Canal Mania

Canal Mania was the period of intense canal building in England and Wales between the 1790s and 1810s, and the speculative frenzy that accompanied it in the early 1790s.^[1]

Background

The earliest canal building was undertaken as a local enterprise, usually by a merchants, manufacturers or mine owners needing to ship goods, such as the Duke of Bridgewater's canal built to ship coal from Worsley to Manchester.

Despite the high cost of construction, the price of coal in Manchester fell by 50% shortly after it opened, and the financial success was attractive to investors.

The American War of Independence ended in 1783. A long run of good harvests resulted in an increase in disposable income and an increase in the number of people looking to invest capital for profit with little personal interest in the business. This resulted in an increase in less cautious speculation.

There was a dramatic rise in the number of schemes promoted. Only one canal was authorised by Act of Parliament in 1790, but by 1793 it was twenty. The capital authorised in 1790 was £90,000 (£9.6 million in 2016^[2]), but this had risen to £2,824,700 (£296 million in 2016^[2]) by 1793.

Some of the canals authorised during this period went on to be financially profitable. However, there were a number, including the Herefordshire and Gloucestershire Canal, which never paid a dividend. Others, such as the Grand Western Canal, were never completed.

See also

• History of the British canal system
• Railway Mania

References

1. British Canals. The Standard History. Joseph Boughey and Charles Hadfield. ISBN 9780752446677
2. UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2015), "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.