History of The British Canal System - Operations

Operations

On the majority of British canals the canal-owning companies did not own or run a fleet of boats, since this was usually prohibited by the Acts of Parliament setting them up to prevent monopolies developing. Instead they charged private operators tolls to use the canal. These tolls were also usually regulated by the Acts. From these tolls they would try, with varying degrees of success, to maintain the canal, pay back initial loans and pay dividends to their shareholders.

In winter special icebreaker boats with reinforced hulls would be used to break the ice. The boats used on canals were usually derived from local coasting or river craft, but on the narrow canals the 7-foot (2.1 m) wide narrowboat was the standard. Their 72 foot length came from the boats used on the Mersey estuary, with their width of 7 feet chosen as half that of existing boats, and adopted to make canals cheaper to build. All boats on the canals were horsedrawn. Packet boats carried packages up to 112 lbs in weight as well as passengers at relatively high speed day and night. To compete with railways, the flyboat was introduced, cargo-carrying boats working day and night. These boats were crewed by three men, who operated a watch system whereby two men worked while the other slept. Horses were changed regularly. When steam boats were introduced in the late nineteenth century, crews were enlarged to four. The boats were owned and operated by individual carriers, or by carrying companies who would pay the captain a wage depending on the distance travelled, and the amount of cargo.