Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal

Operation[edit]

The new canal was a significant improvement over the previous route, which used the Trent and Mersey Canal to move goods between Birmingham and Liverpool. From Birmingham to the Mersey, it was 20 miles (32 km) shorter, with 30 fewer locks, while to Manchester, it was 5.25 miles (8.4 km) shorter, again with 30 fewer locks. When the Macclesfield Canal opened, it provided a shorter route to Manchester for boats using the Trent and Mersey, by some 4.75 miles (7.6 km), but the shorter distance was offset by it passing through 50 more locks than the journey using the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal.^[8]


There was always contention over the compensation toll which the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal charged for using the short stretch between the Birmingham Canal and Autherley Junction. This had originally been set at 2 shillings per ton, but they halved this to 1 shilling in 1831, while the new canal was still being built.^[4] In an attempt to drive down the charge, a group of men from the Birmingham Canal and the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal proposed the construction of the Tettenhall and Autherley Canal and Aqueduct in mid 1835. This would be a short canal which would bypass the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal section from Aldersley Junction to Autherley Junction, crossing the Staffordshire and Worcestershire on an aqueduct. The Staffordshire and Worcestershire sent a delegation to meet the group in December 1835, but were unhappy with the outcome. The group introduced a bill to Parliament in February 1836, and when it was due to receive its second reading, the Staffordshire and Worcestershire caved in, sent a delegation to London to negotiate and agreed a compensation toll of 4 pence per ton, at which point the bill was withdrawn. The threat of an aqueduct was a recurring theme, as it was used again in 1842 to get more water, and subsequently by the Shropshire Union Canal in 1867, when another water agreement was negotiated, together with the reduction of the toll to 2 pence.^[13]


Tolls for carriage of goods on the canal were set lower than had been proposed, due to the threat of railway competition. Lime and limestone were set at a half-penny per ton, with everything else being charged at 1 penny per ton. 5,144 boat journeys were recorded during the first half of 1836, carrying 71,405 tons of cargo. This was made up of 22,732 tons of general merchandise, 25,685 tons of iron, 9,631 tons of coal and coke, 4,532 tons of building materials, 8,546 tons of lime and limestone, and 279 tons of road materials, manure, etc.^[14] Income from tolls was £11,706 in 1836, rising to 30,859 by 1840, and then tailing off a little.^[15]


The company became authorised to carry passengers and goods in 1842, and could also provide haulage for boats owned by other carriers. The engineer Alexander Easton and the canal superintendend Samual Skey carried out trials in which a steam tug was used to haul trains of boats along the canal. These proved successful, and by late 1843 they had eight steam tugs which were used to haul boats from Autherley to Ellesmere Port. However, the Ellesmere and Chester Canal started to look at converting their canal to a railway in 1845, and argued that locomotive working on a railway was probably cheaper than using tugs to pull trains of boats on a canal. The project was abandoned soon afterwards, and William Bishton was contracted to supply horse haulage for boats on the canal.^[15]


Despite its rural character, the canal was an important route for trade between two major centres, and so remained profitable long after many canals had become uneconomic. When most of the Shropshire Union system was closed by an Act of Abandonment in 1944, the former Birmingham and Liverpool section and the route onwards to Ellesmere Port remained open, as it was still an important carrier of metal and oil products, and remained so until the mid-1960s.^[16]


The rural character of the canal is now one of its greatest assets, in the age of pleasure cruising and boating holidays.