It will have been assumed, from the two preceding chapters, that rivers, whether naturally navigable or rendered navigable by art, were of material service in supplementing defective roads, in opening up to communication parts of the country that would then otherwise have remained isolated, and in aiding the development of some of the greatest of our national industries.
While this assumption is well founded, yet, as time went on, the unsatisfactory nature of much of the inland river navigation in this country became more apparent.
Some of the greatest troubles arose from, on the one hand, excess of water in the rivers owing to floods, and, on the other, from inadequate supplies of water due either to droughts or to shallows.
The liability to floods will be at once apparent if the reader considers the extent of the areas from which rain water and the yield of countless springs, brooks, and rivulets may flow into the principal rivers. In the Report of the select Committee of the House of Lords on Conservancy Boards, 1877, there was published a list which showed that the 210 rivers in England and Wales had catchment basins as follows:—
1000 miles and upwards 11
500 " to 1000 miles 14
100 "" 500 " 59
50 "" 100 " 24
10 "" 50 " 102
——
Total 210
The rivers having catchment basins of 1000 miles or upwards are given thus:—
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Name. County. Length.
Miles. Area of
Basin.
sq. miles. Tributaries.
United length.
No. miles.
Humber York 37 1229 2 55
Mersey Lancaster 68 1707 6 188
Nen Northampton 99 1055 1 11
Ouse York 59? 4207 11 629
Ouse Cambridge 156? 2894 8 212
Severn Gloucester 178 4437 17 450
Thames — 201? 5162 15 463
Trent Lincoln 167? 3543 10 293
Tyne Northumberland 35 1053 6 154
Witham Lincoln 89 1052 4 75
Wye Hereford 148 1655 9 223
In times of heavy storms or of continuous rainy weather, rivers which drain up to 5000 square miles of country may well experience floods involving a serious impediment to navigation.
The Severn, which brings down to the Bristol Channel so much of the water that falls on Plinlimmon and other Welsh hills, and is joined by various streams, draining, altogether, as shown above, an area of 4437 square miles, is especially liable to floods. In a paper read before the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1860, Mr. E. L. Williams stated that floods had been known to raise the height of the Severn 18 ft. in five hours, and they had not infrequently caused it to attain a height of 25 ft. above the level of low water. The Thames and the Trent, also, are particularly liable to floods, and so, down to recent years, when considerable sums were spent on its improvement, was the Weaver.
It has been asserted in various quarters that less water runs in English rivers now than was probably the case centuries ago, when the abundant forests caused a greater rainfall. This may be so, but, on the other hand, a number of witnesses examined before the select Committee of 1877 expressed the belief that the water flowing into the rivers had increased of recent years, owing to the improved land drainage, which drained off rapidly and sent down to the sea much rain water that previously would have passed into the air again by evaporation.
In the matter of high tides, "Rees' Cyclop?dia" (1819) says that the tide "often" rises at the mouth of the Wye {152}to a height of 40 ft.; while "Chambers' Encyclop?dia" gives 47 ft. above low-water mark as the height to which the tide has been known to rise in the same river at Chepstow.
Of the floods in the Yorkshire Ouse Rodolph De Salis says in "Bradshaw's Canals and Navigable Rivers of England" (1904): "The non-tidal portion of the river above Naburn Locks is liable to floods, which at York often reach a height of 12 ft., and have been known to attain a height of 16 ft. 6 in. above summer level."
The liability of English rivers to a shortage of water would seem to be as great as their liability to excess of it. In Archdeacon Plymley's "General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire" (1803) there is published a table, compiled by Telford, giving the heights reached by the Severn between 1789 and 1800. It shows that, as against some very serious floods and inundations, the river often, during the dates mentioned, ran for considerable periods with a stream of no more than sixteen inches of water; that it frequently had less than a foot of water; and that in times of extreme drought the depth of water had been reduced to nine inches. In 1796, the period during which barges could be navigated even down-stream with a paying load did not exceed two months, and "this interruption," it is stated, "was severely felt by the coal-masters, the manufacturers of iron, and the county in general."
The navigation of the Trent is declared in "Rees' Cyclop?dia" to be "of vast importance to the country"; yet the authority of John Smeaton, who had examined the river in 1761, is given for the statement that in several places the ordinary depth of water did not exceed eight inches. In the upper part of the river there were, in 1765, more than twenty shallows over which boats could not pass in dry weather without flushes of water.
