Manchester Ship Canal

Manchester Ship Canal
Specifications
Locks	5
Status	Open
History
Principal engineer	Thomas Walker
Date of act	5 August 1885
Date of first use	1 January 1894

The Manchester Ship Canal is a 36-mile-long (58 km) river navigation in North West England. Designed to give the city of Manchester direct access to the sea, it was built between 1887 and 1894 at a cost of about £15 million (£2.16 billion as of 2024), and in its day was the largest river navigation canal in the world.

The canal generally follows the original route of the rivers Mersey and Irwell, and along its course uses several sets of locks. Major landmarks along the canal's route include the Barton Swing Aqueduct, the first swing aqueduct in the world, and Trafford Park, the world's first planned industrial estate and still the largest in Europe. The Manchester Ship Canal Company built and operated a railway to transport goods to and from the docks alongside the canal.

The Manchester Ship Canal enabled the Port of Manchester to become Britain's third busiest port, despite being about 40 miles (64 km) inland. Although able to accommodate a range of vessels, from coastal ships to inter-continental cargo liners, the canal is not large enough for all modern vessels. It still carries about 7 million long tons (7.8 million short tons) of freight each year, but that traffic has been in steady decline since the 1950s. As of 2011 the canal is privately owned by Peel Ports, whose plans include redevelopment, expansion, and an increase in shipping from 8000 containers a year to 100,000 by 2030, as part of their Atlantic Gateway project.

History

Early history

The idea that the rivers Mersey and Irwell should be made navigable from the Mersey Estuary in the west to Manchester in the east was first proposed in 1660, and revived in 1712 by Thomas Steers, but it was not until 1720 that the necessary legislation was proposed. The Act of Parliament for the navigation was passed into law in 1721, following which construction work was undertaken by the Mersey & Irwell Navigation Company. Work began in 1724, and by 1734 boats "of moderate size" could make the journey from quays near Water Street in Manchester, to the Irish Sea. The navigation was suitable only for small ships, and during periods of low rainfall or when strong easterly winds held back the tide in the estuary, there was not always sufficient draft for a fully laden boat. The completion in 1776 of the Bridgewater Canal, followed almost sixty years later by the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, intensified competition for the carriage of goods. In 1825 an application had been made to Parliament for an Act to allow the construction of a ship canal between the mouth of the River Dee and Manchester at a cost of £1 million, but "the necessary forms not having been observed", it did not become law. In 1844 ownership of the Mersey & Irwell Navigation was transferred to the Bridgewater Trustees, and in 1872 it was sold to The Bridgewater Navigation Company for £1.112 million (£125 million as of 2024). The navigation had by then fallen into disrepair; in 1882 it was described as being "hopelessly choked with silt and filth", and was open to larger boats for only 47 out of 311 working days.

A cartoon published in the satirical magazine Punch in 1882, ridiculing the idea that Manchester could become a major seaport

Along with deteriorating economic conditions in the 1870s, the dues charged by the Port of Liverpool and the railway charges from there to Manchester were perceived as excessive; it was often cheaper to import goods from Hull than it was from Liverpool. A ship canal was proposed as a way to reduce carriage charges, avoid payment of dock and town dues at Liverpool, and by-pass the three Liverpool to Manchester railways by giving Manchester direct access to the sea for its imports and its exports of manufactured goods. Historians such as Ian Harford have suggested that the canal may also have been conceived as an "imaginative response to [the] problems of depression and unemployment" that Manchester was experiencing during the early 1880s.

The idea of a canal was championed by Manchester manufacturer Daniel Adamson, who arranged a meeting at his home in Didsbury on 27 June 1882. He invited the representatives of several Lancashire towns, local businessmen and politicians, and two civil engineers: Hamilton Fulton and Edward Leader Williams. Fulton proposed a tidal canal, with no locks and a deepened channel into Manchester; Williams was in favour of a series of locks. Both engineers were invited to submit their proposals, and Williams' plans were selected to form the basis of a Bill submitted to Parliament in November 1882. The Bill attracted fierce opposition from the city of Liverpool and several railway companies, and the passage of the necessary enabling Act of Parliament was delayed until 6 August 1885. Certain conditions were attached; £5 million had to be raised, and the ship canal company was legally obliged to buy both the Bridgewater Canal and the Mersey & Irwell Navigation within two years. The estimated cost of construction was £5.16 million (£704 million as of 2024), and the work was expected to take four years to complete.

