The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles

S >> Samuel Smiles >> The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

The northern entrance-lock from the sea at Loch Beauly is at
Clachnaharry, near Inverness. The works here were not accomplished
without much difficulty as well as labour, partly from the very
gradual declivity of the shore, and partly from the necessity of
placing the sea-lock on absolute mud, which afforded no foundation
other than what was created by compression and pile-driving.
The mud was forced down by throwing upon it an immense load of earth
and stones, which was left during twelve months to settle; after
which a shaft was sunk to a solid foundation, and the masonry of
the sea-lock was then founded and built therein.

In the 'Sixteenth Report of the Commissioners of the Caledonian
Canal,' the following reference is made to this important work,
which was finished in 1812:-- "The depth of the mud on which it may
be said to be artificially seated is not less than 60 feet; so that
it cannot be deemed superfluous, at the end of seven years, to
state that no subsidence is discoverable; and we presume that the
entire lock, as well as every part of it, may now be deemed as
immovable, and as little liable to destruction, as any other large
mass of masonry. This was the most remarkable work performed under
the immediate care of Mr. Matthew Davidson, our superintendent at
Clachnaharry, from 1804 till the time of his decease. He was a man
perfectly qualified for the employment by inflexible integrity,
unwearied industry, and zeal to a degree of anxiety, in all the
operations committed to his care."*[1]

As may naturally be supposed, the execution of these great works
involved vast labour and anxiety. They were designed with much
skill, and executed with equal ability. There were lock-gates to
be constructed, principally of cast iron, sheathed with pine
planking. Eight public road bridges crossed the line of the
canal, which were made of cast iron, and swung horizontally.
There were many mountain streams, swollen to torrents in winter,
crossing under the canal, for which abundant water-way had to be
provided, involving the construction of numerous culverts, tunnels,
and under-bridges of large dimensions. There were also powerful
sluices to let off the excess of water sent down from the adjacent
mountains into the canal during winter. Three of these, of great
size, high above the river Lochy, are constructed at a point where
the canal is cut through the solid rock; and the sight of the mass
of waters rushing down into the valley beneath, gives an impression
of power which, once seen, is never forgotten.

These great works were only brought to a completion after the
labours of many years, during which the difficulties encountered in
their construction had swelled the cost of the canal far beyond the
original estimate. The rapid advances which had taken place in the
interval in the prices of labour and materials also tended greatly
to increase the expenses, and, after all, the canal, when completed
and opened, was comparatively little used. This was doubtless
owing, in a great measure, to the rapid changes which occurred in
the system of navigation shortly after the projection of the
undertaking. For these Telford was not responsible. He was called
upon to make the canal, and he did so in the best manner.
Engineers are not required to speculate as to the commercial value
of the works they are required to construct; and there were
circumstances connected with the scheme of the Caledonian Canal
which removed it from the category of mere commercial adventures.
It was a Government project, and it proved a failure as a paying
concern. Hence it formed a prominent topic for discussion in the
journals of the day; but the attacks made upon the Government
because of their expenditure on the hapless undertaking were
perhaps more felt by Telford, who was its engineer, than by all the
ministers of state conjoined.

"The unfortunate issue of this great work," writes the present
engineer of the canal, to whom we are indebted for many of the
preceding facts, "was a grievous disappointment to Mr. Telford,
and was in fact the one great bitter in his otherwise unalloyed cup
of happiness and prosperity. The undertaking was maligned by
thousands who knew nothing of its character. It became 'a dog with
a bad name,' and all the proverbial consequences followed.
The most absurd errors and misconceptions were propagated respecting
it from year to year, and it was impossible during Telford's lifetime
to stem the torrent of popular prejudice and objurgation. It must,
however, be admitted, after a long experience, that Telford was
greatly over-sanguine in his expectations as to the national uses
of the canal, and he was doomed to suffer acutely in his personal
feelings, little though he may have been personally to blame, the
consequences of what in this commercial country is regarded as so
much worse than a crime, namely, a financial mistake."*[2]

