Colliers and barges

As industries grew, more heavy loads of iron and coal had to be moved from place to place. As towns grew, they had to have more food and fuel. Moving heavy loads in horse-drawn wagons on bad roads was slow and expensive. It was much cheaper to send them by water.

Hundreds of small ships with cargoes of corn and wool sailed from port to port along the coasts. Ships called colliers carried coal from the Tyne to London. As London grew, so the number of colliers grew as well. Other loads went by river. Gangs of men worked on the Trent, Severn, and Thames, making them deep enough to take barges of iron and cloth.

It was a short step from rivers to canals. England's first canal was the Sankey Cut, from St. Helens to the River Mersey. It was opened in 1757, to let barges carry coal from the Lancashire mines to Liverpool.

A canal from the Duke of Bridgewater's coal-mine at Worsley to Manchester (seven miles away) was opened in 1761. Its engineer, James Brindley, became famous, and his canal was the engineering wonder of its day. Part of it ran in a tunnel into the mine, and part was on an aqueduct over the River Irwell. Barges on the canal carried the duke's coal cheaply to Manchester - the price of coal there was cut by half.

Walter Robson: Britain 1750 – 1900; Oxford University Press, 1993/2002, page 24