Output details

Transport and the Industrial City: Manchester and the Canal Age, 1750-1850

This study is the product of a six-year data-collection process that integrates insights from a broad range of state, corporate, and urban archives. Extant studies of canal history are largely based on the archives of individual canal companies. This research shows that using additional evidence from parliamentary papers, business records, town plans, rate books, newspapers, and trade directories makes it possible to understand how transport provision operated at a regional level and how its infrastructure shaped urban development. In doing so, it shows that studies of canal history can make significant interventions into the major debates in British economic history.