Mr. Telford's great sensitiveness made him feel the ill success of
this enterprise far more than most other men would have done.
He was accustomed to throw himself into the projects on which he
was employed with an enthusiasm almost poetic. He regarded them
not merely as so much engineering, but as works which were to be
instrumental in opening up the communications of the country and
extending its civilization. Viewed in this light, his canals,
roads, bridges, and harbours were unquestionably of great national
importance, though their commercial results might not in all cases
justify the estimates of their projectors. To refer to like
instances--no one can doubt the immense value and public uses of
Mr. Rennie's Waterloo Bridge or Mr. Robert Stephenson's Britannia
and Victoria Bridges, though every one knows that, commercially,
they have been failures. But it is probable that neither of these
eminent engineers gave himself anything like the anxious concern
that Telford did about the financial issue of his undertaking.
Were railway engineers to fret and vex themselves about the commercial
value of the schemes in which they have been engaged, there are few
of them but would be so haunted by the ghosts of wrecked speculations
that they could scarcely lay their heads upon their pillows for a
single night in peace.

While the Caledonian Canal was in progress, Mr. Telford was
occupied in various works of a similar kind in England and Scotland,
and also upon one in Sweden. In 1804, while on one of his journeys
to the north, he was requested by the Earl of Eglinton and others
to examine a project for making a canal from Glasgow to Saltcoats
and Ardrossan, on the north-western coast of the county of Ayr,
passing near the important manufacturing town of Paisley. A new
survey of the line was made, and the works were carried on during
several successive years until a very fine capacious canal was
completed, on the same level, as far as Paisley and Johnstown.
But the funds of the company falling short, the works were stopped,
and the canal was carried no further. Besides, the measures adopted
by the Clyde Trustees to deepen the bed of that river and enable
ships of large burden to pass up as high as Glasgow, had proved so
successful that the ultimate extension of the canal to Ardrossan
was no longer deemed necessary, and the prosecution of the work was
accordingly abandoned. But as Mr. Telford has observed, no person
suspected, when the canal was laid out in 1805, "that steamboats
would not only monopolise the trade of the Clyde, but penetrate
into every creek where there is water to float them, in the British
Isles and the continent of Europe, and be seen in every quarter of
the world."

Another of the navigations on which Mr. Telford was long employed
was that of the river Weaver in Cheshire. It was only twenty-four
miles in extent, but of considerable importance to the country
through which it passed, accommodating the salt-manufacturing
districts, of which the towns of Nantwich, Northwich, and Frodsham
are the centres. The channel of the river was extremely crooked
and much obstructed by shoals, when Telford took the navigation in
hand in the year 1807, and a number of essential improvements were
made in it, by means of new locks, weirs, and side cuts, which had
the effect of greatly improving the communications of these
important districts.

In the following year we find our engineer consulted, at the
instance of the King of Sweden, on the best mode of constructing
the Gotha Canal, between Lake Wenern and the Baltic, to complete
the communication with the North Sea. In 1808, at the invitation
of Count Platen, Mr. Telford visited Sweden and made a careful
survey of the district. The service occupied him and his
assistants two months, after which he prepared and sent in a series
of detailed plans and sections, together with an elaborate report
on the subject. His plans having been adopted, he again visited
Sweden in 1810, to inspect the excavations which had already been
begun, when he supplied the drawings for the locks and bridges.
With the sanction of the British Government, he at the same time
furnished the Swedish contractors with patterns of the most
improved tools used in canal making, and took with him a number of
experienced lock-makers and navvies for the purpose of instructing
the native workmen.

The construction of the Gotha Canal was an undertaking of great
magnitude and difficulty, similar in many respects to the
Caledonian Canal, though much more extensive. The length of
artificial canal was 55 miles, and of the whole navigation,
including the lakes, 120 miles. The locks are 120 feet long and
24 feet broad; the width of the canal at bottom being 42 feet,
and the depth of water 10 feet. The results, so far as the engineer
was concerned, were much more satisfactory than in the case of the
Caledonian Canal. While in the one case he had much obloquy to
suffer for the services he had given, in the other he was honoured
and feted as a public benefactor, the King conferring upon him the
Swedish order of knighthood, and presenting him with his portrait
set in diamonds.

