Jeremy Gibson, Banbury and the Origins of the Coventry to Oxford Canal, 1768–1778; Barrie Trinder, The Midlands Canals in 1871: The Evidence of Census

These two publications will interest historians of Oxfordshire for their provision of source material about the Oxford Canal – the historical county's only canal – at widely different times. Jeremy Gibson's booklet documents the canal's origins and the first phase of its construction from Longford in Warwickshire (on the Coventry Canal) to Banbury. The opening of this section in 1778 is regarded by Gibson as having been the most important event for Banbury in the whole of the eighteenth century. The booklet highlights the role of Sir Roger Newdigate (1791–1806), a major Midland coal producer and promoter of several canals including both the Oxford and the Coventry which met near some of his pits. Gibson draws on Newdigate’s diaries and on Jackson's Oxford Journal from 1768 to 1778 to tell the Oxford Canal's early story. Acknowledging earlier histories, notably The Oxford Canal (1976) by the late Hugh Compton (to whom the booklet is dedicated), the publication is well presented and illustrated, and is fully referenced and name-indexed – in all, a commendable work of local history. The only disappointment is its end-point. By not pursuing the history of the canal to 1789, when it was linked to the Thames near Oxford, the author stops short of considering the impact on Banbury of the establishment of connections with Oxford and London. The booklet's contents have also been published in Gibson's Banbury's People in the Eighteenth Century (2019), though dispersed amongst other material (see Oxoniensia , vol. 85, 2020, pp. 300–1). Barrie Trinder's book is quite different in style, scope and content. Its author is one of our pre-eminent industrial historians, and Midlands Canals is just the latest of numerous books, many of which reflect his life-long interest in the canals. It puts into practice his idea of using census evidence to ‘illuminate’ the history of waterways, which originated in a paper on the Oxford Canal prepared for the Banbury Historical Society. During a spell of ill-health he managed to transcribe a great deal of data from the 1871 national census relating to various Midland canals (p. viii). The eventual result is much more than a presentation of census data. Trinder opens with a general review of the origins and chronology of the canals, before outlining questions he intends to address and reviewing the existing literature.

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