Trade and Traffic on the River Trent and Associated Waterways, 1850-1970

The Trent is one of the three major rivers of England (the other two being the Severn and the non-tidal Thames) which have been used for navigation on a large scale since early times. It is also one of the handful of inland waterways which continued to be used extensively for commercial navigation after the development of first the main-line railway system and later modern road transport. Most interest in the history of inland waterways in England has been concentrated on the period between 1660, when the main phase of river improvement began, and about 1850, when most traffic previously carried on canals transferred to the railways. Much less has been written about commercial carrying on inland waterways after this period, or about the administration of the waterways themselves, or about either those who worked and lived on the waterways or riverside communities, both of which had a very distinctive character. Nothing of this sort has been done in the case of the Trent.

This project seeks to remedy this gap in the literature of transport history in Britain by looking in detail at how trade and traffic on the Trent (and associated canals) changed after 1850 as a result of the coming of the railways, and then changed again after 1918 as long-distance road transport developed. It will also consider how the Trent Navigation Company, the canal companies and later the British Transport Commission and its successors responded to demands to improve the Trent and the associated canals, and with what success. Finally, it will look at life on board boats on the river and the canals, and life ashore in riverside communities whose economy dependended, certainly at the start of this period, on proximity to a major commercial waterway.

The project will be undertaken in partnership with the Friends of Newark Heritage Barge, who are restoring a former working barge (the 'Leicester Trader') as a floating heritage centre for the river and have already collected a large amount of oral testimony and written and photographic evidence for the recent history of commercial navigation on the Trent. The project, through a programme of public engagement events, will also actively encourage other voluntary organisations (town and village local history societies, the Railway & Canal Historical Society and riverside communities generally) to be involved. The programme will be facilitated by the named researcher, Philip Riden, who has a long record of working with community groups on local history projects and has established links with the Friends of Newark Heritage Barge.

The main sources for such a study are the records of the navigation companies themselves, records created by parliamentary committees considering bills promoted by the companies and by railway companies, published Parliamentary Papers, records of central government departments responsible for regulating commercial inland navigation, records of local authorities (chiefly as sanitary authorities), records of statutory undertakers such as drainage and river catchment boards, and any records that survive of private carrying companies (and, in the case of those incorporated as limited liability companies, their returns to Companies House). In addition, for the general history of riverside communities a wide range of standard sources for 19th- and 20th-century local history can be used, and for the most recent phase of the subject oral testimony from those involved in the river will be an important source.

This project builds on the 'Writing Our History, Digging Our Past' project funded under the Phase 1 Research for Community Heritage Programme. This Phase 1 project was very successful in engaging local community groups, especially local history and archaeological societies, with the University and the academic each involved. The project team are now putting forward a Follow-On Fund bid to support up to 15 community groups and two Co-production Awards for project with particular potential for collaborative research.

This proposed co-production project will involve a direct partnership with the Friends of Newark Heritage Barge and, through the planned programme of activities, aims to engage other voluntary organisations and community groups in the project. The community partners we are aiming to work with include the Railway and Canal Historical Society (the main national body in the field), town and village local history societies and riverside communities generally.

The future impact of the project also rests in our collective ambition to use the results of the collaborative research to help the Friends of Newark Heritage Barge develop a heritage centre for the river on board their boat, the 'Leicester Trader'. The boat is already open to the public on a number of days a year and receives numerous visits from schools, local history societies and other groups. This project will enable the Friends to enhance their displays interpreting the history of the river. The Newark Heritage Barge is the only project devoted to the history of the Trent and the only waterways heritage project based on a boat not in a building. It is therefore in two respects a unique venture.