← Harold's Old Time Radio
Harold's Old Time Radio
Manchester Ship Canal 75th Anniversary 1969.xx.xx They Brought The Sea To Manchester
00:38:57
Manchester Ship Canal 75th Anniversary 1969.xx.xx They Brought The Sea To Manchester
Loading summary
Transcript106 lines
- [00:00]
Charlie Williams
I'm here on a job site with Tim who owns his own electrical contracting business. Three employees and two work trucks. Tim traded up to GEICO Commercial Auto Insurance. We're positively here where he needs us most. They sure are. With step by step help on all his insurance needs. All for shockingly low rates. Shockingly low, huh? Just a little bit of electrician humor. Do you get it? I got it. You know, it feels like we have a real connection.
- [00:24]
John Dobson
Alright, I'll stop, get a commercial auto.
- [00:26]
Narrator
Insurance quote today@geico.com and see how much you could save.
- [00:29]
Charlie Williams
Get more with Geico.
- [00:34]
Singer (Harry Boardman)
To bring big ships to Manchester is what we mean to do. If you delight in smaller craft, then paddle your own canoe from Throstle Nest or Barton Bridge just as it may suit you. You'll sail direct to any port on board an ocean screw. Then love your neighbour as yourself. We'll sing while sailing through the ship canal to Manchester on board an ocean screw.
- [01:02]
Edgar Lee
A few weeks ago of Manchester was in the news. An accident on the famous Manchester ship canal temporarily closed the terminal docks. The incident served to bring home the importance of this unique sea link to both Manchester and the northwest. Also in this, the 75th anniversary year of the opening of the ship canal. It reminded us of the foresight, perseverance and independence of our forefathers who promoted the project, overcame immense difficulties and brought the whole concept to a successful conclusion. This commemorative program traces through the voices of three old men in their 90s who actually worked on the construction of the canal and others who have close connections with it. The history, the life and the times when they brought the sea to Manchester.
- [01:54]
Singer (Harry Boardman)
You'll see great shift from distant climes and men of every hue lay earth must bounce it at your feet and take your goods inland smooth and trade will flourish all around and peace and plenty too. And every thrifty man you'll see. You'll paddle his own canoe then love your neighbour as yourself will sing while sailing through the ship Canel to Manchester on board our ocean scre.
- [03:15]
John Dobson
As you approach you can see these vessels sailing apparently through the fields. And it does give you a remarkable feeling. And to know that that vessel has come from the other side of the world and is sailing so close to your door.
- [03:33]
Charlie Williams
Well, it's the most beautiful thing that ever come into Manchester. There'd be no Manchester only for it. But people don't realize what a mighty concern it is. I never dreamt although I was working on a dirt see about 14,000 tonnes coming up it. There's no Doubt about it that the ship canal was, was the making of Manchester as a city. Without that magnificent waterway, Manchester would have died in the industrial revolution.
- [04:07]
John Dobson
There's all been fields and farms, there'd been normal trade.
- [04:12]
Charlie Williams
They really did build Manchester.
- [04:15]
John Dobson
By building the ship canal.
- [04:27]
Narrator
They brought the sea to Manchester. A far fetched dream in the minds of men of vision that became a reality 75 years ago.
- [04:36]
Frank Molyneux
The Manchester ship canal, of course was made largely in the bed of the river Irwell and the river Mersey westward from Manchester to Liverpool. But clearly they, the two rivers had been used as a navigation, certainly very much so. In the 18th century the Oval Emerging Navigation Company was in existence.
- [05:02]
John Dobson
It wasn't until the late 1870s and the early 1880s that it was felt that the canal should be made. Due, of course to the recession of trade in Manchester, due to the high railway charges and Liverpool high dock charges.
- [05:20]
Frank Molyneux
It was quite clear in the second half of the 19th century that Manchester was not only not growing, it was declining. There was considerable decay in the area. It was considered that Manchester had no future. Industry was beginning to leave and taking with it skill.
- [05:46]
John Dobson
And as the people went, so did rates, the ordinary rates, which people pay for the existence of a city. And because without rates a city can't exist. In fact, there were well over 18,000 empty houses within the city of Manchester in 1881, to say nothing of the empty warehouses and other factories, etc.