Among the various canals throughout England which Mr. Telford was
employed to construct or improve, down to the commencement of the
railway era, were the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal, in 1818; the
Grand Trunk Canal, in 1822; the Harecastle Tunnel, which he
constructed anew, in 1824-7; the Birmingham Canal, in 1824; and the
Macclesfield, and Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canals, in 1825.
The Gloucester and Berkeley Canal Company had been unable to
finish their works, begun some thirty years before; but with the
assistance of a loan of 160,000L. from the Exchequer Bill Loan
Commissioners, they were enabled to proceed with the completion of
their undertaking. A capacious canal was cut from Gloucester to
Sharpness Point, about eight miles down the Severn, which had the
effect of greatly improving the convenience of the port of
Gloucester; and by means of this navigation, ships of large burden
can now avoid the circuitous and difficult passage of the higher
part of the river, very much to the advantage of the trade of the
place.

The formation of a new tunnel through Harecastle Hill, for the
better accommodation of the boats passing along the Grand Trunk
Canal, was a formidable work. The original tunnel, it will be
remembered,*[3] was laid out by Brindley, about fifty years
before, and occupied eleven years in construction. But the
engineering appliances of those early days were very limited; the
pumping powers of the steam-engine had not been fairly developed,
and workmen were as yet only half-educated in the expert use of
tools. The tunnel, no doubt, answered the purpose for which it was
originally intended, but it was very soon found too limited for the
traffic passing along the navigation. It was little larger than a
sewer, and admitted the passage of only one narrow boat, seven feet
wide, at a time, involving very heavy labour on the part of the men
who worked it through. This was performed by what was called
legging. The Leggers lay upon the deck of the vessel, or upon a
board slightly projecting from either side of it, and, by thrusting
their feet against the slimy roof or sides of the tunnel-walking
horizontally as it were -- they contrived to push it through.
But it was no better than horsework; and after "legging" Harecastle
Tunnel, which is more than a mile and a half long, the men were
usually completely exhausted, and as wet from perspiration as if
they had been dragged through the canal itself. The process
occupied about two hours, and by the time the passage of the tunnel
was made, there was usually a collection of boats at the other end
waiting their turn to pass. Thus much contention and confusion
took place amongst the boatmen--a very rough class of labourers--
and many furious battles were fought by the claimants for the first
turn "through." Regulations were found of no avail to settle these
disputes, still less to accommodate the large traffic which
continued to keep flowing along the line of the Grand Trunk,
and steadily increased with the advancing trade and manufactures of
the country. Loud complaints were made by the public, but they were
disregarded for many years; and it was not until the proprietors
were threatened with rival canals and railroads that they
determined on--what they could no longer avoid if they desired to
retain the carrying trade of the district the enlargement of the
Harecastle Tunnel.

Mr. Telford was requested to advise the Company what course was
most proper to be adopted in the matter, and after examining the
place, he recommended that an entirely new tunnel should be
constructed, nearly parallel with the old one, but of much larger
dimensions. The work was begun in 1824, and completed in 1827,
in less than three years. There were at that time throughout the
country plenty of skilled labourers and contractors, many of them
trained by their experience upon Telford's own works, where as
Brindley had in a great measure to make his workmen out of the
rawest material. Telford also had the advantage of greatly improved
machinery and an abundant supply of money--the Grand Trunk Canal
Company having become prosperous and rich, paying large dividends.
It is therefore meet, while eulogising the despatch with which he
was enabled to carry out the work, to point out that the much
greater period occupied in the earlier undertaking is not to be set
down to the disparagement of Brindley, who had difficulties to
encounter which the later engineer knew nothing of.

The length of the new tunnel is 2926 yards; it is 16 feet high and
14 feet broad, 4 feet 9 inches of the breadth being occupied by the
towing-path--for "legging" was now dispensed with, and horses
hauled along the boats instead of their being thrust through by
men. The tunnel is in so perfectly straight a line that its whole
length can be seen through at one view; and though it was
constructed by means of fifteen different pitshafts sunk to the
same line along the length of the tunnel, the workmanship is so
perfect that the joinings of the various lengths of brickwork are
scarcely discernible. The convenience afforded by the new tunnel
was very great, and Telford mentions that, on surveying it in 1829,
he asked a boatman coming; out of it how he liked it? "I only
wish," he replied, "that it reached all the way to Manchester!"

