History
Prior to the building of the canal, navigation between the towns of Bridgwater and Taunton was possible by using the River Parrett and the River Tone. The Tone had been improved by its Conservators, who had obtained Acts of Parliament in 1699 and 1707, which had allowed them to straighten and dredge the river and parts of the Parrett, and to build locks and half-locks to manage the water levels. The initial work was completed by 1717, although further improvements including more locks continued to be made until the early 19th century.
Read more about this topic: Bridgwater And Taunton Canal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)