Canal mania swept England and Wales from the 1790s into the 1810s, and it began with a practical problem. The Duke of Bridgewater needed to move coal from his mines at Worsley to Manchester over rutted roads that turned to mud, so he built the Bridgewater Canal, and the price of coal in Manchester fell by 50 percent. A horse that struggled to pull a one-ton wagon could tow a 30-ton barge on still water, and investors concluded that canals were dependable profit engines.
The end of the American War of Independence in 1783 lowered interest rates, and a run of strong harvests left landowners, tenant farmers and merchants with spare cash. Passive investors such as clergy, widows and shopkeepers, with no goods to ship, crowded in. Parliament authorized one canal in 1790, the Glamorganshire, and 20 in 1793, including the Grand Junction, the Stratford-upon-Avon and the Warwick and Birmingham. Navvies then hit bedrock, flooding springs and failing embankments, and costs soared. Some canals became arteries of the Industrial Revolution, but the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire never paid a dividend and the Grand Western was never finished.
- The Glamorganshire Canal’s 90,000 pounds of capital equals about 8.5 million pounds in 2015 money.
- Schemes authorized in 1793 carried over 2.8 million pounds of capital, roughly 256 million pounds today.
- Promoters sold share subscriptions at tavern meetings before any digging began.
- Investors read an act of Parliament as an endorsement, though it only granted the right to buy land and build.
- Bankrupt canal companies were often bought cheaply by later operators, leaving Britain the finished network.
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