Ardayfio, Elizabeth Aku (1974). The development of canals in Warwickshire, and their influence on the social and economic geography of the county. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.
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Ardayfio1974PhD.pdf
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Abstract
The major factors affecting canal routing in Warwickshire, as well as the importance of the canals in linking Coventry and the Avon towns of Stratford and Warwick with the growing industrial centres of Birmingham and the Black Country, and their function in providing an outlet through other canal connections to the four major ports of the Mersey, Humber, Severn and Thames are here discussed. Considerable transformations were also effected by the part the canals played in the Industrial Revolution: they proved pre-eminently a remarkably cheap way of moving bulky goods, particularly coal, to meet the country's agricultural, extractive and manufacturing demands between 1790 and 1838. The influence of canals on the distribution of coal during this period was enormous; coal markets were geographically extended beyond purely local markets, and coal prices were halved, while a wider variety, both cheaper and dearer kinds, became available in consequence of the canal revolution. Besides facilitating the distribution of goods, the Warwickshire Canals were to stimulate the development of industries, giving rise to factories and associated wharves, particularly in towns such as Birmingham, Warwick and Stratford. The secondary effects of the canals were no less impressive, particularly in their influence on settlement, giving rise to such features as lockmen's cottages and canal inns, most of which arose where roads had been intersected by canals so requiring the construction of distinctive bridges. In the fourth decade of the nineteenth century, however, the pattern of development began to change drastically with the advent of railways, a process which quickened during the middle of the nineteenth century when canal development was arrested. Stagnation and decline of the canals as commercial waterways set in from 1838, with only occasional and short-lived recovery until a revival of interest for non-commercial reasons around 1964 when canals began to play a part in the provision of recreation facilities which are deemed so important today.
| Type of Work: | Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.) |
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| Award Type: | Doctorates > Ph.D. |
| Licence: | All rights reserved |
| College/Faculty: | Faculties (to 1997) > Faculty of Arts |
| School or Department: | Department of Geography |
| Funders: | None/not applicable |
| Subjects: | G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > G Geography (General) |
| URI: | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/15002 |
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