The inadequate depth of water may be due, not alone to drought, but to the formation of shoals or shallows owing to the rapid fall of the river, its excessive width, or the amount of sediment brought down from the hill-sides or washed from the bed over which it flows. Alternatively, much silting-up may be caused by the sand brought into the river by incoming tides, and not always washed out again by out-going tides.
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In an undated pamphlet, entitled "Reflections on the General Utility of Inland Navigation to the Commercial and Landed Interests of England, with Observations on the Intended Canal from Birmingham to Worcester," by the proprietors of the Staffordshire Canal, stress is laid on the trouble caused by the shoals in the Severn, and some facts are given as to the way in which traders had to meet the uncertainties offered by river transport. The pamphlet says:—
"A principal defect of the present conveyance arises from the shoals in the river Severn above Worcester, an evil incurable. The fall from Stourport to Diglis, near Worcester, is nineteen feet; and the river is, what this fact alone would prove, full of shoals. These shoals impede the current of the stream, and retain the water longer in the bed of the river. Let these shoals be removed, the water will pass off, and the whole of the river become too shallow for navigation. Locks on the river could alone correct this defect; but these would overflow the meadows, impede the drainage of the land, and do an injury to the landowners, which parliament can never sanction.
"This defect gives rise to others—to uncertainty as to the time of the conveyance—for it is only at particular periods that there is water sufficient for the navigation—to delays from a want of men[24] and expence from the increased number which the strong current requires. It gives rise, also, to a double transhipping of commodities sent from Birmingham down the Severn, first from the canal at Stourport, and secondly at or near Worcester, as the barges which this shoal water will admit are too small to navigate much below.
"The delays and damage incidental to such a navigation have induced the manufacturers of Birmingham to employ land carriage at a great expence—many waggons are constantly employed at the heavy charge of 4l. per ton from Birmingham to Bristol alone to convey goods or manufactures which cannot await the delay or damage to which in the present navigation they are necessarily exposed;—large {154}quantities of manufactures and the materials of manufactures are likewise sent to Diglis to be conveyed by the Severn in vessels that cannot navigate higher up the river."
In the Trent frequent shallowness of water was due, partly to the excessive breadth of the stream, in places, and partly to the large quantity of "warp," or silt, brought into the river from the Humber estuary by the tides, and left there until scoured out again when the river was in flood.
The Wash group of rivers was specially liable to the silting-up process. Nathaniel Kinderly, writing of the position at Lynn in 1751, said: "The Haven is at present so choaked up with sand that at Low-water it is become almost a Wash, so as to have been frequently fordable." Of the Nen he says it "cannot possibly be preserved long, but is in danger of being absolutely lost," owing to the silting-up of its bed. As for the Witham, the welfare of the port of Boston was threatened so far back as the year 1671, judging from an Act (22 & 23 Chas. II. c. 25) passed in that year, the preamble of which stated:—
"Whereas there hath been for some hundreds of yeares a good navigacion betwixt the burrough of Boston and the river of Trent by and through the citty of Lincolne, and thereby a great trade managed to the benefit of those parts of Lincolnshire, and some parts of Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire, which afforded an honest employment and livelyhood to great numbers of people. But at present the said navigacion is much obstructed and in great decay by reason that the rivers or auntient channells of Witham and Fossdyke, which runn betwixt Boston and Trent are much silted and landed up and thereby not passable with boats and lyters as formerly, to the great decay of the trade and intercourse of the said citty and all market and other towns neare any of the said rivers, which hath producet in them much poverty and depopulation. For remedy thereof and for improvement of the said navigacion, may it please your most excellent Majestie that it may be enacted," etc.
Among various other conditions of river navigation may be mentioned—the extremely serpentine courses of some of the rivers, two miles often having to be made for each mile of real advance; the ever-varying channels in some of the streams; the arduous labour of towing against strong {155}currents, especially when, in the absence of towing-paths for horses, this work had to be done by men; and the destruction, by floods, of the river banks or of works constructed on them.
I have here sought to catalogue, with passing illustrations, the principal troubles attendant on inland river navigation. That the physical disadvantages in question have continued, in spite of all River Improvement Acts, and notwithstanding a considerable outlay, may be seen from the report issued, in 1909, by the Royal Commission on Canals and Waterways.
