The Waterways of Manchester
The River Medlock
The River Medlock rises in the hills above Oldham and flows ten miles into the heart of Manchester, where it joins the River Irwell. As Manchester industrialised, the poorest communities were pushed onto the river’s low-lying banks. Poverty-stricken settlements like Little Ireland formed along the Medlock, regularly flooded, perpetually damp, and surrounded by factories on all sides. Following a major restoration project at Clayton Vale, juvenile brown trout were found in the river in 2018, a key sign that water quality had markedly improved after over a century of industrial damage.
Canals
The construction of canals transformed Manchester’s economy, allowing for the faster and cheaper transportation of goods across the region. The Bridgewater Canal, completed in 1761, was a main artery of the Industrial Revolution, allowing the region to be highly competitive and inspiring the rest of the world to adopt new ways of working. The Rochdale Canal followed in 1804, becoming the first canal to cross the Pennines and connecting Manchester directly to Yorkshire. Finally, the Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894 as the largest ship canal in the world at 58km long, connecting the city directly to the Irish Sea. The expansion of railways eventually reduced the vital role of the commercial barges for transporting goods. The canals are now however primarily host to leisure activities and much loved walkways.
Factories
Manchester’s riverbanks made the perfect location for factories. Water powered the earliest machinery and fed the steam boilers that drove the mills. The city’s naturally humid climate also created ideal conditions for cotton spinning, since dry air would cause the threads to snap during production. The rivers provided manufacturers with a cheap and plentiful source of power, and were also used as a convenient means of disposing of waste.
Pollution
Manchester’s waterways were badly polluted throughout the industrial period. Sewage, factory effluent and industrial waste were dumped directly into the rivers, and dye works released their wastewater untreated, at times turning the water vivid reds, greens and purples. The consequences for the people living alongside them were severe. Throughout the nineteenth century, authorities made repeated attempts to address the problem. In 1830, a new tunnel was constructed at Knott Mill after the Bridgewater Canal became nearly filled with mud and dirt washed in from the polluted Medlock. Despite these efforts, the scale of industrial pollution consistently outpaced attempts to control it, and meaningful improvement would not come until environmental legislation in the twentieth century.
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