Financing

Cheque dated 3 August 1887, in the amount of £1,710,000, for the purchase of the Bridgewater Navigation Company. At the time it was the largest cheque that had ever been presented.

The enabling Act of Parliament stipulated that the ship canal company's entire share capital of £8 million had to be issued within two years, otherwise the Act would lapse. Adamson wanted to encourage the widest possible share ownership, and he believed that the funds should be raised largely from the working population. Richard Peacock, the vice-chairman of the Provisional Manchester Ship Canal Committee, had said in 1882:

No few individuals should be expected to subscribe and form a company for mere gain; it should be taken on by the public; and if it is not ... I for one should say drop the scheme ... unless I see the public coming forward in a hearty manner.

The enabling Act did not allow the company to issue shares of less value than £10 and so, to make them easier for ordinary people to buy, shilling coupons were issued in books of ten so that the shares could be paid for in instalments. However, by May 1887 only £3 million had been raised. The contractor chosen to construct the canal, Thomas Walker, agreed to accept £500,000 of the contract price in shares, but raising the remainder required another Act of Parliament to allow the company's share capital to be restructured as £3 million of ordinary shares and £4 million of preference shares. Adamson remained convinced that the money should be raised from ordinary members of the public, and he opposed the capital restructuring, resigning as chairman of the Ship Canal Committee on 1 February 1887. A prospectus for the sale of the preference shares was issued jointly by Barings and Rothschild on 15 July, and by 21 July the issue had been fully underwritten. Construction of the canal began on 11 November 1887, when Lord Egerton of Tatton, who had taken over the chairmanship of the Manchester Ship Canal Company from Adamson, cut the first sod.

The canal company exhausted its capital of £8 million in 4 years, although only half the construction work had been completed. To avoid bankruptcy the company appealed for funds to Manchester Corporation, which set up a Ship Canal Committee. On 9 March 1891 the corporation decided, on the committee's recommendation, to lend the necessary £3 million, to preserve the city's prestige. In return the corporation appointed five of the fifteen members of the board of directors. The company subsequently raised its estimates of the cost of completion in September 1891 and again in June 1892. An executive committee was appointed as an emergency measure in December 1891, and on 14 October 1892 the Ship Canal Committee resolved to lend a further £1.5 million on condition that Manchester Corporation had an absolute majority on the canal company's board of directors and its various sub-committees. The corporation subsequently appointed 11 of the 21 seats, nominated Alderman Sir John Harwood as deputy director of the company, and secured majorities on five of the board's six sub-committees.

Construction

An 1891 painting by Benjamin Williams Leader depicting the construction of Eastham Docks

Official opening by Queen Victoria (from The Illustrated London News)

Thomas Walker was appointed as the contractor for the construction of the canal, and the work was overseen by the chief engineer and designer Edward Leader Williams. The canal's 36-mile (58 km) length was divided into eight sections, with an engineer responsible for each. The first section was from Eastham to Ellesmere Port. Mount Manisty, a huge mound of earth northwest of Ellesmere Port on a narrow stretch of land between the canal and the Mersey, was created from the soil extracted by the excavations in that area. It and the adjacent Manisty Cutting were named after the engineer in charge of that section. The last section to be built was from Weston Point through the Runcorn gap to Norton, as the existing docks at Runcorn and Weston had to be kept operational until they could be connected to the completed western sections of the ship canal.

For the first two years, construction went according to plan, but on 25 November 1889 Walker died. Initially the work was continued by his executors, but the project began to suffer a number of setbacks, not helped by severe weather and several serious floods. In January 1891, when the work ought to have been completed, a severe winter added to the difficulties when the Bridgewater Canal, the canal company's only source of income, was closed by ice. The company decided to take over the contracting work itself, and bought all the equipment on site for £400,000.

The canal was finally completely filled with water in November 1893, and opened to its first traffic on 1 January 1894. On 21 May 1894 Queen Victoria visited to perform the official opening. The Queen knighted the mayor of Salford, William Henry Bailey and the lord mayor of Manchester, Anthony Marshall at the opening of the canal, during the last of three royal visits she made to Manchester. Edward Leader Williams was knighted on 2 July by Letters Patent. In December 1893, the Manchester Ship Canal Police were formed.