In regard to the Thames the report says that the commercial traffic above Staines has become a very insignificant quantity, and "if the Thames is to be converted into an artery of commercial navigation, there is need for much improvement above Windsor, but still more so above Reading."
On the Severn there is now practically no navigation above Stourport. Much money has been spent on the river since the Severn Navigation Act of 1842; the channel has been deepened and dredged, and, "up to Worcester, at any rate, the river is now one of the best of English waterways." But, in spite of the considerable sums expended on improvements, the traffic fell from 323,329 tons in 1888 to 288,198 tons in 1905, a decline in seventeen years of over 35,000 tons. High water in the river renders it impossible for the larger estuary-going vessels to pass under certain of the bridges, so that, as one witness said, "A vessel may go up when the water is low, and a freshet may come, and the vessel may not be able to get back again for perhaps many days."
The Warwickshire Avon, once navigable from Stratford to the Severn, is now navigable only from Evesham, and even from that point "there is hardly any commercial traffic."
The Trent is navigable to-day to the junction with the Trent and Mersey Canal, at Derwent mouth, "when there is plenty of water." The report says:—
"The great difficulty on the Trent, in its present condition, is the want of sufficient depth of water in dry seasons; in wet seasons traffic is impeded by floods. The river Trent is a fine river and a most important part of the main route connecting the Midland waterway system and the town and colliery district of Nottingham with each other and with the estuary of the Humber. It appears, for want of necessary {156}works of improvement, to be in an inefficient state for these purposes. There is, at present, no certainty that a barge carrying seventy or eighty tons of cargo from the port of Hull to Newark or Nottingham will arrive at its destination without being lightened on its way. A witness said, 'Very often the traffic in dry seasons is left waiting for two or three weeks on the road between Hull and Newark, which, of course, is a very poor way of getting on with business.'"
On the Ouse (York), below Naburn Lock, the conservators find it difficult to keep the channel at its proper depth by reason of the great deposits of floating sand, or "warp," distributed by the tides, the scour of the river being insufficient to carry the warp out to sea. Vessels are at times unable to navigate for several days, obstructive shoals are formed, and the line of the channel is frequently altered.
On the Bedford Ouse the traffic on the upper parts of the river has come to an end, and, though there is still a small amount between Lynn and St. Ives, "the river is in many places very shallow and choked with weeds and mud, so that barges are often stopped for days, and the use of steam traction, up to St. Ives, is impossible."
The Nen from Northampton to Wisbech is "navigable with difficulty"—where the water is sufficient at all—by barges of the smallest size; but sometimes navigation even by these barges is impracticable for weeks together in certain parts of the river. Between Northampton and Peterborough the course of the Nen is extremely tortuous. "It would," says the report, "take a barge nearly three days to travel the sixty-one miles by water, while the railway can carry goods from Northampton to Peterborough in two hours."
It is thus evident that rivers, whether navigable naturally or rendered so by art, must be regarded as water highways possessed of considerable disadvantages and drawbacks in respect to inland traffic when they are on the scale and of the type found in England. Dependent on the forces of Nature—ever active and ever changing—rivers must needs be the exact opposite of the fixed and constant railway line unless those forces can be effectually controlled under conditions physically practicable and not too costly. "Rivers," says L. F. Vernon-Harcourt, in his book on "Rivers and Canals," "are not always suitable for navigation, in their {157}natural condition, even in the lower portions of their course; and, owing to the continual changes taking place in their channels and at their outlets, they are liable to deteriorate if left to themselves." Left to themselves the English rivers, like the Roman and the British roads, were for a thousand years after the departure of the Romans, and the liability to deteriorate may well have shown itself during this period, before even the earliest of the River Improvement Acts was passed; though the deterioration due to the ceaseless operations of Nature may obviously continue in spite of all Acts of Parliament, and notwithstanding a great expenditure of money.
The fate that has overtaken so many English rivers which once counted as highways of commerce may be compared with the fate that, also through the operation mainly of natural causes, has overtaken many of our once flourishing sea ports.
When, in the thirteenth century, Liverpool was raised to the rank of a free borough, there were between thirty and forty places which, whether situated on the coast or some distance inland (as in the case of York), were counted as seaports. Their order of importance at that time is shown by the following table (taken from Baines's "History of Liverpool"), which gives the taxation then levied on each; though the amounts stated should be multiplied by fifteen to ascertain their equivalent in the money of to-day:—
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