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Manchester Ship Canal

This is Chapter 3 from 'The Canal System of England' following on from The Effects Of The Railways On Canals

Its growth and present condition, with particular reference to the cheap carriage of goods - 1904 - by H. Gordon Thompson

In the year 1877, Mr. Hamilton Fulton brought before the Manchester Chamber of Commerce a proposal to construct a large tidal ship-canal, connecting Manchester with the sea. The plan, however, was rejected, because a canal on such principles would have necessitated the docks at Manchester being at such a depth, that only the tops of a ship's masts would be level with the ground.

Manchester Ship Canal Company Floated - 1885

In 1881 the subject was again brought forward, when owing to the exertions of the late Mr. David Adamson, it at last assumed more practical form, and in 1885 with a capital of £10,000,000, and with Mr. Adamson as Chairman, the Manchester Ship Canal Company was established.

The contract was undertaken by Mr. Thos. A. Walker, a man of great experience, and the work was to have been completed early in 1892, at an estimated cost of £6,000,000. However, owing to the death in 1889 of Mr. Walker, and other causes, the total cost increased to £15,000,000, and the waterway was not finished until December, 1893. The dimensions of the canal are remarkable: It is ' 35.5 miles in length, has nowhere a depth of less than 26 ft, is 170 ft. wide at surface, and 120 ft. wide at the bottom, as compared with the 72 ft. base of the Suez Canal.

The attitude of ship-owners towards the canal was shown by a statement issued by 182 of their number, possessing more than 1000 steamers, and representing an aggregate net tonnage of about one million tons, more than one-fourth of the steamship tonnage of the United Kingdom.* (* The Manchester Ship Canal and its Commercial Attributes, p. 6.)

They said :

(1) The Canal will be navigable without difficulty by merchant steamers of the largest class.

(2) That if the charges of the Ship Canal are not higher than those of other ports, ship-owners will at once make use of the waterway.

(3) That the additional 35.5 miles to Manchester will not cause the rates to exceed those to Liverpool by a steamer, for a long voyage.

That this Canal had a future before it had been gauged by the late Sir William Fairbairn, who remarked " Any improvement which will enable ocean-going vessels to discharge their cargoes in a commodious wet-dock at Manchester, would form an epoch of such magnitude in the history of Manchester as would quadruple her population, and render her the first as well as the most enterprising city in Europe."

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