[Image] Cross Section of Harecastle Tunnel.

At the time that Mr. Telford was engaged upon the tunnel at
Harecastle, he was employed to improve and widen the Birmingham
Canal, another of Brindley's works. Though the accommodation
provided by it had been sufficient for the traffic when originally
constructed, the expansion of the trade of Birmingham and the
neighbourhood, accelerated by the formation of the canal itself,
had been such as completely to outgrow its limited convenience and
capacity, and its enlargement and improvement now became absolutely
necessary. Brindley's Canal, for the sake of cheapness of
construction--money being much scarcer and more difficult to be
raised in the early days of canals--was also winding and crooked;
and it was considered desirable to shorten and straighten it by
cutting off the bends at different places. At the point at which
the canal entered Birmingham, it had become "little better than a
crooked ditch, with scarcely the appearance of a towing-path, the
horses frequently sliding and staggering in the water, the
hauling-lines sweeping the gravel into the canal, and the
entanglement at the meeting of boats being incessant; whilst at the
locks at each end of the short summit at Smethwick crowds of
boatmen were always quarrelling, or offering premiums for a
preference of passage; and the mine-owners, injured by the delay,
were loud in their just complaints."*[4]

Mr. Telford proposed an effective measure of improvement, which
was taken in hand without loss of time, and carried out, greatly
to the advantage of the trade of the district. The numerous bends
in the canal were cut off, the water-way was greatly widened, the
summit at Smethwick was cut down to the level on either side, and a
straight canal, forty feet wide, without a lock, was thus formed
as far as Bilston and Wolverhampton; while the length of the main
line between Birmingham and Autherley, along the whole extent of
the "Black country," was reduced from twenty-two to fourteen miles.
At the same time the obsolete curvatures in Brindley's old canal
were converted into separate branches or basins, for the
accommodation of the numerous mines and manufactories on either
side of the main line. In consequence of the alterations which had
been made in the canal, it was found necessary to construct
numerous large bridges. One of these--a cast iron bridge,
at Galton, of 150 feet span--has been much admired for its elegance,
lightness, and economy of material. Several others of cast iron
were constructed at different points, and at one place the canal
itself is carried along on an aqueduct of the same material as at
Pont-Cysylltau. The whole of these extensive improvements were
carried out in the short space of two years; and the result was
highly satisfactory, "proving," as Mr. Telford himself observes,
"that where business is extensive, liberal expenditure of this kind
is true economy."

[Image] Galton Bridge, Birmingham Canal.

In 1825 Mr. Telford was called upon to lay out a canal to connect
the Grand Trunk, at the north end of Harecastle Tunnel, with the
rapidly improving towns of Congleton and Macclesfield. The line
was twenty-nine miles in length, ten miles on one level from
Harecastle to beyond Congleton; then, ascending 114 feet by eleven
locks, it proceeded for five miles on a level past Macclesfield,
and onward to join the Peak Forest Canal at Marple. The navigation
was thus conducted upon two levels, each of considerable length;
and it so happened that the trade of each was in a measure
distinct, and required separate accommodation. The traffic of the
whole of the Congleton district had ready access to the Grand Trunk
system, without the labour, expense, and delay involved by passing
the boats through locks; while the coals brought to Macclesfield to
supply the mills there were carried throughout upon the upper
level, also without lockage. The engineer's arrangement proved
highly judicious, and furnishes an illustration of the tact and
judgment which he usually displayed in laying out his works for
practical uses. Mr Telford largely employed cast iron in the
construction of this canal, using it in the locks and gates, as
well as in an extensive aqueduct which it was necessary to
construct over a deep ravine, after the plan pursued by him at,
Pont-Cysylltau and other places.