The canal took six years to complete, at a cost of just over £15 million. It was the longest river navigation canal in the world, and remains the world's eighth-longest ship canal, only slightly shorter than the Panama Canal in Central America. More than 54 million cubic yards (41,000,000 m³) of material were excavated, about half as much as was removed in the building of the Suez Canal. An average of 12,000 workers were employed during construction, peaking at 17,000. Regular navvies were paid at a rate of 4+1⁄2d per hour for a 10-hour working day, equivalent to about £70 per day as of 2009. In terms of machinery, the scheme called upon over 200 miles (320 km) of temporary rail track, 180 locomotives, more than 6,000 trucks and wagons, 124 steam-powered cranes, 192 other steam engines, and 97 steam excavators. Major engineering landmarks of the scheme included the Barton Swing Aqueduct, the first swing aqueduct in the world, and a neighbouring swing bridge for road traffic at Barton, both of which are now Grade II* listed structures.

In 1909 the water level in the canal was raised by 2 feet (0.61 m), increasing its depth to 28 feet (8.5 m) to match that of the Suez Canal.

Operational history

A cargo ship heading west out of Irlam locks towards the Mersey and the Irish Sea

The Manchester Ship Canal enabled the Port of Manchester to become Britain's third busiest port, despite being about 40 miles (64 km) inland. Since its opening in 1894 the canal has handled a wide range of ships and cargos, from coastal vessels to intra-European shipping and inter-continental cargo liners. The first vessel to unload its cargo on the opening day was the Pioneer, belonging to the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), which was also the first vessel registered at Manchester; the CWS operated a weekly service to Rouen. Although some other shipowners brought their vessels to Manchester, it was Manchester Liners who established regular sailings by large ocean-going vessels. In late 1898 the Manchester City, 7,698 gross tons, became the largest vessel to reach the terminal docks. Carrying cattle and general cargo, it was met by the Lord Mayor of Manchester and a large welcoming crowd.

In 1968 Manchester Liners decided to switch its fleet to container vessels only, to service which it built two dedicated container terminals next to No. 9 Dock. The four container vessels commissioned that year, each of 11,898 gross tons, were the largest ever to make regular use of the terminal docks at Salford. In 1974 the canal handled 2.9 million long tons of dry cargo (3.25 million short tons), 27 percent of which was carried by Manchester Liners. The dry tonnage was, and is still, greatly supplemented by crude and refined oil products transported in large tanker ships to and from the Queen Elizabeth II Dock at Eastham and the Stanlow Refinery just east of Ellesmere Port, and also in smaller tankers to Runcorn. The limitations imposed by the canal on the maximum size of container vessel meant that by the mid-1970s Manchester Liners was becoming uncompetitive; the company sold its last remaining ship in 1985.

Tonnage Handled by the Manchester Ship Canal Ports
1895	1905	1915	1925	1935	1945
1,358,875	3,060,516	5,434,046	5,881,691	6,135,003	6,531,963
1955	1965	1975	1985	1995	2005
18,563,376	15,715,409	14,816,121	9,767,380	8,751,938	7,261,919

Route

The ship canal alongside the Mersey between Stanlow and Runcorn, looking east

Geography

From Eastham the canal runs parallel to, and along the south side of, the River Mersey, past Ellesmere Port. Between Rixton, east of the M6 motorway's Thelwall Viaduct and Irlam, the canal joins the Mersey; between Irlam and Salford it uses the course of the River Irwell.

Locks

Vessels travelling to and from the terminal docks, which are 60 feet (18 m) above sea level, must pass through several locks. Each set has a large lock for ocean-going ships and a smaller, narrower lock for vessels such as tugs and coasters. The entrance locks at Eastham on the Wirral side of the Mersey, which seal off the tidal estuary, are the largest on the canal. The larger lock is 600 feet (180 m) long by 80 feet (24 m) wide; the smaller lock is 350 feet (110 m) by 50 feet (15 m). Four additional sets of locks further inland, 600 feet (180 m) long and 65 feet (20 m) wide and (350 feet (110 m) by 45 feet (14 m) for the smaller lock), each have a rise of approximately 15 feet (4.6 m). The locks are at Eastham; Latchford, near Warrington; Irlam; Barton near Eccles and Mode Wheel, Salford.

