David, I have just had a look at the canal web site. It has thrown up lots of ideas, along with the Shropshire possibilities, which I will now need to follow up. Many thanks. Gerry gerrynuk@gmail.com On 6 Apr 2014, at 21:10, David Beakhust <dave@beakhust.com> wrote: > There is a very useful and readable source online, that includes a footnote: > " 5. It is often believed that the workforce was mainly Irish navvies. > This is not so. At this time the workforce was mainly local agricultural > workers, the traditional navvy being a product of the railway-building era." > > I think this is logical, for a number of reasons, not least the greater > scale of railway projects, but also that the potato famine in Ireland > 1845-52 that drove many to emigrate to the usa also probably drove many to > England just at a time when railway building was underway and could use > exploitable cheap labour. The alternative being starvation. > > The canal source is at http://gerald-massey.org.uk/Canal/c_chapter_07.htm > > The tring summit cutting was a deep and troublesome job, lasting years, as > it was started almost as soon as the canal construction started in the > early 1790s, but Landslips, flooding, and the like, saw to it that work > continued through the 1790s. They had found that the cut went through an > aquifer. By 1801 attention had shifted to the Blisworth tunnel (while loads > continued to be carried by horse drawn railway over the hill at blisworth). > Your ancestor might well have been at tring at the right time, before his > marriage. > Depending on where in shropshire he was, it might have been the shrewsbury > canal that he worked on initially, rather than the later shropshire union > canal (SU), although what are now parts of the SU were built earlier. > Google for "shrewsbury and newport canal". This had an inclined plane, > lifting boats up a hill in tanks using engine power, that operated well > into the 20th century - one of the wonders of the waterways. > > > Dave Beakhust > > > > > On 6 April 2014 16:57:18 Vivien Emons <emofenn@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > >> Thanks to response to my canal query. My ancester I belive, was born 1775 > Shropshire and turned up in Tring, where he married 1801 and had his > family. This was as the Shropshire and then Grand Union canals were being > constructed. >> Vivien >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes > in the subject and the body of the message > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOG-UK-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message