UK Transport History

The history of transport in the UK can be traced back over 4000 years to the time when man was using stone tools and making the transition from a nomadic existence, living by hunting and gathering his food, to living in settlements and developing agricultural skills.

There was trading of goods and materials between different regions of the country and it's likely that animals (either oxen or horses) were in use as pack or draught animals.

Until the Roman invasion all roads had been track ways which would have been worn down by constant use, there was no attempt at constructing a hard wearing surface.

The Romans realised that everything they did relied on efficient transport and that both men and horses could move further and faster over a prepared smooth surface than they could over a rutted and potholed track so they set about building roads between their major towns and cities.

Many of these roads are still in use as major highways in the 21st century, the most well known of which is probably the A5, Watling Street.

From the time the Romans left around 410AD until the middle of the 17th century there was little attempt made to improve transport links across the country. Wheeled vehicles fell out of use until the mediaeval period.

The only significant constructions were the building of the Exeter Canal in the 16th century, the Fenland drains in East Anglia during the 17th century and the parliamentary authorisation for parts of the Great North Road to be administered by turnpike trusts.

Guided ways for wheeled vehicles have been in use since ancient times in the Middle East and in German mines during the medieval period. The first railways in Britain were laid down in the very early years of the seventeenth century, in 1604 in Nottinghamshire and in 1606 at Broseley, Shropshire. These were horse drawn, using baulks of timber for rails and only a mile or to in length used to move coal from the pit to the riverside or some other such place. [Lee: 1943]

A number of other short distance, horse worked railways, later also known as wagonways, waggonways, plateways or tramways, were laid down in following years. Some local networks were used until the 1950s.

The first turnpike in England was authorised in 1663 at Wadesmill near Ware, Hertfordshire on the Great North Road between London and York. Numerous Turnpike Trusts were authorised during the next 170 years across the country with the last being in the mid 1830s. They were all local enterprises with the variation in standards that that implies.

As the railways began to affect the amount of road traffic income declined and Parliament authorised local authorities to take over responsibility for road maintenance.

The only turnpike built by central government was the Holyhead Road from London to the seaport at Holyhead to speed up and make safer the journey of Irish MPs when travelling to Parliament.

The first modern canal to be built was from Worsley, Lancashire to Manchester by the Duke of Bridgewater. Building began in 1759 and it was opened in 1765 allowing coal to be moved more cheaply than carrying it by packhorse.

A national network was developed over the next few decades, all built by private companies to their own designs. When the first canal in Birmingham opened from Wednesbury the price of coal dropped to 8 shillings per ton.

The last major canal to be built was the Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canal which ran from Nantwich, Cheshire to Autherley, Staffordshire. When it opened in 1835 it provided a more direct link between Liverpool and the Midlands. It was the first and last canal to be built using heavy civil engineering to cut through the landscape and has many cuttings and embankments but relatively few locks, only 47 in 56 miles.

Railways came into their own as long distance transport thanks to the invention of the locomotive engine. Initially powered by steam, they have now been superseded by diesel and electric.

The Cornish mine engineer Richard Trevithick was an early experimenter in using a steam engine to power a road vehicle in 1801. His first railway locomotive was some two years later and about which little is known. The trip on the Pen-y-Darren tramway in 1804 was the first such machine to perform any useful work, and that was as a result of a wager.

A number of mine owners used locomotives on their railways to move coal from pithead to towns and ports and the first public railway, the Stockton and Darlington was a similar enterprise but on a much larger scale. The carriage of passengers was a useful sideline.

The last mainline railway to be built was an extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway from Sheffield. During construction the company name was changed to the Great Central Railway and it opened to it's Marylebone, London terminus in 1899.

During the ninety plus years since Trevithick had gone for a spin in his steam carriage the development of powered road vehicles had continued. Various types of steam engines were used for agricultural work and goods haulage but the use of steam for road passenger transport was extremely limited.

Various people in France and Germany had been experimenting with internal combustion engines. The most successful were Nikolaus Otto who invented the spark-ignition petrol engine still in use in motor cars and Rudolph Diesel who devised the compression-ignition engine which bears his name.

The first motor car to run on a British road was imported in November 1894 by Henry Hewetson.

Pneumatic tyres were introduced the following year and brought about a need for a new type of road surface. The methods devied by McAdam, Telford at al used a base of large stones with layers of progressively smaller material until the topmost surface was a very fine gravel.

This is suitable for ironshod tyres which further crush the stone allowing good drainage and an easily repaired surface. However, pneumatic tyres with a tread cut into the surface are designed to have a suction effect and so the gravel surface was destroyed by the passage of cars.

The discovery that bitumen laid on top of the gravel provided a solid surface that was impervious to both rain and the effects of pneumatic tyres led the way to modern road surfaces.

A few roads were upgraded to dual carriageways during the 1930s as a means of relieving unemployment but it was the motorway network that started to develop in the early 1960s that were the first major additions to the road network since the Roman occupation.