Events in the 1700s

At sea, many ships were damaged in the English Channel and the Thames Estuary and 8,000 sailors died.

The first Eddystone lighthouse off Plymouth was destroyed.

Inland, winds of up to 80mph killed 123 people and destroyed more than 400 windmills – many of which caught fire as a result of friction in their wildly-spinning sails

about 12 of ye clock at night it began to snow and continued incessantly for above 40 hours together, which made so great a snow that there were several drifts 3 yards high, in so much that they called Common days work to make way

See Triangle

The Leeds-Elland Turnpike was built in 1740/1741

This winter was used as a yardstick for future cold weather. Only in 1947 and 1963 was such cold weather experienced in Britain

The Horse Shoe, Lightcliffe was the toll-booth for the turnpike

Highways Act passed to improve roads

Turnpike from Halifax to Queensbury

The Broad Wheels Act aimed at reducing the damage to road surfaces by fixing the width of wheels to a minimum of 9 inches

Halifax / Keighley turnpike

There were many local and national riots protesting against the introduction of the tolls

The bridge over Clifton Beck at Bailiff Bridge was washed away in local floods

Between 1757-1787, a series of dry winters resulted in poor harvests. In 1757, this affected the gin craze

An Act to extend the Aire & Calder Navigation into the Calder Valley, and make the Calder navigable upstream from Wakefield, was passed in 1758.

Other relevant acts were passed in 1769 and 1825

The Halifax & Burnley Turnpike Trust was created, by which the road from Burnley to Todmorden via the Long Causeway was made. The preamble to the Act says that the roads were:

rough and incommodious, dangerous to travellers, almost impassable for wheeled carriages owing to the height and steepness of the hills, and so narrow that two carriages could not pass each other

See Manchester-Halifax coach service

1759-1783, a series of warm summers

On Tuesday May the 17th, many persons in several parts, within 5 or 6 miles [of Heptonstall], heard a strange noise under the ground, which some compared to thunder, others to the rumbling of carts : quickly after, they felt the earth rock under them and wave to and fro : many who were within doors, heard their pewter and glass clatter; many in the fields felt the ground shake under their feet; and all agreed as to the time, though they knew nothing of each other's account

An Act for diverting, altering, widening, repairing and amending the Roads from the Town of halifax, and from Sowerby Bridge, in the County of York, by Todmorden, to Burnley and Littleborough, in the County of Lancashire

Third Blackstone Edge Turnpike Trust Act. The turnpike ran from the Market Cross, Rochdale, to the Market Cross, Halifax

1766-1787, a series of cold winters

The Calder & Hebble Canal was extended to Sowerby Bridge where it connected with the Rochdale Canal

A great flood halted work on the construction of the Calder & Hebble Navigation

The Calder & Hebble Navigation Company came into existence under an Act of 1769

1775-1799, a series of wet summers. Crops failed throughout the country

A meeting in Rochdale proposed a link to the Bridgewater Canal, but the Duke of Bridgewater refused to allow the proposed canal to join onto the Bridgewater Canal, meaning the canal would terminate at Piccadilly.

The Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Company proposed an extension eastwards which became the proposed Bury and Sladen canal and would run north of Rochdale to Chelburn near the Littleborough summit. The Duke of Bridgewater realised that, if this plan became a reality, trans-Pennine traffic would by-pass his canal with a great loss of revenue, so he changed his mind and agreed for a junction between the Rochdale Canal and the Bridgewater Canal at Castlefield

The Albion Mills, Halifax burned down, nearly ruining Joah Bates who had invested money in the mill

The Rochdale Canal Act [1793] instructed the Calder & Hebble Navigation Company to build at Sowerby Bridge whatever wharves and warehouses the Rochdale Canal Company wanted, the latter to pay for the space they used

The section from Sowerby Bridge to Gauxholme Arches was the first to be constructed.

The Huddersfield Narrow Canal was also started in the same year, and the race was on to be the first to open a cross-Pennine route. But the Leeds & Liverpool Canal had started over 20 years earlier

by exposing themselves to the severity of the weather

At the end of October 1799, oats were 50/- per 240 lbs, and the price subsequently rose to 100/-

Page Ref: C813-1700

search tips advanced search

site search by freefind