavoidable limitations, those
particular canals already afford every reasonable facility to the real
requirements of the local traders; that, instead of their having been
"strangled" by the railways, they have been kept alive and in operation
solely and entirely because of the heavy expenditure upon them by the
London and North-Western Railway Company, following on conditions which
must inevitably have led to collapse (with serious disadvantages to the
traders dependent on them for transport) if the control had remained
with an independent but impoverished canal company; and that very
little, if anything, more--with due regard both for what is practical,
and for the avoidance of any waste of public money--could be done than
is already being done, even if State or municipal authorities made the
costly experiment of trying what they could do for them with their own
'prentice hands.