Mondo Knows Facts
The Bridgewater Canal halved the price of coal
A private aqueduct carried coal from a duke's mines into Manchester in 1761 Francis Egerton, third Duke of Bridgewater, wanted a cheap route from his Worsley mines to Manchester. His engineer James Brindley built a canal that ran on a stone aqueduct across the River Irwell, opened in 1761, cutting the price of coal in the town by around half. Its success set off a canal building boom across Britain. It sits in Mondo's history collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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Tags: canals, coal, industrial-revolution
The Bridgewater Canal halved the price of coal: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- A private aqueduct carried coal from a duke's mines into Manchester in 1761. The figure is taken from Science Museum, London, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a history fact?
- Yes. It sits on the History shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.