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Thames and Severn Canal

Records of the Thames and Severn Canal: plans and sections late 19th-mid 20th century, history of the canal 1902.

Late 19th-mid 20th century

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Sharpness New Docks & Gloucester & Birmingham Navigation Company, the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal company, the Stroudwater Navigation, the Severn Commission, the Urban District Councils of Stroud and Cirencester, and the county councils of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Berkshire formed a Trust which took control of the Thames & Severn Canal, as authorised by an Act of 1895. This arrangement lasted only a few years before Gloucestershire County Council took the canal over on 2 July 1901 using the powers outlined in the Railway & Canal Traffic Act of 1888, the Trust having invested large sums of money in the canal. The Council claimed that the canal was a valuable link and that it would prove useful as a means of transporting materials for constructing roads. The upper River Thames had been virtually unnavigable, which had long deterred people from using the canal, but its governing body had made many improvements in the late 1890s, and by 1900 it was passable. On assuming control, Gloucestershire County Council paid the Trust's debts and collected annual subscriptions from members, guaranteed by the 1895 Act until 1925. Three years before this, the state of the Wallbridge-Brimscombe length was deteriorating to such an extent that the Stroudwater Navigation company lodged a complaint. This was dismissed by the Council, which had attempted to keep the canal at least usable if not well maintained. Once payments finished in 1925 the Council wanted to abandon the canal. Traffic had all but ceased from 1911 and there was no possibility of a revival. In 1927 the Chalford-Inglesham length was abandoned. The Stroudwater Navigation company was not in a position to lease the remainder and until 1933 they had to resort to asking for money from the interested navigation companies, local authorities and a handful of traders just to keep it open. After 1933 the Stroudwater Navigation company admitted defeat and Gloucestershire County Council closed the remaining stretch of canal. For further information on the Thames and Severn Canal see Edward Paget-Tomlinson's 'The Illustrated History of Canals & River Navigations' and Charles Hadfield's 'The Canals of South and South East England'.

It has not been possible to ascertain any original structure of record-keeping from the small number of records held for this company. The subfonds has therefore been arranged in chronological order.

[See also: BW31 for records of the Thames and Severn Canal during other periods of ownership]