River Improvement 149 



another effort, and this time, although the opposition was 

 again very powerful, it was agreed in Committee of the House 

 of Commons that power should be given to the Cutlers' 

 Company to make the Don navigable from Doncaster, not to 

 Sheffield itself, but to Tinsley, three miles from Sheffield ; 

 and, also, to maintain a turnpike road from Sheffield to 

 Tinsley. A Bill to this effect was passed, and in 1727 the 

 corporation of Doncaster obtained powers to remove certain 

 obstructions from the Don ; but, under an Act of 1732, the 

 carrying out of the whole scheme was transferred to an in- 

 dependent body, the Company of Proprietors of the River 

 Don Navigation. It proved, says Hunter, writing in 1828, 

 " eminently beneficial to the country " ; but the reader will 

 see that the Sheffield cutler or manufacturer still had to 

 forward his goods three miles by road before they could be 

 sent, first along the Don, then along the Ouse, then down 

 the Humber to Hull, and then (if they were consigned to 

 London) by sea along the east coast, and finally up the Thames 

 to the Metropolis. These were the conditions until the year 

 1821, when the three-mile journey by road was saved by the 

 opening of a canal between Sheffield and the Don at Tinsley, 

 affording, as was said, " easy accommodation with the coast 

 and London." 



