Economic background
In the mid 1750's the growing port of Liverpool was faced with ever increasing costs of coal, both for its developing industries, and for use in people's homes for heating and cooking. The situation was so bad that there were riots in the streets, protesting about the high prices. The main reason for the high prices was that of transport. Even though the closest collieries were quite near by today's standards - around Prescot and Whiston - coal had to be carried to Liverpool by pack-horse or by waggons - which varied from difficult to impossible, depending on the season. Another major user of coal was the Cheshire salt industry, based in Northwich. Many Liverpool merchants were also involved in this.
It had long been realised that water transport was more efficient, and many rivers had been widened and straightened to form what were called 'Navigations' - so investigations were made to find a suitable water transport link between Liverpool and the south Lancashire coalfield. The Sankey Brook was chosen for this purpose, and in 1754 a petition was sent to the House of Commons:
Sankey Canal - planning and building
The Sankey Brook was chosen to transform into a 'Navigation', and an Act of Parliament was passed in 1755 'for making navigable the Sankey Brook'. A company had been set up and an engineer appointed for the project. He was Henry Berry, who was born in Parr, and became a Liverpool dock engineer under Thomas Steers. Henry Berry took advantage of a clause in the Act of Parliament which allowed the excavation of artificial channels where necessary, and in fact dug a new channel for the whole length of the waterway. He thus created the first English 'dead water' canal (meaning not flowing as a river does) of the industrial age.
Henry Berry was allowed by his employers, the Common Council of Liverpool, two days leave a week from his dock duties to work on the Sankey Navigation. Hundreds of workers were involved, including carpenters, masons and labourers. The labourers came to be called 'navvies', from the word 'navigators', as they were digging navigations. All digging had to be done by hand, using picks, shovels and barrows, which were pulled up on planks by horses. To make the sides and bottom of the canal watertight, 'puddle clay' (clay mixed with water to make it more pliable) was applied in layers,
As the water in the canal was level, locks had to be constructed by the masons and carpenters, to raise or lower the boats from one level to another. At the St. Helens end the canal was below the level of the Sankey Brook's tributaries, so water could flow in from these. Further downstream the brook was below the level of the canal, so excess water could be drained off here.
At one point at Blackbrook two locks were needed, and the so-called 'Old Double Locks' were built, the first double or staircase locks in Britain. There were three locks at Newton: Newton Common Lock, Bradley Lock and Hey Lock. The Sankey Canal was opened in 1757, and there were extensions to Blackbrook in 1770, to Ravenhead in 1772 and to Widnes in 1830.
Boats - design and forms of propulsion
The Sankey Canal was designed to accommodate 'Mersey flats'. These were the coastal vessels of the time. In fact, in proportion more goods were transported around the coasts in those days than overland because of the poor roads, so the Sankey Canal acted as an extension of this already existing water traffic.
The 'flats' used their sails on the canal when the wind was favourable. When it was not, horses were used to pull the boats. Towpaths along the banks were provided for this purpose.
The masts of the boats could be lowered if necessary, but when under sail this was obviously undesirable. As a result any bridges over the canal had to be able to accommodate these masts and sails. Unlike later canals with their 'hump-backed' bridges the Sankey Canal was provided with swing-bridges which could be opened to allow boats to pass. One of these, Bradley Swing Bridge, still survives at Newton.
When the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was built, the arches of the Sankey Viaduct were built all of the same height, but crucially the arch over the canal was both high and wide enough to allow a flat to pass with its mast and sail. This can be seen in an engraving from about 1840 - although the arch is only just high enough!.
A very early example of an alternative form of propulsion was the steam boat which was invented and built by John Smith of St. Helens. There are two accounts of this boat on the canal. The first is in a letter written many years later, in 1832, from a St. Helens coal owner to the editor of the Liverpool Mercury:
For some reason, perhaps technical or economic or both, steam power did not catch on until much later on the canal. Later this was replaced by the internal combustion engine.
Effect on Newton's trade and industry
With the Sankey (or St. Helens) Canal completed, coal prices in Liverpool fell sharply and coal owners around St. Helens prospered. The small 'Hamlet of Hardshaw within Windle' around St. Helen's chapel began to grow into the large industrial town of St. Helens. As well as coal going down the canal, raw materials were brought up. The St. Helens glass industry used local supplies of sand, but other industries could now also develop with the raw materials brought by the canal. These included metal foundries (iron, copper and lead), engineering and chemical works. The canal was of course also used to take manufactured goods out of St. Helens to other parts of this country, as well as for export overseas.