- [06:11]
Frank Molyneux
It was that period which promoted the idea of the necessity for a ship canal. Something had to be done. And of course the period 1883 to 1885 was a time spent in formulating plans.
- [06:29]
John Dobson
And as with everything else, a leader is necessary. And in this case, fortunately, there was one man, strangely, he wasn't a Manchester man, he was a Northerner. He was a Durham man by the name of Daniel Adamson. But he lived in Manchester and had the business works at Duckingfield.
- [06:48]
Charlie Williams
Transport costs were far in excess of shipping from Liverpool. And the only way that Daniel Adamson saw it that Manchester, the city that he loved, was going to survive was to make it into the, as he always, I believe, used to say, the third largest sport in England.
- [07:07]
John Dobson
And he called a meeting at his house in Didbury to get the feeling of the, well, the various Lord mayors, mayors, the VIPs of all the surrounding district, not only Manchester, but he brought them for all the areas within the county and some in Yorkshire too. And There were about 86 people I think, at this meeting, the idea being to see whether they should go ahead with the idea of a canal, which meant, of course, if they were agreeable, seeking power in Parliament.
- [07:44]
Edgar Lee
Mr. Adamson was in good form and with a strong Northumbrian. Burr reverted to the wonderful success attending the improvement of the Tyne, the Tees and the Clyde, and felt sure the Mersey was amenable to similar treatment with even better results. If the Suez Canal, situated in a barbarous country and where for 50 miles there was a solid cutting of the depth of 26ft, could be carried out, there ought to be no engineering difficulties to stand in the way as far as the Mersey was concerned. He commended the scheme, believing it would be very advantageous to the constructors and a mighty blessing to Lancashire and Yorkshire.
- [08:21]
John Dobson
There were frequent public meetings called to get the voice of the public whether they were in favor of the canal or whether they were not. I went to the meetings, you know, they allowed a few youngsters in and of course, we applauded those follies and we. And shouted down these that were against, you know, if you're forced to do something to live, you've got to create something. I think brought into effect that spirit more than ever it would have been. He was a remarkable man, was Adamson. It was a great pity that he did fall out with the promoters later on before the canal was finished.
- [09:20]
Charlie Williams
Here's his pedigree. There is Daniel Adamson of the Towers, Didsbury Withington, son of Daniel Adamson, who.
- [09:31]
Edgar Lee
Was the licensee of the Gray Mare.
- [09:32]
Charlie Williams
At Shildon in County Durham. And all his predecessors, as you can see, were yeoman farmers all of Durham. Well, evidently Daniel Adamson, my great grandfather, had a leaning to being an engineer and in due course became chief engineer to George Stephenson of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. And having there learned his experience of boiler making, presumably he thought there was some money to be made out of making boilers. And in 1842 he started the engineering works at Duckenfield.
- [10:10]
John Dobson
He was a dour, tough man. He wasn't afraid to say what he thought and on many occasions that got him in bad boots with certain people. But he wasn't afraid to speak his mind.
- [10:25]
Charlie Williams
He was a typical bluff, outspoken, very religious man. He didn't blink, he didn't smoke, but.
- [10:36]
Narrator
There was plenty of fire and feeling when he addressed meetings at the town hall to awaken the imagination of the people as to the benefits and the better life that would follow if they supported the construction of a ship canal. Such was the enthusiastic spirit of the period that the promoters went ahead with their plans, but to prepare a bill and Deposit it before Parliament is one thing, to get it passed by a committee of both houses is quite another. Strong opposition to the proposals came, not unnaturally, from the Mersey Dock Board and Liverpool Corporation, who feared great harm to their trade. The Liverpool Courier put it, the question at issue is not whether Parliament will allow Manchester to compete with Liverpool for maritime supremacy, but whether Manchester shall be allowed to utterly destroy this port in futile efforts to make itself a seaport. That Manchester will ever see masts of the great steamships of the Atlantic and the East Indies mingling with its chimney stacks is a picturesque scene never to be realized. Even Punch contributed a crack or two in its columns.
