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    Narrowboats Story
    Narrowboats Story
    Narrowboats Story
    Ebook61 pages43 minutes

    Narrowboats Story

    By Nick Corble

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    About this ebook

    The story of the narrowboats' transition from workhorses of industry to today's leisure craft Bright and colorful, slow and easy, narrowboats are seen today as the epitome of a peaceful life and a wonderful way to get away from the stresses of modern living. Although true, this is a far cry from their origins as the workhorses of the early days of industrial revolution, without which Britain may never have developed as far and fast as it did. Packed with little-known snippets of information, this entertaining and informative guide retraces the story of how narrowboats have evolved, how their very existence was once challenged, and how they have risen phoenix-like into the relaxing craft of today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateMar 30, 2012
    ISBN9780752485720
    Narrowboats Story

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      Book preview

      Narrowboats Story - Nick Corble

      Gallery.

      INTRODUCTION – WAITING FOR THE SPARK

      In 1746 the Young Pretender was defeated at Culloden, putting the final seal on the Act of Union with Scotland agreed just under forty years previously. At last the country could call itself a truly United Kingdom.

      Although this may have been true politically, the reality on the ground was very different. A demographic map of the country would have looked like a random ink splat, with one big dot representing London and hundreds of much smaller dots representing the other towns and villages around it. Most local market towns had residents numbering in the thousands at best, whilst London outnumbered its nearest rivals by a factor of at least ten.

      Furthermore, moving around this ‘united kingdom’ was something attempted only by the rich, the desperate or the brave. The only viable alternative to walking was to travel by horse or stagecoach, a privilege accorded to just a few. Roads, although improving with the introduction of turnpikes (an early form of toll road), were simply dangerous. Kept in poor repair and open to the vagaries of the weather, if the mud didn’t get you the vermin or criminals that lined them probably would. Little wonder that very few Britons ever wandered further than their neighbouring parish.

      Yet signs of change were beginning to appear. Pockets of local industry were forming and qualities we would label today as ‘entrepreneurialism’ were taking hold. By 1776 the economist Adam Smith would be lauding the idea of a high-production, high-wage economy based on economies of scale in large factories in his seminal work The Wealth of Nations.

      At the same time, the potential of the generous abundance of natural mineral resources the country had been blessed with was just beginning to be tapped. Coal in particular was being used to heat homes and fire industrial processes and the steam age was just around the corner. On top of all this the sheer number of people in the country was growing fast.

      There was a problem, however. Economic power remained heavily skewed towards London, and it was proving increasingly difficult to physically provide enough food and consumer goods to satisfy this massive market. The larger provincial towns were facing similar problems, limiting their potential to provide an economic counterweight. Transporting anything that couldn’t fit on the back of a cart, man or donkey represented a significant logistical challenge. Where there were rivers goods could be transported by boat, but rivers didn’t always obey the wishes of men, both in terms of where they flowed and how they flowed.

      Nowhere were these problems better illustrated than in Manchester. A population of 10,000 at the start of the eighteenth century soared to nearer 70,000 by the end, making the town the second largest centre in the country. The town was becoming a manufacturing hub for cotton, linen and silk, but feeding both the people and the demands of industry had become increasingly difficult. Bad weather, something not uncommon in Manchester, would waterlog the roads, effectively giving the town all the characteristics of being under siege for months at a time. Food riots were common, not least because the land around the town was too poor to grow anything of value, and there were no forests for wood. That same land, however, was abundant in the other commodity the town depended upon: coal. As with the food, the difficulty was finding a way of transporting it.

      Did you know?

      In the 1750s three stagecoaches a week plied the route between London and Manchester, taking four days to get there. Passengers were advised that the service

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