Surprisingly the Sankey Canal affected Newton only slightly even though it passed right through the town. Haydock coal was brought through by the colliery railway to wharves on the canal bank, but at first no industries grew up in Newton as a result of the canal. There were industries in Newton beside the canal, but these were only founded after the extra stimulus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830. The first of these canalside industries was the Vitriol Works, owned by Muspratt and Company, from 1832 onwards. This was succeeded by the Sankey Sugar Works from 1855, which continued using the canal until 1959.
Decline and eventual closure
Other canals soon followed the Sankey Canal, the first being the Bridgewater Canal, which is mistakenly described as England's first canal. This canal was extended down to the Mersey at Runcorn and a small dock was built for Bridgewater flats at Liverpool. The following year the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was opened, and this proved a serious rival to the Sankey Canal. Coal could now be carried from the Wigan area into Liverpool itself by a much more direct route than down the Sankey canal from St. Helens and on to Liverpool via the Mersey. As a result Wigan rather than St. Helens coal soon became the chief source of coal for Liverpool.
An even more more serious rival for the Sankey Canal came however, with the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. An extract from the prospectus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, written in 1824, reads:
Decline of the Sankey Canal did not happen at once, however, because although quicker the railway was more expensive. The St. Helens Railway and Canal Companies amalgamated in 1845. The London and North Western Railway company took over in 1846.
By about a hundred years ago the coal traffic had gone from the canal, which was abandoned in stages from 1898 onwards. Another blow to the canal came with the rise of motor transport on the roads, and the canal was completely abandoned to the north of Newton Common Lock in 1931.
The Sankey Sugar Works continued using the canal, however, for deliveries of raw (unprocessed) sugar, right up to 1959. After this date the remaining sections of the canal quickly declined, and the Sankey Canal was finally closed by Act of Parliament in 1963.
Developments since closure
As the canal was abandoned swing bridges were replaced with fixed bridges at low levels, embankments were built across the canal, buildings were constructed on parts of its course, and many sections were filled in with builders' rubble or domestic waste.
Over the next twenty years following the final closure of the canal, attitudes changed, and in 1985 a society was formed with the prime objective of reopening the canal from St. Helens to the River Mersey at Widnes. This society was named the Sankey Canal Restoration Society (SCARS).
Restoration means practical work so a project was required which would prove the genuine intent of the Society. This was found in the form of the New Double Lock at Pocket Nook. For nearly five years SCARS volunteers worked on the top chamber of the lock, aided on many occasions by other volunteers from the Waterway Recovery Group (WRG), until it was finally cleared. At this point St. Helens M.B.C. stepped in to clear the lower chamber, install new gates and landscape the banks. Since then SCARS has worked regularly on sites along the canal with the continued support of WRG and that of St. Helens, Warrington and Halton Councils which have guaranteed the protection of the canal's course to allow future restoration.
In the mid 1750's the growing port of Liverpool was faced with ever increasing costs of coal, both for its developing industries, and for use in people's homes for heating and cooking. The situation was so bad that there were riots in the streets, protesting about the high prices. The main reason for the high prices was that of transport. Even though the closest collieries were quite near by today's standards - around Prescot and Whiston - coal had to be carried to Liverpool by pack-horse or by waggons - which varied from difficult to impossible, depending on the season. Another major user of coal was the Cheshire salt industry, based in Northwich. Many Liverpool merchants were also involved in this.
It had long been realised that water transport was more efficient, and many rivers had been widened and straightened to form what were called 'Navigations' - so investigations were made to find a suitable water transport link between Liverpool and the south Lancashire coalfield. The Sankey Brook was chosen for this purpose, and in 1754 a petition was sent to the House of Commons:
The said towns of Liverpool and Northwich have generally been supplied with coal from the coal works and coal pits at and near Prescot and Whiston....but such coal hath of late years become scarce and difficult to be got and is become very dear to the great discouragement of the trade and manufactories of the said places.
Sankey Canal - planning and building
The Sankey Brook was chosen to transform into a 'Navigation', and an Act of Parliament was passed in 1755 'for making navigable the Sankey Brook'. A company had been set up and an engineer appointed for the project. He was Henry Berry, who was born in Parr, and became a Liverpool dock engineer under Thomas Steers. Henry Berry took advantage of a clause in the Act of Parliament which allowed the excavation of artificial channels where necessary, and in fact dug a new channel for the whole length of the waterway. He thus created the first English 'dead water' canal (meaning not flowing as a river does) of the industrial age.
