The industrial revolution inspired the creation of the British canal network. The emerging ‘man made’ system facilitated the mass transport of raw materials and finished articles by water. This revolutionary development was driven by the needs of industry at a time when roads were only just starting to move on from medieval pathways of mud, fallen trees and highwaymen. Some of the first canal promoters were the wealthy and influential pottery company owners based in Staffordshire. Josiah Wedgwood himself saw the massive benefits to his business the canals would bring and inspired the building of the Trent & Mersey Canal. England became the first country to acquire a nationwide canal network, driven by the logistical needs of business. Warehousing, transport and distribution: reads just like a promotion for a major fleet of lorries in current times. The principle is the same. The new canals gave business a novel and reliable method of mass goods distribution in a way never needed or seen before. In turn, this gave rise to new canal related businesses springing up too. Now that is where those marvellous canal side pubs came from!!

The building of the canal network began apace. It was not coordinated or centrally planned but driven by the needs of entrepreneurs at that time. However, the canal ‘system’ grew very quickly to become a near completely-connected network spreading across the industrial heartlands of England and Wales. In so doing, the new canals connected these centres of mass production and industry to the major domestic markets and sea ports. There were also canals in Scotland though as a rule, the Scottish canals were not connected to the English network or generally to each other.  Over time, canal building techniques improved and with the benefit of experience, the older canals were improved through straightening, the addition of cuttings, tunnels, embankments aqueducts, inclined planes (see the planned restoration at Foxton Locks near Market Harborough on the Leicester Ring) and even boat lifts. All of these techniques and improvements combined to cut down many canal cruising miles by eliminating many locks and therefore many hours and cost from journeys.

The Industrial Revolution which really kicked off in Britain during the middle of the18th century was the economic stimulus that drove an utter frenzy of canal building. It is worth remembering that these new commercial and man-made waterways were not built using machinery.

The new commercial transport network was shaped and crafted ‘by hand’ in very difficult and extremely dangerous conditions. Many lives were lost as the ‘cut’ was hewn out of the ground.

The 19th century witnessed the creation of some major new canals. The Manchester Ship Canal was built as North West England’s industrial powerhouse continued its fierce competition with Liverpool, a rivalry that manifests itself in many forms and continues to this day. By the second half of the 19th century, many canals were increasingly losing their independence and being taken over by the newly emerging railway companies. At best, they had to compete with the railways, a battle from which only the railways would emerge victorious.

Many canals therefore moved into the process of decline. Mile-ton charges were slashed in order to try and remain competitive. This inevitably led to many canal companies failing, especially those with narrow locks (only allowing a single boat to pass through rather than two at any one time). Competing with the railway system which was faster, bigger and opened up the new market of passenger transport was an impossible task. Investment unsurprisingly dried up and funds were diverted away from the ‘cut’.

The advent of the 20th century brought with it major road building programmes and therefore more competition from the evolving road-haulage industry. Only the strongest canals survived until the Second World War. After this, the decline of trade on all the remaining canals was quick. By the mid 1960s commercial traffic was almost non-existent, even on the widest and most industrial waterways.
In the 1960s, the canal boat holiday industry, then in its genesis, only just prevented the closure of those few canals that still remained open. However, the pressure to maintain the network of canals for leisure purposes began to increase as more and more people took an interest in both the leisure and economic potential of what had, until then, become a terminal case. From the 1970s onwards, an increasing number of closed and derelict canals were restored and re-watered by enthusiastic bands of volunteers. More importantly, they had cruisers and narrow boats, both privately owned and canal holiday hire boats, using and cruising along them.

This restoration process continues to this day in the guise of local voluntary organisations and amongst others, the Waterways Recovery Group.  The massive success of many canal restoration projects and the public awareness thus created has led to the funding through grants and the National Lottery. The use of contractors to complete large and complex civil engineering projects such as the restoration of the Victorian Anderton Boat Lift and the new Falkirk Wheel rotating lift has allowed the canals to move onto a new level and acquire a new lease of sustainable life. There are even plans afoot to create new canals such as the Milton Keyes Link, joining the GU Canal with the River Great Ouse. However, with current economic conditions, you would need a very good crystal ball to predict a starting date for this project.  That said, believe it or not, there are now even more boats on the canals than there were at the height of the original canal revolution.