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Canals

The Industrial Revolution also prompted the use of canals to transport goods around the country. This also provided many jobs.

Canals

Canals

  • Canals were another key method of transport, that became much more widely used during the Industrial Revolution.
  • Floating barges on canals, and having horses pull those barges along the canals, allowed goods to be transported much more quickly than on land.
  • The horses walked alongside the canals on tow-paths.
Canal network

Canal network

  • Obviously, wherever there was a mine or factory, there were calls for a canal nearby, so that goods could be easily transported to and from the factory.
  • By the mid-nineteenth century, Britain had a huge network of canals running across the country, totalling about four thousand miles.
Navvies
  • The creation of thousands of miles of canals and railway track also created thousands of jobs.
  • Labourers were required to build Britain’s canals and railways, and these labourers became known as navvies (taken from the word ‘navigators’).
Work done by navvies

Work done by navvies

  • A large proportion of these navvies were Irishmen, who had been driven from Ireland due to the potato famine (1845-1852) and found work in other parts of Britain.
  • The job was hard manual labour, but was well paid.
  • By the mid-1800s canals and railways were being built by 200,000 navvies across Britain.
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