Phill Rawlins Online - Manchester aviation and transport photography

The Manchester Ship Canal

How a group of Manchester industrialists dug a canal big enough for ocean-going ships, 36 miles inland, and changed the economics of the north of England.

The swing bridges at Barton opening to let a ship pass along the canal

During the early part of the nineteenth century Manchester was a booming city: a world leader in the industrial revolution, growing in size and prosperity. But in the latter half of the century it started to struggle. It had goods to export and a growing population, so it needed to import food and other goods from abroad.

Because of crippling charges imposed by Liverpool Docks and the railway companies, trading was very unprofitable. Some merchants and traders found it cheaper to transport goods over twice as far to the port of Hull, such were the charges they were paying.

It was not the first time there had been thoughts of a “ship canal” from the west coast to Manchester, but in 1882 a group of industrialists and businessmen formed the Manchester Ship Canal Company with the intention of building a canal large enough to let ocean-going liners sail directly into Manchester from Liverpool.

It was 1885 before Parliament finally gave its approval to the Bill, after bitter opposition from the Liverpool Dock Board and the railway companies, and a further two years before enough finance was raised and work could start.

With costs that had soared from £5.25 million to £15 million, an army of 16,000 navvies and numerous setbacks, the Manchester Ship Canal was finally opened on 21 May 1894 by Queen Victoria.

The construction

Sir Leader Williams was the Ship Canal’s first engineer, aided by the main contractor Thomas Walker. They started by laying miles of railway track to move materials and remove the excavated earth. At its height the workforce consisted of 16,000 navvies, some as young as twelve, with 100 steam excavators, nearly 200 locomotives, over 6,000 wagons, 182 steam engines, 59 pile engines, 196 horses, 212 steam pumps and 194 cranes.

Existing railway bridges needed to be raised to allow tall ships to pass underneath, and this alone involved ripping up a mile of track on either side and relaying it on an incline to the rebuilt bridge.

Numerous other bridges and viaducts had to be constructed, including swing bridges and the famous swing aqueduct at Barton. That structure replaced the existing aqueduct built in 1767 by James Brindley, which was an engineering feat in itself; part of the original aqueduct can still be seen today. The Swing Aqueduct carries 800 tonnes of water and has a total weight of 1,200 tonnes.

Bridges and locks

Five sets of locks raise the canal over 60 feet along its 36 mile length. These start with the tidal locks at Eastham, which connect the canal with the Mersey Estuary; the next are Latchford locks at Warrington; then Irlam and Barton locks; and finally Mode Wheel locks just outside the terminal docks at Salford Quays. Along the length of the canal there were also numerous cargo handling docks, some of which are still in use.

All of this contributed to a massive construction task which was not without problems. In the winter of 1891 flooding was a major setback, submerging equipment up to 40 feet in places, and the main contractor Thomas Walker died suddenly, which created a loss of confidence in the project.

Even into the twentieth century new bridges and viaducts were being constructed. Two road viaducts were built at Thelwall to carry the M6 motorway over the canal, and further west the Runcorn to Widnes link bridge. At Barton a high level road bridge carries the M60, and most recently the Centenary Bridge at Trafford Park raises its roadway to allow ships to pass underneath, as does the footbridge by the Lowry Centre.

Brindley’s original 1767 aqueduct at Barton
Brindley’s original aqueduct. Built in 1767 to carry the Bridgewater Canal across the River Irwell, and partly still visible today beside the replacement. Reproduced from Eccles, Manchester by John Valentine.
Sluice gates at Stanlow on the Manchester Ship Canal
Sluice gates at Stanlow. Where the canal runs alongside the River Mersey, huge sluice gates allow thousands of gallons of water to flow off the canal and into the river to keep an even level.
The swing bridges at Barton opening along the canal bank
The swing bridges at Barton. The road bridge turned through ninety degrees to lie along the bank, waiting for a ship to pass.

The River Gowy and the siphons

Near Stanlow the canal met with the River Gowy, and one needed to pass the other. The ingenious solution was to have two huge cast iron siphons, 400 feet long, placed underneath the canal to allow the river to flow freely.

The canal’s engineers were also well aware of the power of flood water and knew it had to be controlled. Where the canal runs alongside the River Mersey, the sluice gates at Stanlow allow water to be discharged into the river to keep an even level in the canal.

The driving force

On 1 January 1882 Daniel Adamson called a meeting at his home, “The Towers” in Didsbury. In attendance were other leading industrialists of the area as well as civic dignitaries and leaders of the time, and the Manchester Ship Canal Company was formed.

Daniel Adamson was the first chairman of the Canal Company but died in 1887, shortly after the Parliamentary Bill was approved. Lord Egerton of Tatton became the second chairman and cut the first sod at Eastham. Sir Leader Williams was the canal’s first engineer and the architect of most of the major structures, including the swing aqueduct and the locks. Thomas Walker was the canal’s main contractor, a civil engineer of some repute who was also responsible for the Severn Tunnel and for work on the Great Western Railway.

The first Bill was submitted to Parliament in December 1882 and was approved by the Commons but rejected by the Lords. In 1883 a second Bill was also rejected. In 1885 the third Bill was finally approved and given Royal Assent on 6 August. A further £5 million then had to be raised towards construction costs, and the company was also forced to buy the Bridgewater Canal at a cost of £1.8 million. They achieved this in just two years and work began in November 1887.

What the canal carried

The canal helped traders and manufacturers not just of Manchester but of the whole of Lancashire. In its first year nearly a million tonnes of cargo was carried, and traffic peaked in the late 1950s at nearly 19 million tonnes. Trafford Park, the first industrial estate to be purpose-built anywhere in the world, attracted major industry and big business with the help of the canal: Ford, Rolls-Royce, Kellogg’s, Colgate-Palmolive, Brooke Bond, Hovis and the Co-operative Wholesale Society all operated in the Park, and several still did, using the canal to move their goods.

The modern day canal

The canal is still heavily used, though the Manchester Docks fell into disuse and are now better known as Salford Quays: an upmarket housing development, a large retail outlet, cinemas and the Lowry Centre, with the Imperial War Museum North on the opposite bank in Trafford Park.

Over seven million tonnes of cargo is still carried along the canal, consisting mainly of oil, chemicals and grain destined for Stanlow, Ellesmere Port and Runcorn, but there is still industrial traffic coming along to Partington, Irlam, Eccles and Trafford Park.

More photographs of the Manchester Ship Canal →

Other websites about the Manchester Ship Canal

Sources. The history above was compiled by Phill Rawlins from published accounts of the canal’s construction and from Eccles, Manchester by John Valentine, whose images of the original Brindley aqueduct appear on this page. Where a photograph accompanied the original article but has not survived, the page notes it rather than showing a substitute.