Sankey Canal - History

History

The Sankey Canal was built principally to transport coal from the Lancashire Coalfield mines to the growing chemical industries of Liverpool, though iron ore and corn were also important commodities. These industries rapidly expanded, and spread back along the line of the canal to St Helens, Haydock, Earlestown and Widnes, which were small villages until this period. The canal was thus an important factor in the industrial growth of the region.

The line of the canal was surveyed by Henry Berry and William Taylor, for which they charged £66. Berry, who had previously worked with Thomas Steers, Liverpool’s First Dock Engineer, on the Newry Canal in Northern Ireland, was Liverpool’s Second Dock Engineer, but was appointed Engineer for the navigation when those promoting it convinced the Dock Trustees that they should release him for two days a week. It is not known whether it was Berry or the promoters who presented the plans to parliament as an upgrade to an existing river navigation, despite the fact that it would be built as a proper canal, but it is thought to be the only time that a canal was authorised by parliament without anyone petitioning against it.

The Act of Parliament authorising the construction of the navigation was passed on 20 March 1755, and was entitled An Act for making navigable the River or Brook called Sankey Brook, and Three several Branches thereof from the River Mersey below Sankey Bridges, up to Boardman's Stone Bridge on the South Branch, to Gerrard's Bridge on the Middle Branch, and to Penny Bridge on the North Branch, all in the county palatine of Lancaster. The canal was open and carrying coal by 1757; carriage of all goods was charged at a flat rate of 10d (ten old pence – approximately £0.042) per ton.

As the title of the Act states, in addition to the mainline between the Mersey and St Helens, there were three branches to nearby collieries: the South Branch to Boardman's Stone Bridge, near St Helens; the Middle Branch to Gerrard's Bridge; and the North Branch to Penny Bridge.

A second Act of Parliament was obtained on 8 April 1762, amending the earlier act, and was entitled, An Act to amend and render more effectual, an Act made in the Twenty-eighth Year of the Reign of his late Majesty King George the Second, for making navigable Sankey Brook, in the county of Lancaster, and for the extending and improving the said Navigation. This authorised the extension of the navigation to Fiddler's Ferry on the River Mersey, and to take an additional toll of two-pence per ton, making the rate one shilling (£0.05) per ton. The line of this extension was surveyed by John Eyes, who acted as principal witness to see the bill through parliament.

An early trial of steam power took place on 16 June 1797, when, according to the Billing's Liverpool Advertiser, dated the 26th, John Smith's "vessel heavily laden with copper slag, passed along the Sankey Canal ... by the application of steam only ... it appears, that the vessel after a course of 10 miles, returned the same evening to St Helens whence it had set out". This boat was powered by a Newcomen engine working a paddle crankshaft through a beam and connecting rod.

To counter competition from the new railways, a further extension of the canal was planned from Fiddler's Ferry across Cuerdley and Widnes Salt Marshes to Widnes Wharf, on the west bank of the River Mersey near Runcorn Gap, thus creating an additional connection to the Mersey with another basin. This was authorised by a third Act of Parliament, granted on 29 May 1830, entitled An Act to consolidate and amend the Acts relating to the Sankey Brook Navigation, in the county of Lancaster; and to make a New Canal from the said Navigation at Fidler's Ferry, to communicate with the River Mersey at Widness Wharf, near West Bank, in the township of Widnes, in the said county,' repeals the former acts of the 28th George II. and 2nd George III. and incorporates the proprietors under the title of "The Company of Proprietors of the Sankey Brook Navigation." Francis Giles was appointed Engineer for this extension, which opened in 1833. In 1825 Giles, who was a pupil of John Rennie and involved in many canal projects of the period, had proposed a link from the Sankey, via an aqueduct across the Mersey, to the Bridgewater Canal and the Mersey and Irwell Navigation, but this was never implemented.

The Sankey Canal was built for Mersey Flats, the common sailing craft of the local rivers; they were used on the rivers Mersey, Irwell and Weaver and along the Lancashire and North Wales coasts. To allow for the masts of the flats, swing bridges were constructed for the roads which crossed the canal. When the railways were built, they too had to cross in similar fashion. The exception was at Earlestown, where Stephenson erected the Sankey Viaduct for the country's first passenger railway from Liverpool to Manchester, leaving 70-foot (21 m) headroom for the flats' sails. It is unclear exactly how the flats' masts were accommodated at Great Sankey, where the Liverpool-Warrington-Manchester line built by the Cheshire Lines Committee in 1873 crosses the Sankey on a 12-arch viaduct less than twenty feet above the water level of the canal.

In 1877, it was reportedly the case that, due to the pollution of a local Leblanc alkali works, "The mud deposited in the Sankey Brook, near St. Helen's, has been found to contain no less than 2.26 percent of arsenic...The water of the Sankey Brook is so acid that iron fittings cannot safely be used in the barges and lock gates." Reportedly, by 1891, 500 acres (2.0 km2) of nearby Widnes and Ditton Marshes were buried under an average depth of 12 feet (3.7 m) of toxic galligu from alkali operations near the Sankey Canal. The galligu detritus was estimated at 10 million tonnes in total weight. It is unknown what level of pollution exists in said brook as of 2009, though galligu, soap and ash waste have been reported in the vicinity. In the present, discoveries of arsenic, lead and mercury have been found as common contaminants in the soil of local gardens. On top of this, St Michael’s Golf Course, a municipal golf course in nearby Widnes built atop "30 hectares of land from old chemical waste tips", was forced to close due to high levels of arsenic found in the soil, that created a public hazard.