- [11:43]
Edgar Lee
Little row in the House of Lords tonight. Manchester ship canal down for second Reading. Lord Redesdale doesn't like ship canals. Never had them in my day. HE GROWLS if this thing goes on, have England cut up into mincemeat in a few years. Make a sort of Holland of this island. Never be able to drive half a mile without coming across a ship in full sail. Have steamers pouring smoke into your front bedroom window and get hit on the head with the main top mizzen boom when you look out to see where smoke coming from. Have no more of them here as long as I am chairman of committee.
- [12:19]
Narrator
For three long and expensive years, the battle of words raged. But despite the jocular and the hostile criticisms that poured down on the promoters, their third bill, with many onerous conditions, finally passed both Houses of Parliament and received the Royal Assent. In 1885. A wary but triumphant Adamson returned home.
- [13:07]
John Dobson
All great rejoicing. Manchester. Not only Manchester, but the surrounding areas, they pretty well went mad. In fact, Adamson's coach, the horses were taken out and he was drawn to through the streets by the people. So pleased were the men in the street that the city was going to be brought back to its original status.
- [13:32]
Charlie Williams
I've heard from my old granny of the wonderful reception that he had when he came back to Manchester after his final success in the House of Lords. I got pictures somewhere of the carriages in procession on that great inaugural return. Cheers and all the rest of it. In Madonna.
- [13:54]
Frank Molyneux
In Eccles there was very strong support for the idea of the Canal Company. And of course, when the royal assent was given, there was the famous ox roasting ceremony and procession through the Borough.
- [14:10]
John Dobson
Of the Ox was given as a present. I couldn't tell you whether it was my father who gave it or whether somebody else gave it, but it was a present. In old days, Rosie the Knox was only done on great events, you see.
- [14:31]
Frank Molyneux
Now, the special excursions had been run by the railway companies and people had come in carriages, on foot and by tramcar. And it has been said that there's something like quarter of a million people in Eccles, which was little more than a large village at that time.
- [14:49]
John Dobson
During the arrangements, Father thought it necessary to get something that they could hold as a souvenir. It was a great occasion and they ordered thousands and thousands of these willow patterns plates with all the writing on about the passing of the ship canal, bilker, anything you see. And they were very popular in all the hotels and inns and public places.
- [15:15]
Frank Molyneux
If you were present and wanted a sandwich, you paid a shilling and with that you got one of the commemorative plates.
- [15:24]
John Dobson
And the skin of the animal was made into slippers and sold and the teeth out of the head of the beast. They put gold bars on them, they use them as die pins.
- [15:38]
Narrator
With the celebrations over came the task of raising £5 million capital and the purchase of the Bridgewater Canal, all within a two year time limit.
- [15:48]
John Dobson
Everybody bought shares who could buy shares, not for what they could get out of it, but they thought they should support it was something that was going to be vital for the country. When you're born in a place, you have a kind of a sense of ownership of all these kind of things and you make yourself feel that you're a part of it, you know. And I do believe the people at that time were a great part of the Mantishop Canal. I think everybody felt it was their canal and they must support and help it and for it to help them in the future.
- [16:25]
Frank Molyneux
There was strong opposition to the idea of constructing a ship canal. There were always those people who said that it would be a complete failure and equally strongly on the other side of people who believed in its success. So much so that the promoters of the idea of the canal used every means, press, pamphleteering, meetings and even small area committees which literally went from door to door asking people to buy shares. Just a few shillings here, a few shillings there, until of course, the thing was established.
- [17:04]
Charlie Williams
Old Daniel Adamson said to his work people, will you help us to subscribe to the funds? So they paid in those days, apparently a penny a day for hot water for the tea. And in addition they all agreed in the what people know about 6, 700 of them to pay a penny a day each towards the ship canal funds. And it was always said, what with k waiter and say waiter, they went out in pay packet.
- [17:39]
Narrator
Money was indeed hard to come by, for whilst the working class Favored the canal. The wealthy and influential few were harder to convince. Disagreements arose amongst the directors and Daniel Adamson resigned as chairman in favor of Lord Egerton of Tatham. Under his leadership, the money was finally raised and the digging of the sea link to Manchester began in earnest.
- [18:04]
Singer (Harry Boardman)
Ye working men of Manchester, it much depends on you. Come, put your shoulders to the wheel and paddle your own canoe. Hooray then for the ship canal. Three cheers, me boys, for you look up your old sting implements there's lots of work in you. Then love your neighbour as yourself Will sing while sailing through the ship canal to Manchester on Bonan Ocean Screw.