Henry Berry was allowed by his employers, the Common Council of Liverpool, two days leave a week from his dock duties to work on the Sankey Navigation. Hundreds of workers were involved, including carpenters, masons and labourers. The labourers came to be called 'navvies', from the word 'navigators', as they were digging navigations. All digging had to be done by hand, using picks, shovels and barrows, which were pulled up on planks by horses. To make the sides and bottom of the canal watertight, 'puddle clay' (clay mixed with water to make it more pliable) was applied in layers,
As the water in the canal was level, locks had to be constructed by the masons and carpenters, to raise or lower the boats from one level to another. At the St. Helens end the canal was below the level of the Sankey Brook's tributaries, so water could flow in from these. Further downstream the brook was below the level of the canal, so excess water could be drained off here.
At one point at Blackbrook two locks were needed, and the so-called 'Old Double Locks' were built, the first double or staircase locks in Britain. There were three locks at Newton: Newton Common Lock, Bradley Lock and Hey Lock. The Sankey Canal was opened in 1757, and there were extensions to Blackbrook in 1770, to Ravenhead in 1772 and to Widnes in 1830.
Boats - design and forms of propulsion
The Sankey Canal was designed to accommodate 'Mersey flats'. These were the coastal vessels of the time. In fact, in proportion more goods were transported around the coasts in those days than overland because of the poor roads, so the Sankey Canal acted as an extension of this already existing water traffic.
The 'flats' used their sails on the canal when the wind was favourable. When it was not, horses were used to pull the boats. Towpaths along the banks were provided for this purpose.
The masts of the boats could be lowered if necessary, but when under sail this was obviously undesirable. As a result any bridges over the canal had to be able to accommodate these masts and sails. Unlike later canals with their 'hump-backed' bridges the Sankey Canal was provided with swing-bridges which could be opened to allow boats to pass. One of these, Bradley Swing Bridge, still survives at Newton.
When the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was built, the arches of the Sankey Viaduct were built all of the same height, but crucially the arch over the canal was both high and wide enough to allow a flat to pass with its mast and sail. This can be seen in an engraving from about 1840 - although the arch is only just high enough!.
A very early example of an alternative form of propulsion was the steam boat which was invented and built by John Smith of St. Helens. There are two accounts of this boat on the canal. The first is in a letter written many years later, in 1832, from a St. Helens coal owner to the editor of the Liverpool Mercury:
- The engine in the boat alluded to, and which is generally supposed to be the first invented, was constructed for propelling boats by steam, as before stated, by Smith of St. Helens, in the year 1793, and her first excursion was down the Sankey to Newton Races, in June the same year, laden with passengers.
On the Saturday following she sailed to Runcorn, from thence down the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal to Manchester. On her arrival there, such was the curiosity at this wonderful, and some would have it, this mad idea, that thousands of the people came from all directions to see what their eyes could not believe, nor their senses understand; and, indeed, such were the numbers, and such the curiosity that this vessel excited, that Smith was obliged, for the safety of his property, to give notice that no one would be allowed to come on board of her, excepting those who paid a certain sum. This exasperated the populace to such an extent, that a party of mechanics immediately got possession of, and almost destroyed her. Amongst the visitors was Mr Sherratt, of the firm of Bateman and Sherratt, of Manchester; also several other respectable engineers of the same place, whom it is unnecessary to name.
So far as memory serves me (after a lapse of 39 years) the following is a short description of this wonderful discovery, but having made no memorandums at the time, and, I may say, being then very young, and to a certain extent, like the rest of my friends, incredulous, I never anticipated what is almost to everyone at the present day, so common. The vessel had on her an engine on the old atmospheric principle, was worked with a beam, connecting-rod, double-crank in a horizontal line, and with seven paddles on each side, which propelled her after the rate of about two miles an hour. John Smith was a rude, self-taught mechanic, and was supported by a Thomas Baldwin, at that time of St. Helens, and was the first aeronaut (i.e Baldwin) who ever ascended in a balloon, either in this or the adjoining counties. Perhaps, I may observe, that the vessel or boat was purchased at Liverpool, and on Smith's informing the parties from whom he bought it, what his intentions were, he was treated as an insane person; he was laughed at by one, insulted by another, and pitied generally; but having money with him, he was allowed to purchase her. On being questioned and laughed at by a merchant at the time the purchase was made, he replied, "those may laugh who will, but my opinion is, before twenty years are over, you will see this river (Mersey) covered with smoke".
