The Severn at present is of little service to the parishioners of
Madeley, either as a source of food or a means of transit, compared with
what it was in former times. Yet washing as it does the whole of the
western side of the parish, from Marnwood brook to the brook which
separates Madeley and Sutton parishes, it deserves notice. There was a
time when it supplied a considerable portion of food to those living upon
its banks; and when, whilst other parts of the country, less favoured,
were labouring under the disadvantages of land conveyance, over roads
scarcely passable, and by machines but imperfectly constructed, its
navigation conferred superior privileges; both by the importation of hay,
corn, groceries &c., and the exportation of mines and metals produced
along the valley through which it runs. The river, inconsiderable in its
origin, is indebted for its navigable importance to physical
peculiarities of country that constitute its basins. An extensive
water-shed of hills, whose azure tops court the clouds, brings down a
large amount of rain to swell the volume of its stream. From its source
to its estuary in the Bristol Channel it gathers as it rolls from rivers
and brooks, which, after irrigating rich pasture lands along their banks,
pour their waters into its channel. The Teme, augmented by the Clun, the
Ony, the Corve, the Avon, and the Wye, having each performed similar
pilgrimages through flower-dotted fields, also pay tribute of their
waters. Here weaving its way through a carpet of the richest green it
visits sheep-downs, cattle-pastures, orchards, hop-plantations, and
hay-producing fields, as it sweeps along, conferring benefit upon the
soil, increasing the fertility of fields, aiding in the development of
mines, linking important wealth producing districts, bringing materials
for manufacturing purposes together, and transporting their products to
the sea.
This formerly more than now, so that Agriculture, and commerce felt its
quickening influence and bore witness to its sway. Feeders, which
capital with talismanic touch opened up by cuttings on the plain,
aqueducts or embankments across the vale, tunnels, locks, and other
contrivances among the hills to overcome inequalities of surface ran
miles through inland districts to collect its traffic. The Shropshire,
the Shrewsbury, and the Ellesmere Canals, united the Severn, the Mersey,
and the Dee, and the rival ports, Liverpool and Bristol. Shrewsbury,
Coalbrookdale, Coalport, Bridgnorth, Bewdley, Stourport, Worcester, and
Gloucester, were centres from which its traffic flowed; iron crude and
malleable, brick and tile, earthenware and pipes, were sent, the former
in large quantities from wharfs at Coalbrookdale, and from others between
Ironbridge and Coalport. The Shropshire trade was carried on by means of
vessels from 40 to 78 and 80 tons burthen, drawing from three to four
feet, which went down with the stream, and were drawn back by horses, or
men or both. In consequence of the rapidity of the current over the
fords not more than 20, 30, or 40 tons were usually carried up the river.
About 20 voyages in the year were usually made by regular traders, but
vessels carrying iron made more. The time occupied for full cargoes to
get down to Gloucester was about 24 hours.
In 1756, there were at Madeley-Wood, 21 owners of vessels of 39 vessels.
But many more than these came to the Meadow, and Coalport wharves.
Hulbert, writing about half a century ago says: “standing upon Coalport
bridge I have counted seventy barges standing at Coalport Wharf, some
laden and others loading with coal and iron.” Madeley-Wood supplied
fire-clay and fire-bricks for many years to the porcelain and other works
at Worcester. Originally, when Fuller speaks of coals being exported by
barges, and when during the Civil Wars the Parliamentary forces planted a
garrison at Benthall to prevent the barges carrying coal down the river,
vessels were drawn against the stream by strings of men linked to ropes
by loops or bows, who were called bow-haulers. It was slavish work; and
Richard Reynolds was so struck with the hardship and unfitness of the
practice that he exerted himself to obtain an Act of Parliament for the
construction of a road by the side of the river, now called the towing
path, by which horses were substituted. Sometimes, when a favourable
wind blew against the stream, vessels with all sails set would make good
progress without further assistance; and it was a pleasing sight to see
these and the larger ones, the trows, sailing along the valley. Had
means been taken to improve the channel of the Severn, this noble river,
navigable for 180 miles, may have been in a much more flourishing
condition than at present.
Like opposing interests for and against improvements in the channel,
between which the battle of locks and weirs was fought, two opposing
forces have been striving for mastery in the tideway of the channel. One
contending for an estuary, the other for a delta. Draining a district
six thousand square miles in extent, having a fall of two hundred and
twenty feet in its descent from its source on Plynlymmon, (1,500 feet
above the sea line), to its tideway in the Bristol Channel, and being fed
by boisterous brooks and precipitous streams that cut their way through
shales and clays and sand-rocks, it is not surprising that the Severn
should bring down a vast amount of silt to raise its bed. To correct
these irregularities along a portion of the river, improvements,
projected by Sir William Cubitt, some years since, were completed at very
considerable outlay, after an expenditure of £70,000 before the sanction
of Parliament could be obtained. Above Stourport, where these
improvements terminate, the river is still in a state of nature. Except
some pedling attempts by means of earth, loose stones, or sinking some
dilapidated boats along the side, nothing has been done to improve the
channel. The scouring action of the stream constantly undermines the
banks. These give way after every flood, and come down to choke the
river, or to change the channel, and every newly-formed shoal sends the
stream at right angles to its bed to make fresh attempts upon its banks.