The last canal constructed by. Mr. Telford was the Birmingham and
Liverpool Junction, extending from the Birmingham Canal, near
Wolverhampton, in nearly a direct line, by Market Drayton,
Nantwich, and through the city of Chester, by the Ellesmere Canal,
to Ellesmere Port on the Mersey. The proprietors of canals were
becoming alarmed at the numerous railways projected through the
districts heretofore served by their water-ways; and among other
projects one was set on foot, as early as 1825, for constructing a
line of railway from London to Liverpool. Mr. Telford was
consulted as to the best means of protecting existing investments,
and his advice was to render the canal system as complete as it
could be made; for he entertained the conviction, which has been
justified by experience, that such navigations possessed peculiar
advantages for the conveyance of heavy goods, and that, if the
interruptions presented by locks could be done away with, or
materially reduced, a large portion of the trade of the country
must continue to be carried by the water roads. The new line
recommended by him was approved and adopted, and the works were
commenced in 1826. A second complete route was thus opened up
between Birmingham and Liverpool, and Manchester, by which the
distance was shortened twelve miles, and the delay occasioned by
320 feet of upward and downward lockage was done away with.

Telford was justly proud of his canals, which were the finest works
of their kind that had yet been executed in England. Capacious,
convenient, and substantial, they embodied his most ingenious
contrivances, and his highest engineering skill. Hence we find him
writing to a friend at Langholm, that, so soon as he could find
"sufficient leisure from his various avocations in his own
unrivalled and beloved island," it was his intention to visit
France and Italy, for the purpose of ascertaining what foreigners
had been able to accomplish, compared with ourselves, in the
construction of canals, bridges, and harbours. "I have no doubt,"
said he, "as to their inferiority. During the war just brought to
a close, England has not only been able to guard her own head and
to carry on a gigantic struggle, but at the same time to construct
canals, roads, harbours, bridges--magnificent works of peace--the
like of which are probably not to be found in the world. Are not
these things worthy of a nation's pride?"

Footnotes for Chapter X.

*[1] Mr. Matthew Davidson, above referred to, was an excellent
officer, but a strange cynical humourist in his way. He was a
Lowlander, and had lived for some time in England, at the Pont
Cysylltau works, where he had acquired a taste for English comforts,
and returned to the North with a considerable contempt for the
Highland people amongst whom he was stationed. He is said to
have very much resembled Dr. Johnson in person and was so fond
of books, and so well read in them, that he was called
'the Walking Library.' He used to say that if justice were done to
the inhabitants of Inverness, there would be nobody left there in
twenty years but the Provost and the hangman. Seeing an artist one
day making a sketch in the mountains, he said it was the first time
he had known what the hills were good for. And when some one was
complaining of the weather in the Highlands, he looked sarcastically
round, and observed that the rain certainly would not hurt the
heather crop.

*[2] The misfortunes of the Caledonian Canal did not end with the
life of Telford. The first vessel passed through it from sea to
sea in October, 1822, by which time it had cost about a million
sterling, or double the original estimate. Notwithstanding this
large outlay, it appears that the canal was opened before the works
had been properly completed; and the consequence was that they very
shortly fell into decay. It even began to be considered whether
the canal ought not to be abandoned. In 1838, Mr. James Walker,
C.E., an engineer of the highest eminence, examined it, and
reported fully on its then state, strongly recommending its
completion as well as its improvement. His advice was eventually
adopted, and the canal was finished accordingly, at an additional
cost of about 200,000L., and the whole line was re-opened in 1847,
since which time it has continued in useful operation. The passage
from sea to sea at all times can now be depended on, and it can
usually be made in forty-eight hours. As the trade of the North
increases, the uses of the canal will probably become much more
decided than they have heretofore, proved.

*[3] 'Brindley and the Early Engineers,' p. 267.

*[4] 'Life of Telford,' p. 82, 83.

CHAPTER XI.

TELFORD AS A ROAD-MAKER.

Mr. Telford's extensive practice as a bridge-builder led his friend
Southey to designate him "Pontifex Maximus." Besides the numerous
bridges erected by him in the West of England, we have found him
furnishing designs for about twelve hundred in the Highlands, of
various dimensions, some of stone and others of iron. His practice
in bridge-building had, therefore, been of an unusually extensive
character, and Southey's sobriquet was not ill applied. But besides
being a great bridge-builder, Telford was also a great road-maker.
With the progress of industry and trade, the easy and rapid transit
of persons and goods had come to be regarded as an increasing
object of public interest. Fast coaches now ran regularly between
all the principal towns of England; every effort being made,
by straightening and shortening the roads, cutting down hills,
and carrying embankments across valleys and viaducts over rivers,
to render travelling by the main routes as easy and expeditious as
possible.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24