1775 Ad - James Brindley & Matthew Boulton

At the gatehouse of Summerfield Hospital in Western Road, off Dudley Road, I set the Time Machine for 1775. When I pressed the GO button the scene changed completely, and I found myself on a bare heath with few trees in sight.

There were some cottages around a green away to the west, and beside me a postmill's sails were turning and creaking busily in the strong wind.

It was a blustery morning in late spring. Not far away a burly red-faced man was using a simple sighting instrument on a tripod and scrawling in a notebook while his horse cropped the sparse grass.

Another rider came up and dismounted. Having seen portraits of both men, I knew that the surveyor was James Brindley, the great canal engineer, and that the kindly, jovial newcomer was Matthew Boulton the manufacturer, whose Soho Works lay just across Hockley Brook, half a mile to the north.

Boulton: Well met, Mr. Brindley ! I expected to find you in our neighbourhood today. You will recall me, I think ? Boulton of Soho Hall.

Brindley: Indeed I do, Mr. Boulton. I could hardly forget you since you were one of the gentlemen who hired me to make this survey for a canal. Does your coming here show your impatience for me to complete my task ?

Boulton: It does not, sir. I care too much for good workmanship to hurry a skilled man. The fact is that I have a personal interest in your plans in this part of the parish of Birmingham. You know that my manufactory lies in the valley yonder ?

Brindley: That I do, sir. When this survey is finished, I hope to visit it, with your permission.

Boulton: And so you shall. I welcome visitors, so long as they do not try to entice away my workmen or copy my devices! People come from far and wide to see the machines at work and to exclaim at the variety and quality of the wares we produce. Well now, I have long known that a canal can do for Birmingham. It can bring coal and iron cheaply from the Staffordshire mines, and so reduce the cost of our manufactures; and when it is linked to the others you are building, it will give us a waterway for our wares from the middle of the town to the sea! But when I joined the other gentlemen in these schemes I was thinking of my own advantage as well as Birmingham's.

Brindley: Indeed, sir? If you are thinking, as I believe, that my canal will pass beside your works, then I must tell you that it will not. The route that I propose to follow goes here, across the heath. It is necessary to keep the canal on one level as far as can be: and though this way will oblige me to make several great loops round valley heads, yet will it be more quickly made and cheaper than if I took it down into valleys and out again by means of locks. True, the navigation will be somewhat longer, but the loops will bring more places closer to it!

Boulton: But tell me, could you not cut a branch or arm from near this place to Soho?

Brindley: Your Works is right in the valley, is it not?

Boulton: Yes, on the Handsworth side of Hockley Brook, whose water turns my wheels - when there is enough!

Brindley: Then, Mr. Boulton, I must explain that my problem is also lack of water. The streams hereabout are small, and the supply I can take from them will be hardly enough to fill the canal and keep it filled, for at all times, but especially in hot weather, there will be a loss of water by evaporation. I shall make a reservoir on the Winson Green Brook to store water, and another at Smethwick to supply my top level, but there will be nothing to spare. If I built you a branch canal right down to Soho Works, several locks would be needed. They would cost you a large sum, which perhaps you could afford, but they would cost me a lockful of water every time a boat went up or down, which my canal could not spare. So, sir, I cannot do it.

Boulton: Yes, I see, but there would be no difficulty in making an arm that would be on the same level as the main canal, as far as the valley edge on this side ?

Brindley: None at all, sir.

Boulton: Then, Mr. Brindley, as soon as your Birmingham Canal Navigation is completed - perhaps even before - I shall employ you to build me the Soho Branch Canal and even if my wares must be trundled in carts to reach the wharf, I shall know that for the rest of their journey they will travel much more safely than they do now, jogging in packhorse baskets along these abominable turnpikes. At present, pack them as I will, my most delicate wares are often damaged.

Brindley: Ah, sir, canals will do much for Birmingham! One narrow boat, pulled by one horse, can carry as much as 300 packhorses, no more slowly and so much more cheaply, despite the cost of building the canal. If my plans are carried out, in a few years' time the Thames, the Mersey, the Humber and the Severn will all be joined by a Silver Cross of canals. Birmingham will be near the centre of that Cross, with a way by water to all the seas.

Boulton: I think you know, Mr. Brindley, that I - and Birmingham - have two great problems, two great lacks. They are want of power and of good communications. Your canals will give us the second, but we shall still lack power. When my pool runs dry I have to use horses to turn my machinery, and my fellow manufacturers in the town are always troubled by their lack of any sources of power than muscle, wind and water. I have been experimenting with Savery steam engine, in the hope that it would solve my problem, but have had little success with it. My idea is that if I could pump water from the lower pool back to the upper, my wheels need never stop. But the engine consumes vast quantities of coal. What I need is a much better engine. My friend Doctor Roebuck writes to me from Scotland, that he is helping with money a young man, one James Watt. He has invented a device that will make steam engines much more efficient and cheaper to run. Mr. Watt and I must meet : I think we could work together, he and I, making engines for use at watermills like mine, for pumping out mines, and perhaps even for working machines directly.

Brindley: Such an engine could solve my problem too, at the summit. I had hoped to tunnel through the high ground at Smethwick, so as to keep the canal level from Birmingham to Wednesbury. But the difficulties are too great, so I must go over the top. I fear that the drain of water will be too great for the small Thimblemill Brook to replace. But if water that has gone down through the locks could be pumped back up for use again there would be no loss and no delay to boats.

Boulton: Then we must both wish success to young Mr. Watt! Meanwhile you and I both have work to do - I must return to my machines, and you must complete your survey. You may count on my approval of your plans when you present them to the Birmingham Canal Navigation Company, Mr. Brindley. Good day to you - may the day when the first boat-load of Wednesbury coal arrives in Birmingham be soon. The whole town looks forward to it - what rejoicing there will be!