Fords that served our painted ancestors to make incursions beyond their
boundaries, bends almost amounting to circles around which they paddled
their canoes, impede navigation still. Attempts to overcome these
natural obstacles to its navigation were made as early as 1784, when Mr.
Jessop proposed to render the river navigable for vessels drawing four
feet at all seasons of the year from Worcester to Coalbrookdale. He
proposed to obtain a sufficient depth for that purpose at all seasons of
the year by the erection of 13 or 14 weirs between those places; he also
recommended that that depth should be obtained below Diglis by dredging
and correcting the natural channel of the river, and the Stafford and
Worcester Canal Company, joined by the iron manufacturers of Shropshire,
applied in the year 1786 to parliament for powers to carry out Mr.
Jessop’s recommendations, so far as they related to the portion of the
river described in the title of the bill, as from Meadow-wharf,
Coalbrookdale, to the deep water at Diglis, below the city of Worcester.
The bill was lost owing to the objections on the part of the public to
the erection of locks and weirs, and owing to the dislike of the carriers
to pay toll at all seasons of the year. As it is, there are often three,
four, and five months when barges cannot navigate the river with a
freight equal to defray the expenses of working them; indeed, instances
have occurred in which in only two months of the twelve the river could
be advantageously worked. Besides the additional wear and tear, more
strength is required to work the vessel, and it takes treble the time to
convey 15 tons at low water as it does four times that weight at other
times.
To improvements that affect only a portion of the river, and that the
lower portion, the Shropshire traders very naturally took objection.
They saw that for any benefit to be derived from navigating the lower
portion of the Severn they would be taxed, without being able themselves
to participate in it, and at a meeting of iron and coal masters, Severn
carriers, and others, held at the Tontine Inn, Ironbridge, on the 2nd of
December, 1836, for the purpose of taking into consideration the
propriety of opposing the project of the Worcester Severn Navigation
Company, for the introduction of locks and weirs upon the river, Richard
Darby, Esq., in the chair, it was resolved,
“That having attentively considered the plan proposed by the
Worcester Severn Navigation Company, for effecting alterations in the
channel of that river, it is of opinion that, whilst the execution of
that plan affords no stable prospect of extensive advantage to the
public at large, its effects upon a variety, of important local
interests, and particularly upon the trading community of this
neighbourhood, will be in the highest degree injurious. That the
introduction of these works, even if Shropshire vessels were
permitted to pass them free of any impost, would be injurious to the
traders of this county, but that the exaction from that body of a
toll or tonage for such passage would inflict on them a burden of the
most unjust and oppressive character. That a petition or petitions
in opposition be accordingly at the proper stage presented, and
supported by evidence, according to the course of Parliamentary
proceeding, and that every exertion be used to obtain the support of
members of both houses to the prayer of such petitions.”
The following gentlemen were appointed a committee:—Mr. Botfield, Mr.
Mountford, Mr. John Horton, Mr. Richard Darby, Mr. Abraham Darby, Mr.
Alfred Darby, Mr. Anstice, Mr. Hombersley, Mr. Rose, Mr. William Pugh,
Mr. William James, Mr. Dickinson, Mr. George Pritchard, Mr. John Owen,
Mr. Samuel Roden, Mr. John Burton, Mr. John Anstice, Mr. Francis Yates,
Mr. John Dyer Doughty, Mr. Edward Edwards, Mr. Samuel Smith, Mr. George
Chune. The agitation proved so far successful that a clause was inserted
in the bill exempting the Shropshire traders coming down with full
cargoes from toll. This exemption was subject to the qualification that
if in descending the river they took in, or in ascending it they took out
any goods whatever within the improved portions of the river, their whole
cargoes should be subject to toll. This concession cost the Shropshire
interest a long and expensive opposition before a committee of the House
of Commons. At subsequent periods the Shropshire iron and coal masters
and Severn traders have had similar battles to fight in order to maintain
the exemption clause. The commissioners appointed by the act of 1842,
who, in 1847, sought powers to erect the weir at Tewkesbury, claimed the
repeal of the qualified exemption from toll granted to the Shropshire
trade, on the ground that the system of dredging below Worcester had been
ineffectual in maintaining an uniform depth of six feet of water. This
was complained of as an act of injustice and bad faith on their part
towards the Shropshire interest. The slight assistance which, in certain
states of the river, they derived from the diminished force of the stream
in ascending, was more than neutralised by the loss of aid on their
downward voyage and by the detention of the locks. Again the Shropshire
traders, through the indefatigable exertions of W. R. Anstice, Esq., were
successful in maintaining the free navigation of the river, so far as
they were concerned, and subject to conditions above stated.
Traffic upon the Severn, it as been said, costs less than on any other
river in the kingdom; and at the present time, notwithstanding the
facilities railways afford, the river is preferred for some kind of
goods, as for the fine castings of Coalbrookdale, such as grates, which
are still carried cheaper and better by means of barges, than by any
other.