I feel pleasure in giving you these particulars, and the substance of the remarks I can vouch for as being correct, having been an eye-witness to most of them, and one of the party who took the first excursion.
- An unusual occurrence took place at Newton Common, on Friday the 16th inst.: being the last day of the races there - a vessel, heavily laden with copper slag, passed along the Sankey Canal, without the aid of hawlers or rowers; the oars performing 18 strokes a minute, by the application of steam only. On enquiry since made, it appears that the vessel, after a course of ten miles, returned the same evening to St. Helen's, whence it had set out. The form and motion of the oars is not easily described, but it bids fair to be ranked among the most useful of modern inventions.
For some reason, perhaps technical or economic or both, steam power did not catch on until much later on the canal. Later this was replaced by the internal combustion engine.
Effect on Newton's trade and industry
With the Sankey (or St. Helens) Canal completed, coal prices in Liverpool fell sharply and coal owners around St. Helens prospered. The small 'Hamlet of Hardshaw within Windle' around St. Helen's chapel began to grow into the large industrial town of St. Helens. As well as coal going down the canal, raw materials were brought up. The St. Helens glass industry used local supplies of sand, but other industries could now also develop with the raw materials brought by the canal. These included metal foundries (iron, copper and lead), engineering and chemical works. The canal was of course also used to take manufactured goods out of St. Helens to other parts of this country, as well as for export overseas.
Surprisingly the Sankey Canal affected Newton only slightly even though it passed right through the town. Haydock coal was brought through by the colliery railway to wharves on the canal bank, but at first no industries grew up in Newton as a result of the canal. There were industries in Newton beside the canal, but these were only founded after the extra stimulus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway which opened in 1830. The first of these canalside industries was the Vitriol Works, owned by Muspratt and Company, from 1832 onwards. This was succeeded by the Sankey Sugar Works from 1855, which continued using the canal until 1959.
Decline and eventual closure
Other canals soon followed the Sankey Canal, the first being the Bridgewater Canal, which is mistakenly described as England's first canal. This canal was extended down to the Mersey at Runcorn and a small dock was built for Bridgewater flats at Liverpool. The following year the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was opened, and this proved a serious rival to the Sankey Canal. Coal could now be carried from the Wigan area into Liverpool itself by a much more direct route than down the Sankey canal from St. Helens and on to Liverpool via the Mersey. As a result Wigan rather than St. Helens coal soon became the chief source of coal for Liverpool.
An even more more serious rival for the Sankey Canal came however, with the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830. An extract from the prospectus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, written in 1824, reads:
- Coal from the rich mines in the vicinity of St. Helens at present pass along the Sankey Canal and down the Mersey to Liverpool, a distance of about 30 miles. By the railway the distance will be shortened one-half.
Decline of the Sankey Canal did not happen at once, however, because although quicker the railway was more expensive. The St. Helens Railway and Canal Companies amalgamated in 1845. The London and North Western Railway company took over in 1846.
By about a hundred years ago the coal traffic had gone from the canal, which was abandoned in stages from 1898 onwards. Another blow to the canal came with the rise of motor transport on the roads, and the canal was completely abandoned to the north of Newton Common Lock in 1931.
The Sankey Sugar Works continued using the canal, however, for deliveries of raw (unprocessed) sugar, right up to 1959. After this date the remaining sections of the canal quickly declined, and the Sankey Canal was finally closed by Act of Parliament in 1963.
Developments since closure
As the canal was abandoned swing bridges were replaced with fixed bridges at low levels, embankments were built across the canal, buildings were constructed on parts of its course, and many sections were filled in with builders' rubble or domestic waste.
Over the next twenty years following the final closure of the canal, attitudes changed, and in 1985 a society was formed with the prime objective of reopening the canal from St. Helens to the River Mersey at Widnes. This society was named the Sankey Canal Restoration Society (SCARS).
Restoration means practical work so a project was required which would prove the genuine intent of the Society. This was found in the form of the New Double Lock at Pocket Nook. For nearly five years SCARS volunteers worked on the top chamber of the lock, aided on many occasions by other volunteers from the Waterway Recovery Group (WRG), until it was finally cleared. At this point St. Helens M.B.C. stepped in to clear the lower chamber, install new gates and landscape the banks. Since then SCARS has worked regularly on sites along the canal with the continued support of WRG and that of St. Helens, Warrington and Halton Councils which have guaranteed the protection of the canal's course to allow future restoration.