It’s 1758, the Duke of Bridgewater is having drainage problems with his coal mines in Worsley. The duke remains disgruntled by the inefficiency of turnpike roads, packhorse routes and the Mersey Irwell navigation to get his coal into Manchester. His response is to take inspiration from the Canal du Midi and Sankey Canal, carving an eight-metre-wide artificial river into the face of Greater Manchester. With the help of pioneering canal engineer James Brindley, the Bridgewater opened in 1761 from Worsley to Castlefield. By 1765 its function had been fully realised, reducing the selling price of coal in Manchester by almost half. Considered the first true canal because it did not follow a natural water course, this innovative step marked a revolutionary moment in transport and industrial history. Soon other entrepreneurial Mancunians followed suit, beckoning a period known as ‘Canalmania’. Eight more major canals were built, connecting Manchester to the surrounding region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But what remains today?
Beyond the physical channels that carve their way through the city centre and serve the eye of the wandering pedestrian, how have Manchester’s canals left their thumbprint on the city’s urban development?
Coal, Cotton, Connectivity
Coal was the lifeblood of Manchester’s industrial revolution, whether that be for use in households or the factories transitioning to steam power. The Rochdale, Ashton, Bolton-Bury and Bridgewater canals all played a role in the provision of the city’s coal. Their advantages over roads came from their efficiency in transporting large freights and their direct link to the hinterland coal fields. The lack of availability for wood in cities, combined with mass rural-urban migration, meant that people turned to this alternative domestic fuel which caused a seismic shift in the consumption and transportation of coal. However, regarding industrial history, the canals shaped the city more directly in relation to their link to the cotton industry.
First, reference should be made to the canal’s logistical advantages, being low transport costs and connections to Liverpool and Hull for the import and export of raw cotton and finished goods. Waterways leading west accounted for the transport of around two-thirds of the city’s cotton supply in the 1840s with transport costs likely being cut in half in comparison to roads. On a microcosmic level, early cotton mills in Greater Manchester did not in fact lend themselves to canal support as they were often powered by Arkwright-designed water wheels requiring a flowing river. Come the 1790s – regarded as a metamorphose period for textile spinning – the growth of steam-powered machinery caused a shift away from rural domestic, and a weaving towards urban-based mill-oriented production. Canals played a threefold role in this through coal, quick unloading and water condensation. Somewhat specific to the Rochdale Canal, a major series of these new steam mills were constructed along the water in the east side of the city including Murray’s, Royal and Victoria. This choice of location allowed for coal from the countryside to come in on canals to power steam engines. It also allowed for cotton goods to be loaded and unloaded at waterside entrances of the mills and the water of the Rochdale, which would be used for boilers and condensing jets.
Bigger mills such as McConnel & Co. were also built in this favourable spot. Housing was constructed around this area for workers, converting Ancoats into what can be considered the world’s first ‘Industrial Suburb’. Although not directly causational to Manchester’s growth into the ‘Cottonopolis’, canals therefore aided the process of urban growth by reducing costs and boosting profits through efficiency and innovation. Textile mills and huge metropolitan palazzos built by their owners act as a link to canals’ legacy in the city and today are spectacularly sub-divided and have been converted into expensive flats.
Warehouses, Wood, Whatever You Can Think of
Other immediate examples of canals’ legacy are the wharves and warehouses dotted across Manchester. Clustering around basins in Castlefield, Ancoats and Dale Street, warehouses were architectural and transportational innovations. Grocer’s warehouse (half a reconstruction of which can still be seen today) is considered specifically so, credited to its arched shipping-holes which allowed boats to enter and their goods to be hoisted upwards between floors using a trailblazing water-powered pulley system. Warehouses also acted as transhipment points in a larger network, creating links with not only other canals, but also within the city itself. Most wharves and warehouses used cranes to transfer goods from warehouses onto carts which could move goods around the city. Their storage capacity allowed manufacturing clients to collect goods as and when they needed them, solidifying the link between canals and roads as well as canals and manufacturers.
Existing as an example of urban development themselves, a separate analysis of the array of goods warehouses stored exemplifies canals’ role as well. Heavy goods such as stone used in building and paving, timber used for roofs, doors and windows or foodstuffs for workers filling new industrial jobs (as Lancashire could no longer feed itself) – were all stored in warehouses and all saw a price decrease thanks to canals.
Canals’ holistic provision in the growth of the world’s first industrial city cannot be understated; however, one should be careful in regarding them as truly transformative. The railways are often credited as the true moderniser in transport. Canals should be understood as a reaction and assistant to early industrialisation, but they were still very important. Manchester’s canals are now murky, but their visual legacy and impact on the city’s map are undeniable.