Docks and wharfs

Seven terminal docks were constructed for the opening of the canal. Four small docks were located on the south side of the canal near Cornbrook, within the Borough of Stretford, and named Pomona Docks No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4. The three main docks were located within Salford and were built primarily for large ocean-going vessels. These were situated to the west of Trafford Road on the north bank of the canal and were named No. 6, No. 7, and No. 8. In 1905, No. 9 Dock was completed on the same site. Dock No. 5, or Ordsall Dock, was part of the Pomona Docks, but was dug on the Salford side of the river; it was never completed and was filled in around 1905.

Pomona Docks have been mostly/mainly/or suitable words filled in and to large extent remain derelict, but No. 3 Dock is still intact ...

Pomona Docks have been filled in and remain largely derelict except for the still intact No. 3 Dock, which has a lock connecting it to the nearby Bridgewater Canal at the point where the two canals run in parallel. The western four docks have been converted into the Salford Quays development; ships using the Manchester Ship Canal now dock at various places along the canal side such as Mode Wheel (Salford), Trafford Park, and Ellesmere Port. Most ships have to terminate at Salford Quays, although smaller vessels can continue up the River Irwell to Hunts Bank, near Manchester Cathedral.

In 1893 the Ship Canal Company sold a parcel of land just east of the Mode Wheel Locks to the newly established Manchester Dry Docks Company. The graving docks were constructed adjacent to the south bank of the canal, and a floating pontoon dock was built nearby. Each of the three graving docks could accommodate ocean-going ships of up to 535 feet (163.1 m) in length and 64 feet (19.5 m) in beam, equivalent to vessels of 8,000 gross tons. Manchester Liners acquired control of the company in 1974, to ensure the availability of facilities for the repair of its fleet of ships.

Trafford Park

Main article: Trafford Park

Two years after the opening of the ship canal financier Ernest Terah Hooley bought the 1,183-acre (4,790,000 m²) country estate belonging to Sir Humphrey Francis de Trafford for £360,000 (£52.6 million as of 2024). Close to Manchester and at the end of the canal, Hooley initially intended to develop the site as an exclusive housing estate, screened by woods from industrial units constructed along the 1.5-mile (2.4 km) frontage onto the canal.

With the predicted traffic for the canal slow to materialise, Hooley and Marshall Stevens (the general manager of the Ship Canal Company) came to see the benefits that the industrial development of Trafford Park could offer to both the ship canal and the estate. In January 1897 Stevens became the managing director of Trafford Park Estates, where he remained, latterly as its joint chairman and managing director, until 1930.

Within five years Trafford Park, Europe's largest industrial estate, was home to forty firms. The earliest structures on the canal side were grain silos, the grain used for flour and as ballast for ships carrying raw cotton. The wooden silo built opposite No.9 Dock in 1898 (destroyed by enemy action in 1940) was Europe's largest grain elevator. The CWS bought land on Trafford Wharf in 1903, where it opened a bacon factory and a flour mill. In 1906 it bought the Sun Mill, which it extended in 1913 to create the UK's largest flour mill, with its own wharf, elevators and silos.

Inland from the canal The British Westinghouse Electric Company bought 11 percent of the estate. Westinghouse's American architect Charles Heathcote was responsible for much of the planning and design of their factory, which built steam turbines and turbo generators. By 1899, Heathcote had also designed fifteen warehouses for the Manchester Ship Canal Company.

Other features on the banks

In 1984 Salford City Council used a derelict land grant to purchase the docks at Salford from the Ship Canal Company, rebranding the area as Salford Quays. Principle developers Urban Waterside began redevelopment work the following year.

At Ellesmere Port the canal is joined by the Shropshire Union Canal, at a site now occupied by the National Waterways Museum. The area formerly consisted of a 7-acre (2.8 ha) canal port linking the Shropshire Union Canal to the River Mersey. Designed by Thomas Telford, it remained operational until the 1950s. It was a "marvellously self-contained world" with locks, docks, warehouses, a blacksmith's forge, stables, and cottages for the workers. Its Island Warehouse was built in 1871 to store grain. A few miles from Ellesmere Port, at Weston, near Runcorn, the ship canal also connects with the Weaver Navigation.