- [18:33]
John Dobson
I.
- [18:33]
Charlie Williams
Must have been about, I should say.
- [18:35]
John Dobson
Between between 9 and 10 because I.
- [18:39]
Charlie Williams
Remember them fetching a silver barrel and there were four gentlemen and they cut something out of the ground and put it in this barrel. That was when they first cut the sod. As far as I remember, it started in 1887 and it finished in 1893.
- [19:02]
John Dobson
It took six years to build it.
- [19:05]
Charles Chambers
Well, I was born in 79, 1879. And I just want to give you my little career as regards ship canal. I started when I was 12, but I started under false pretenses. They said I hadn't to start without. I was 14 and I run home and told my old mother that I could have a job in the morning if I was 14. She says, well, you shall have your brother certificate. He was two years older than me. So I started on the false pretenses and the wages then was twopence, father in an hour, 10 and fourpence for a week of 56 hours.
- [19:52]
Charlie Williams
I was born there in 1876. That's my home. I worked on the canal From I was 13 at various jobs, wagon, greeting point, turning, nippering for gangs and all that. I went down there and I said his name was Tom Wiltshire. For a job?
- [20:15]
John Dobson
Yes.
- [20:15]
Charlie Williams
He said, I give you a job, lad. He said, you can go into the cripple yard there. He said, grease them wagons after they finished them. I said, all right. So I went there.
- [20:26]
Charles Chambers
I was fat in wagons all the time. I'd say for 18 months or two years we had a box of wagon grease. I always remember when I started, the boss told me, says, go to the joiner's shop and tell him you want a fat box. Well, they made a square box, I'd say about 9 inches square with a handle on it, and we had to go to a barrel of grease, fill that box up and then we had what they call a fat stick, a bit of wood Improvised out so we could dive in and we had to crawl underneath. There was no axle boxes outside like there are on the wagons today. There was all you had to get underneath and plaster it in under the pedestals and you crawling about in slutch or anything that was parting wagon.
- [21:20]
Charlie Williams
There was every county in England represented on the canal, every county in Scotland, every county in Ireland. But there were very few Welshmen. I don't remember only one Welshman on the job. And a Cornishman. Cornisher, Jimmy all. We had hundreds of Irishmen on the canal.
- [21:45]
Narrator
Yes.
- [21:48]
Charlie Williams
Hard workers and all. Or they had to work or else get out. Or with plenty of Irishmen from one end to the other.
- [21:58]
John Dobson
They wasn't like our people.
- [22:00]
Charlie Williams
There was, honestly speaking. There was more sedate. You never hear them swear once in a blue moon. No, our bookers can't open all. No, there was good hard working lads, there's no doubt about. Well, my naviganga, I was fighting for this gang. I think he had about seven Irishmen out of his 10 in the gang because he'd work harder than the Englishman. All robust, you know, strong as bloody lions.
- [22:41]
John Dobson
Lots of people have the impression that all the work was done with pick, spade and barrow. Well, that is not true because even in those days they had what was then modern plant. They were the German Lubecker land dredger. It was also a French model. But the bulk of the work was carried out, of course by the labor. There were well over 16,000 men and boys employed on digging the canal.
- [23:18]
Charles Chambers
There was a mighty lot done by hand, what they call craft, barrow roads. And these chaps, these from Lincoln, there used to be perhaps a gang of them, about 13 or 14 of them, they used to take a job piecework, you know, and they used to do it all by hand till eventually anywhere where they could get one of those extra excavators, what they'd have on. But there was places where they couldn't get them. But it was wonderful. Yes, Pick and shovel and with what they call good money, but not much of it.
- [24:01]
Charlie Williams
Yes.
- [24:05]
Charles Chambers
Yes.
