Online talk on “John Smeaton and the Calder Navigation”, 14 April 2021
by Lesley Taylor and Shirley Levon
Lesley Taylor explained that the research that she and Shirley Levon had conducted was initiated during the Society’s project in 2013 on Wakefield Waterfront when they discovered John Smeaton’s Journal detailing the development of the Calder Navigation between 1760 and 1763. They transcribed the Journal which follows the day-to-day work up the Calder from Wakefield to Sowerby Bridge. Linking this to letters and accounts held at the National Archives and at local archives they were able to research the background to the building of the navigation, and the local people who were involved. Lesley described the many problems and the opposition that was encountered, the choice of John Smeaton as Superintendent, and the progress towards the Act of Parliament in 1758 which enabled the building of the navigation to start.
Shirley Levon described the busy scene that John Smeaton found when he arrived in May 1760, with masons, sawyers, and smiths all busy in workshops built for their purposes. The supplies of stone, wood and other materials, the equipment such as engines and pumps that had been gathered at the waterfront were listed. Shirley explained how the Journal described the work moving upriver, and what happened in the years after the Journal ended.
Their research and the transcription of the journal, with illustrations from Smeaton’s drawings including his fine plan of the navigation, will soon be published by Wakefield Historical Publications, the publishing arm of Wakefield Historical Society.
