In the eighteenth century, Liverpool was the largest industrial centre in Lancashire, with industries such as copper refining, potteries, chemicals, sugar refining and iron working, all needing coal. The growing number of sailing vessels using the port also needed supplies for cooking, as did the local inhabitants, so coal was one of the most important factors in the development of the new local inland waterway network. From 1742, boats from the Douglas Navigation brought coal from the Wigan coalfield to Liverpool via the Ribble estuary.

 

Bradford woollen merchants also needed coal, as well as limestone from Craven. A canal from Leeds to Liverpool was suggested and merchants in Liverpool approached for their help. The Liverpool merchants were in favour, and after some problems over the route, the canal opened from Liverpool to Parbold in 1774, a link from there to the Douglas Navigation near Wigan allowing coal to reach Liverpool. Building the canal was slow work, and it was not completed until 1816. A link into the Mersey was authorised by the canal’s Act, but it was left to Liverpool’s second great dock engineer, Jesse Hartley, to build the link when he constructed Stanley Dock in 1846.

Many barges worked up and down Stanley Locks as it was cheaper to transship cargoes between ships and canal barges than it was to land goods on the dock wharfs. The locks were built larger than others on the canal and the canal deepened between Bootle and the locks to allow larger barges to carry their full load. Great Howard Street bridge over the canal limited barge size because of its small height.

Canal bridges interrupted roads northwards from the city centre, and in the 1880s a new road, Pall Mall, was built. Much of the old canal basin was filled in, and new canal warehouses built alongside Pall Mall. Traffic on the main line of the canal finally ended in 1964 following the severe winter of 1963/4. The basin was filled in shortly afterwards and an extension to Tate & Lyle’s sugar refinery built over part of it, though the section next to Pall Mall is still recognisable as a canal just with no water.

 

Mike Clarke is an Industrial Historian who has written several books about the Leeds & Liverpool Canal, his new book about Canal barge painting Brightwork has just been published.