- [24:06]
Charlie Williams
Now, as regards the young fellows, they were different prices. They were piecework. Somebody got one and eightpence a wagon, somebody got one and tenpence. But if it was bad stuff and wet, they got a half a crown. There was four gangs doing that at the back here. Charlie Prattley, Reddicker and Ginger. There was one gang there, they were Lincolnshire chaps and Cambridge and Norfolks. They. They didn't have a Ganga. He was a leading man. Two great big powerful Fellows and these billboards always loaded up a nine gallon barrel of beer and paid for it in their turn. He said, boys, come on, we'll have a hole over here. And they used to drink it out of a cow's hole with the bottoming. That's what they had. They were men, I said, they were men. They were struggling elephants. And there was one man who worked there, he was a tall fellow with a sandy beard. He used to call him Salvation Harry. He was a salvation man. He was the best spared man ever I saw in my life, either before or since. He would automation.
- [25:35]
Charles Chambers
Well, there was men that always could say they could put that much on a bar, you know. They used to brag, there was Lincolnshire men, that it was impossible to wheel it away without the handle breaking. And they gave them a nickname. They used to always call them Stoughtons. Stoughtons. I don't know why, but there was a big hefty lot of men. More like farm labourers and all that. I can picture them now, like in them days, roll up of a morning, six o', clock, strip off and perhaps some of them are down, fired a little bit, like about pulling enough off and the gang of monarch say to him, now then, my lad, what are you going to do? You're going to let the sun burn that jacket off, you know, take it off without a murmur, you know. That's as near slavery as we can go back to, you know. They have to do what they were told. They do what they like today, don't they?
- [26:48]
John Dobson
Yes.
- [26:51]
Charles Chambers
Yes.
- [26:52]
Charlie Williams
They drank ebony, they swore ebony. And they lived up. They sell to the men. You haven't got them. Now we enter. It's never been done since. Mustn't have done me any harm, else I wouldn't have any order. I'm nearly 92. Few more months, I'll be 92. Oh, they never, never let their knobby in a thousand years. No, they'll navy do two days while they was thinking of one. No, they never stopped. It used to be what we call blinding. Jane, he said, never stop. They don't have a gun. Never bother them.
- [27:51]
John Dobson
Well, hard work.
- [27:53]
Charlie Williams
Bitter beer.
- [27:54]
John Dobson
That's why I'm living today, because I never ate much food and yet I'm as strong as a lion now.
- [28:02]
Charlie Williams
Can't get a job. I'll be 90 in a couple of months.
- [28:08]
John Dobson
Pitters are fiddlers.
- [28:09]
Charlie Williams
I think I get a job.
- [28:12]
John Dobson
That's bitter beer for you. Yes, well, it's true.
- [28:16]
Narrator
Tough they may have been, but this didn't stop a great Many being injured or worse.
- [28:22]
John Dobson
Unfortunately, like other schemes, there was loss of life on the construction with a very high accident rate. This was anticipated by the chief engineer. That is why he was instrumental in getting Mr. Robert Jones as a surgeon in charge of the accident and indeed medical service for the construction years.
- [28:49]
Charlie Williams
Oh, yes, there were a lot of people killed, a lot of people injured and it maimed for life. There was a man cutting too, a little bit farther up there, I think.
- [29:01]
John Dobson
There were 139 people killed during the just over six years that it was being constructed.
- [29:10]
Charlie Williams
Yes, yes.
- [29:11]
John Dobson
And of course it was an organized accident service. Strategically. The placing of the three base hospitals, of the dressing stations, the first aid stations and of the use of the railway which ran the overland railway, as they called it, which ran along the canal which could bring a seriously injured man with very little delay to a base hospital. So that it did not depend on chance. It really was an organized scheme, an organized, excellent service.
- [29:48]
Charlie Williams
At one time there was quite a lot of talk in Hong Kong about an accident that happened in Inchkooten, I think.
- [29:57]
John Dobson
A train fell into the great cut and there were indescribable scenes. They had to get them out. The use of steam cranes. And probably there would be a lot of amputations and a good many of those injured men would not. Would not live, would not survive.
- [30:21]
Charlie Williams
There was an old gentleman, name of Mr. Antrobus and he remembers my father's accident. He used to tell me about it. How men pull their shirts off and all manner of clothing to help to tie him up and get him away to Latchford Hospital. And he said he was a very brave man.
- [30:48]
John Dobson
The injured man would be picked up by the first aid people, put on stretcher and into a truck on the little railway and dispatched to the nearest hospital where there was a medical officer acting under Robert Jones who became pretty skillful in combating shock and giving the immediate first aid. Until Robert Jones arrived to carry out the major surgical treatment. He was described as a sun man, irradiated.
