Canals :: essays research papers

Explain changes that took place in Canals during 1750 – 1900 Water transport was a lot quicker than road transport, the only problem was that rivers meandered and flooded, some places were too shallow for boats to go through. A lot of trade was done by sea, coal mainly came to London by sea. Before 1750 improvement schemes were planned but the rivers still flooded travelling by land with goods ment they would get damaged and broken. IN the 18th century the main rivers were; The River Themes, Dee, Trent, Severn, and Humber. Here is a table of when the canals opened: <table border="1"> NAME AND LOCATIONLENGTH (KM/MI)YEAR OPENEDBaltic-White Sea, Russia226.91 / 141.001933Suez, Egypt162.13 / 100.761869Albert, Belgium130.36 / 81.001939Moscow, Russia128.75 / 80.001937Nord-Ostsee, Germany96.56 / 60.001895Gà ¶ta, Sweden86.91 / 54.001832Panama, Panama81.63 / 50.721914Houston Ship Channel, United States80.47 / 50.001914Amsterdam-Rhine, Netherlands62.76 / 39.001952Manchester Ship Canal, England57.13 / 35.501894Chicago Sanitary and Ship, United States48.28 / 30.001900Welland Ship, Canada*44.42 / 27.601932Juliana, Netherlands33.80 / 21.001934Chesapeake-Delaware, United States30.58 / 19.001829North Sea-Amsterdam, Netherlands28.97 / 18.001876Cape Cod, United States28.16 / 17.501914Kronshtadt-Leningrad, Russia27.36 / 17.001885Lake Washington Ship, United States12.88 / 8.001916New Orleans Industrial, United States9.66 / 6.001923Sault Sainte Marie (N.), United States2.57 / 1.601919Sault Sainte Marie, Canada2.09 / 1.301895 * Reconstructed from the old Welland Canal, which was originally completed in 1833. In 1757 the first canal was built, it was called Sankey Cut, it went from St. Hellans to the river Mersy to let barges carry coal from Lancastershire mines to Liverpool. The Duke of Bridgewater built a canal to get coal from his colliery in Worsley to Manchester, a few km away. He employed an engineer (James Brindley) to do so. The Duke made a profit of  £100,000 a year. James Brindleys most famouse canal was the Grand Trunk canal, it links the river Trent to the river mersy and runs through potteries, it was finished in 1777. By 1790, a canal network linked four major ports; Bristol, Liverpool, Hull and London. Enthusiasm continued in the 1790’s so canals were built in rural areas and never made very much profit from them, even if they did benefit people who live near them. Between 1760 and 1840 almost 6,500 km of canal had been built.Some people converted their barges to carry animals to market. From 1774 and comfortable passenger service ran from Altrichham to Manchester. Businessmen hired people like James Brindly, Thomas Telford and William Jessop to build canals to raise the money they set up campaigns.