Canals
History: KS3, topic 11.1.8
Canals
The Industrial Revolution also prompted the use of canals to transport goods around the country. This also provided many jobs.
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
- 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
- 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.
Test yourself on Canals
Roughly how many miles of canals did Britain have by the mid-nineteenth century?
What were the labourers building Britain’s canals and railways known as?