- [31:36]
Charles Chambers
Seen him go around hospitals.
- [31:39]
John Dobson
Men with shattered limbs who really gone through it. A few words, a smile, a little hint. The man all eyes looking at this man as if he were a God.
- [31:57]
Narrator
Floods and severe winters also delayed the work and increased the cost. Loans from the Manchester City Council enable the project to continue. And at long last they let the water in.
- [32:33]
Charlie Williams
This house here was flooded. They took to that windowsill there. They let it in on a Saturday night. All that land over the other side the canal right away up to Runcorn highway was flooded all up that lane at the other side there past that farmhouse they lifted the sluice in that high as Latchford that when they come to try to get them down the volume of water under the gate wouldn't let them. The cattle were standing up to their bellies in water.
- [33:20]
Narrator
The ship canal was unofficially opened for the through traffic to Manchester on 1st January 1894.
- [33:28]
Charlie Williams
How would it actually look when it was opened? Just before Christmas they arrived a yacht in the canal. It was schooner rigged and it had an auxiliary engine in as well. I know where I stood when I saw it go past. And the crew were dressed in sailor's clothes. It belonged to Platt the textile machinery manufacturers at Oldham. Now exactly at 12 o' clock on New Year's Day this yacht blew its siren and proceeded up the canal in the direction of Manchester.
- [34:13]
John Dobson
The very first day I met missed the opening. But we looked out anxiously to see the different sorts of ships that began to navigate the ship canal. We could hardly swallow that boats would come so lofty that the funnel would have to be that part of it taken down.
- [34:40]
Charles Chambers
Since then I've thought many a time wonderful. I wouldn't have missed it. No. And I just long. I'd.
- [34:51]
John Dobson
I'd love.
- [34:52]
Charles Chambers
I would. I'd love just to have another do. If it was possible.
- [34:58]
Narrator
Her Majesty Queen Victoria agreed to perform the official opening ceremony. 37 years had passed since her last visit to Manchester when she described the Mancunians as a very intelligent but painfully unhealthy looking population. She came on 5-21-1894 to declare open the man made seaway that was to begin a new era for Manchester. Make the city into one of Britain's major ports and contribute immeasurably to the growth and prosperity of the northwest. And so the seal was set on a story which embraces a all the elements of the great restlessness of that age. When they brought the sea to Manchester.
- [36:05]
John Dobson
There were thousands of people. You could have walked on the heads, Neeli.
- [36:08]
Charlie Williams
Oh yes. Oh yes. Crowds of people. Because my father held me up, you know, to see her. I always remember that. And I can see Queen Victoria going down Piccadilly now. A real let down. She was dragged in black. And she was just like any other old woman, you know, very rusty black. And I could have wept. I think I did weep with disappointment. I expected her to have a crown on my head. He was a little old lady and I still wish that Queen Victoria. I was astonished because he lubotype or this a queen, you know, and she was nodding like that. Well, I found out that she wasn't actually nodding to the people. She was in a rocking chair and it made it for her convenience. I was told that they kept doing that, you see, bowing beside the place. She had the bonnet on and ribbons here, the old style, you know. And all the soldiers coming by and Van sp? I don't know what. I shall never forget that as long as I live. It's a most imposing affair. I now have great pleasure in declaring the Manchester Ship Canal open.
- [37:50]
John Dobson
It that was. They Brought the Sea to Manchester, a documentary compiled, edited and introduced by Brian Vaughton. The three old men who recalled how.
- [38:48]
Narrator
They worked on the construction of the.
- [38:49]
John Dobson
Canal were Charlie Williams of Fallowfield, John Dobson of Moore and Charles Chambers of Hepton Stall.
- [38:58]
Narrator
Other speakers included Sir Henry Platt, Edgar.
- [39:01]
John Dobson
Lee, Roderick Parkin, Frank Molyneux, George Taylor, Richard Gough, Charley Hughes, Percy Reed, Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Pryor and Mrs. Green. The singer was Harry Boardman, accompanied by Leslie Boardman.
- [39:21]
Narrator
The program was produced in our Manchester.
- [39:23]
John Dobson
Studios by Stanley Williamson.