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Transport in Birmingham

A brief history

When considering public transport it should be first remembered that most people, especially the working class, lived their lives in the village or town that they were born in. Settlements were basically self sufficient containing everything needed to sustain life. When people did want to travel they used their feet or a horse but few could afford a horse or the use of a horse. For instance when George Stephenson  went to Scotland from Newcastle, to seek work, he walked there and back. Public transport started throughout the inland parts of the country with the stage wagon.

Roads then were only needed to support a horse and were no different to a present day bridleway, just a muddy path. It is said that the art of road building disappeared with the Romans. Travelling aboard was not without its dangers. strangers were treated as just that, strange, and you may be picked upon or even robbed. Banding together for travel was much safer.

Wealthy people could afford carriages but still could not escape the very poor roads and discomfort they brought.

Transport of goods was by pack horse or stage wagon.

In the 16th century public transport was offered in the form of the stage wagon which were originally intended just for goods. Pulled by up to 8 horses these long covered wagons only offered a straw covered floor to the feckless traveller.

In 1575 the Oxford Wagon set out for London each Wednesday and was due back the following Saturday. Travel was extremely slow!

By 1637 it is noted there were 200 carriers involved in the stage wagon business. It was a cheap form of travel as you just  roughed it with the goods being carried. London to Edinburgh was quoted at 1 shilling a day. Dickens observed it was just as quick to walk beside the stage wagon as the pace was so slow!

Also by 1637 the countries first recorded timetabled stage coach ran between Birmingham and Chester, for the boat to Ireland. Stage coaching was most likely around before this time as a  letter in 1629 describes a stage coach journey.  In 1657 the London to Chester service  took an unbelievable three days and the fare was 35 shillings. The horses were only changed each day and this is one of the reasons for the slow speed.

In 1699  a development was made with the "Flying Coach", a high speed coach between London and Oxford. The fare was 12 shillings but was later reduced to 10 shillings.

Travelling by stage was not cheap and few people travelled, space was limited as a stage coach only held four people inside. Outsiders would be carried outside on the top at half the fare and had to just hang on enduring cold and rain.

The state of the roads during this period was appalling and in clay areas during wet periods the roads were virtually impassable. Passengers were expected to get out and push on difficult or steeply graded sections!

Responsibility for the road lay with the local surveyor of the highway, who was elected by the local parish council. They  had the power to call on able bodied men within the community to spend a number of days each year maintaining the road, not a very effective means of maintaining the roads.

Bridges were also maintained by the local parish or local trust such as the Guild Of the Holy Cross who maintained the Rea Bridge between Digbeth and Deritend. This important bridge was the river crossing point for traffic from Alcester, Warwick, Stratford and London. In the 16th century maintenance of this bridge was given to the Lench Trust who amazingly still survive in Birmingham today but are no longer involved with bridges!.

The condition of national roads was so bad that parliament stepped in with the Turnpike Schemes in 1662. Toll houses and barriers were erected between each section of road and a toll was charged for access. These barriers were known as turnpikes as they had spikes upon them to stop horse riders jumping over them and not paying! The scheme was not really successful until power was given to local Justice's of the Peace to control the turnpikes in 1707 . Roads in the Birmingham area began to be turnpiked in 1726, the first one being the all important Stratford Road which went on to London. In the same year the Warwick Road was turnpiked, Warwick being one of the most important towns in the country at that time.

Turnpiking was the start in the improvement in journey times and by 1791 Parliament had authorised 1600  schemes..

Roads however were still nothing but cart tracks and progress along some roads with heavy freight and mineral traffic such as the from the Black Country to Birmingham with coal and iron ore was atrocious.

The increase of trade meant many more people needed to travel because of businesses

Mail coaches were faster and more punctual and they forced up the standards of stage coaching although passengers were second place and they travelled overnight. The Royal Mail also used  special coaches with the Royal Mail livery and badge. There was a limit on the amount of passengers carried especially outsiders. At the back was a guard whose sole job was to look after the mail.

Journey times were reduced considerably by improvements made by Thomas Telford and Robert Macadam to road buliding. Telford's method was to incorporate stones with the soil in the road bed. Macadam's method which was superior, was to have a layer of stone chippings in the bed.

The coaching Inn became the focal point of the stage coach travel.  Horses needed to be changed every 10 miles or so to keep up speed and passengers needed food and refreshment as well as relief from the arduos travelling conditions. The coaching inn would maintain a stable of horses and change them over as well as providing food and drink for weary passengers. Some inns were of doubtful note and  provided poor horses and poor food. Some inn owners exerted more control by operating the stage service as well

The amount of horses need was quite remarkable. It was estimated that a total of 400 horses were needed for the mail coaches running between London -  Edinburgh -  London, a round trip of 800 miles.

The coming of the railways brought about the end of stage coach travel in this country. The railways were faster, more convenient and provided much more comfort.

CANAL TRANSPORT

The man that would bring about a transport revolution starting between Birmingham and the Black Country was James Brindley, a millwright by trade who built both water and windmills. He was also involved in work to prevent flooding in coal mines.

Brindley, known as the Father of Canals, was an uneducated but very practical man. He did not work from plans, neither did he put ideas on paper. Many of his initial problems with canal building were solved by trial and error. He would go to bed with a problem and wake up with the answer! Sometimes he would spend two or three days in bed working on problems.

His first canal work, the Bridgewater Canal, was for the Duke of Bridgewater, who wanted to transport coal from his mine in Wordsley to the city of Manchester. There were no locks, but it did involve an embankment and stone aqueduct over the valley of the River Irwell.

The Bridgewater Canal made Brindley's reputation and it is without doubt one of the greatest canal building engineering feats in the world.

After the Bridgewater Canal most of Brindleys work was then focussed in the Midlands, starting in 1765 when Josiah Wedgewood employed him as a consultant for a canal linking the Trent and Mersey.

In 1767 Brindley was involved in the planning and surveying of the Birmingham and Coventry canals and construction of both began in 1768.

The Birmingham Canal ran from Birmingham through Smethwick, West Bromwich, Dudley and Wolverhampton. The coming of the railways tends to overshadow the importance of the canals but it must be remembered that canals made it relatively easy to transport heavy loads over long distances and this was vital for Birmingham's industrial base. Birmingham was a town without navigable rivers, one of the few major towns in Britain limited in this way. Without the canal Birmingham would have not have progressed to industrial superiority in the way that it did. After the completion of the Birmingham Canal the price of coal in Birmingham halved, it was not only the saving of time the canal brought about! Some historians argue that the canal came to late on the scene but for Birmingham it came just in time. Birmingham needed massive quantities of iron ore and coal and the canal provided its  transport.

Its not difficult to understand then why Birmingham ended up having more canals than Venice and the excellence of the systems can be seen still today within the very heart of the city.

Brindley was a workaholic he moved from canal to canal making a fortune. He was a man of few words rarely communicating with his employers. The Birmingham Company committee complained:

"That Mr Brindley hath frequently passed by, and sometimes come into town, without giving an opportunity of meeting to confer with him upon the progress of this undertaking."

James Brindley died from Diabetes whilst surveying a branch off the Trent and Mersey Canal on 27 September 1772.

Don Everall operated a Jersey Service from Birmingham Elmdon airport in the fifties first of all using De Havilland Dragon Rapides and then later Douglas DC3 Dakota aircraft of which they had two, one being G-ANEG. One of their DC3s ran off the runway in at Birmingham. G-ANEG was later sold to Executive Air Transport who were based at Elmdon.

Don Everall Aviation also started a service to Exeter from Birmingham in 1961.