NAVIGABLE RIVERS AND CANALS 277 



extensive plans were floating in the minds of Francis Mathew ^ 

 and Andrew Yarranton.^ Mathew in 1655 had laid before Cromwell 

 a scheme for connecting London with Bristol, by the construction 

 of a canal to join the Thames and the Avon. No notice seems to 

 have been taken of the plan. Nor was his project more successful 

 fifteen years later. " Many Lords and Gentlemen," says Yarranton, 

 " were ingaged in it. . . . But some foolish Discourse at Coffee- 

 houses laid asleep that design as being a thing impossible and 

 impracticable." Yarranton himself proposed to make Banbury a 

 great distributing centre by connecting it with the Severn and the 

 Thames. At an estimated cost of £10,000, he planned to make 

 the Cherwell navigable from Oxford to Banbury, and to cut a new 

 channel from the latter place to Shipton-on-the-Stour, whence 

 goods might be carried by the Avon into the Severn below Tewkes- 

 bury. Both writers insist on the extreme isolation of inland 

 districts, the need of supplying food to manufacturing centres, 

 the prohibitive cost of conveying heavy goods by land, and the 

 impassable nature of the roads for wheeled traffic. 



In canal construction England lagged far behind foreign countries, 

 though useful work continued to be done in making existing rivers 

 navigable. Thus the clothiers of Leeds and Wakefield found new 

 and cheaper markets when communication with Hull by the Aire 

 and the Calder was opened up in 1699 ; Preston gained its oppor- 

 tunity for manufacturing development when the Douglas (1720) 

 carried Wigan coal to the Ribble ; the connection of Sheffield with 

 the Humber by means of the Don (1732) gave a fresh impulse to the 

 cutlery trade. But rivers were unsatisfactory as carriers of goods. 

 Subject to flood or drought, constantly liable to become choked, 

 tortuous in their course, they were also limited in their range and 

 left large districts untouched. If waterways were to be made 

 efficient means of carriage, they must be permanently supplied 

 with water, subject neither to deficiency nor excess, capable of 

 being carried over or through natural obstacles in any direction 

 required. 



In 1755 the Sankey Brook Canal brought the St. Helens coal- 

 fields into direct communication with Liverpool by means of a 



^ The Opening of Rivers for Navigation, etc., by Francis Mathew, 1655. 

 A Mediterranean Passage by Water from London to Bristol, etc., by Francis 

 Mathew, 1670. 



* England' a Improvement by Sea and Land, by Andrew Yarranton Oent. 1677. 



