History of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal
CONSTRUCTION OF THE GREAT TUNNEL
It is difficult to unravel the sequence of construction in
the Standedge Tunnel during those sixteen years. Work should
have been carefully planned, but instead it proceeded in haphazard
fashion. Minds were changed, there were frequent stoppages,
sections and machinery were abandoned for long periods and
labour dismissed or switched between working faces.
The basic reason for this was the shortage of funds, largely
through the failure of shareholders to pay their calls. For
example, by June 1796, when output should have been rising
to a peak, some £92,000 had been called for of which
£22,650 was in arrears and the company had only £889
in the bank.
In spite of this, the management committee persisted in maintaining
several working faces with all the associated equipment and
labour that entailed; all this was in a desperate effort to
complete the link between two ends of canal then nearing completion.
Impatience only added to their troubles and costs and it
was not surprising that £20,049 had been spent of the
£55, 187 estimated, for only one-seventh of the tunnelling
work completed.
The proprietors' problems were compounded by their failure
to find experienced and reliable contractors to take on their
massive task. Two major contractors were financially ruined
and had broken their agreements by 1798. They were never satisfactorily
replaced and most of the remaining work was eventually executed
by direct labour.
Something of the methods of working the tunnel can be gleaned
from Outram's report of 1796 and also from a longitudinal
section prepared by Brown about 1799. A total of fourteen
shafts were originally sunk at intervals of between 100 yards
and 180 yards from each end, but pumping costs at all of these
were high due to an unexpected ingress of water from the millstone
grit strata; indeed at the sixth pit from Diggle costs were
eleven guineas per week.
A change of plan reduced the number of shafts to those at
Cote, Brunn Clough, two at Red Brook, Heathy Lee, Pule Hoyles
and Pule Hill. That at Heathy Lee was later abandoned on Telford's
instructions but the others remained.
An adit was driven into each of these shafts in a direction
approximately at right angles to the main tunnel at depths
between 28 and 49 yards below ground level, and as many as
four shafts were sunk along the line of these adits in order
to expedite construction.
These apparently extravagant temporary works were completed
in an effort to draw off ground water from the workings, but,
more important, they also provided a drain for the 'water
engines' used for hoisting spoil from the tunnel to the surface
tips. These simple and effective machines were common in mining
practice and operated by means of a water-filled kibble which
moved down a shallow balance pit to the level of the adit.
By this means and a gearing system, ratios of which were related
to the depths of the shafts, spoil was lifted out of the deeper
pit from canal level up to the surface.
Initially, some waterwheels were also used, notably at Pule
Hoyles, where an elaborate water supply system was built,
but generally these wheels provided insufficient power and
were soon replaced by water engines.
Steam engines of the Newcomen type, coupled to reciprocated
pumps, were also utilised in the engine house at Red Brook
and elsewhere for the drainage of the working levels. A small
quantity of water was discharged into the top of the pumping
shaft at Red Brook, falling as a fine spray and thereby inducing
a strong draught of air down the shaft and into the workings
far below. This ventilation system had continued in use.
The drivng of the tunnels as achieved by hand drilling and
blasting with black powder. Shaft sinking proceeded in much
the same way, although a description by Farey gives a graphic
impression of the dangerous conditions of working.
A shallow hole would be drilled in the centre of the shaft
floor, then thoroughly dried out with Oakum before packing
with gunpowder and a clay seal. On lighting a fuse, the miners
clung, one above the other, on to a winding rope and at a
signal were hauled some distance up the shaft, where they
remained until the shots were fired. They were then lowered
into the fumes to clear up the broken rock and to repeat the
process.
Farey noted that sometimes accidents occurred when the miners
were not lifted sufficiently high above the danger zone. A
spirit of optimism was generated by the passing of a new act
in 1806 to finance completion of the waterway, and also by
the appointment of Thomas Telford to survey the canal, to
plan for and estimate the cost of its completion.
In his report Telford claimed'…a thorough knowledge
of the state of the works because I have examined everything
twice and even checked the filling and emptying of every lock'.
His plans included for the completion of the tunnel, also
an unfinished section of canal from Woolroad to Diggle and
new reservoirs, as well as repairs to structures and earthworks.
Estimates for these works were £45,000 for the tunnel
and £37,498 for the remainder.
Telford meticulously planned progress such as: 280 yards
commencing the termination of the last length and ending the
fourth pit at the rate of 8 yards per week, which will occupy
up the 1st November 1807. The company assiduously followed
these instructions during the ensuing years until their canal
as finished in April 1811, just five months later than Telford's
prediction.
Regrettably, Rooth was to claim in later years that he alone
had supervised completion of the works 'without the aid of
any engineer', thus ignoring the substantial guidance and
advice which had been provided by one of the leading civil
engineers of that time.
Throughout those troubled years it was the workforce of miners,
tradesmen and labourers who suffered from the frequent stoppages
and shortage of funds. Their recompense for working in squalid,
brutal conditions was small and too frequently the company
was in their debt; indeed at one stage wages were paid only
to those owed less than £30, greater sums being paid
at five shillings in the pound.
Welfare of workers was of small account; only once was £1
1s. granted 'towards the expense of burying a workman who
died today on the line of the canal' and, although a sick
fund was set up, the company subscribed only five shillings
each week.
The workmen's origins are mainly unknown, although local
parish records suggest that many were sojourners of northern
stock such as the unfortunate 'John Kell who was killed in
the tunnel, a native of Stanhope-in-Weardale 19.3.1810'.
It seems that upwards of fifty men lost their lives during
the construction years, but added to this must be the wives
of children who suffered and died, having lived in the primitive
shanty towns established near the works at Gilbert's Intack,
on Puleside and elsewhere, in support of their menfolk who
laboured on that great navigation.
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