Manchester Ship Canal Railway

A preserved Manchester Ship Canal 0-6-0T locomotive, ready for display at The Engine House in Highley

The standard gauge Manchester Ship Canal Railway was built to service freight to and from the canal's docks, between nearby industrial estates such as Trafford Park, and connected to the various railway companies with track near the canal. Unlike most other railway companies in the UK it was not nationalised in 1948, and grew to become the largest private railway system in the country; at its peak it had 790  employees, 75 locomotives, 2,700 wagons and more than 200 miles (320 km) of track.

The MSC Railway was able to receive and despatch goods trains to and from all the UK's main line railway systems, using connecting junctions at three points in the terminal docks. Two were to the north of the canal, operated by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and the London and North Western Railway, and one was to the south, operated by the Cheshire Lines Committee.

Many of the MSC's steam locomotives were 0-6-0 tank engines, several of which have been preserved, including Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0T no. 32 Gothenburg. They were designed to enable them to negotiate the tight-radius curves of the tracks in the estate; the middle wheels of the 0-6-0 arrangement were flangeless, and the coupling rods had a hinged central section that permitted several inches of lateral play. A fleet of diesel locomotives was purchased between 1959 and 1966, but it was eventually run down and the remaining engines stationed at Ellesmere Port and Stanlow.

Present-day

Unlike most other British canals, the Manchester Ship Canal was never nationalised. In 1991 the Ship Canal Company became a part of Peel Holdings; it is now owned and operated by Peel Ports, who also own the Port of Liverpool.

The passenger ferry Snowdrop at Irlam Locks

1958 saw a peak in the amount of freight carried by the canal, at 18 million long tons (20 million short tons). But the increasing size of ocean-going ships and the port's failure to introduce modern freight-handling methods resulted in that headline figure dropping steadily, and the closure of the docks in Salford in 1984. Although it was built for ocean-going vessels, ship sizes have long outgrown the canal. The maximum length of vessel accepted is 530 feet (161.5 m) with a beam of 63.5 feet (19.35 m) and a maximum draft of 24 feet (7.3 m). By contrast the similarly sized Panama Canal, completed a few years after the Manchester Ship Canal, is able to accept ships of up to 950 feet (289.6 m) in length with a beam of 106 feet (32.31 m). Ships passing under the Runcorn Bridge have a height restriction of 70 feet (21 m) above normal water levels. Total freight movements on the ship canal were down to 7.56 million long tons (8.47 short tons) by 2000, and further reduced to 6.60 million long tons (7.39 short tons) for the year ending September 2009.

On 18 October 2007 the retail chain Tesco announced that it had begun using the canal to transport New World wine between Liverpool and the Irlam Container Terminal, from where the cargo is offloaded and transported to a nearby bottling plant. Tesco claims it will save 700,000 miles (1.13 million km) of road haulage per year.

In 2011 Peel Ports announced a £50 billion Atlantic Gateway plan to develop the Port of Liverpool and the Manchester Ship Canal as a way of combating increasing road congestion. The scheme involves the construction of a large distribution centre to be named Port Salford and the addition of six sites along the canal for the loading and unloading of freight. Peel Ports predict that the number of containers transported along the canal could increase from the 8000 carried in 2010 to 100,000 by 2030.

See also

• Canals of Great Britain
• History of the British canal system
• Waterways in the United Kingdom

References

Manchester Ship Canal
Mersey estuary Eastham Locks Shropshire Union Canal Weaver Sluices Weston Marsh Lock Weaver Navigation Weston Mersey Side Lock (closed) Dock Lock Weaver Navigation Weston Point Docks Bridgewater Side Lock (closed) Runcorn Docks Bridgewater Canal junction (blocked) Runcorn Railway Bridge Silver Jubilee Bridge Old Quay Side Lock (closed) Old Quay Bridge  A533  Mersey Gateway Moore Lane Swing Bridge Acton Grange Railway Viaduct  A5060  Chester Road Swing Bridge Walton Lock (closed)  A49  London Road Swing Bridge Howley Weir Cantilever High Level Bridge  A50  Knutsford Road Swing Bridge Latchford Railway Viaduct Latchford Locks Woolston Siphon Weir Woolston Guard Weir  M6  Thelwall Viaduct River Mersey leaves canal route  B5159  Warburton Bridge Cadishead Railway Viaduct (disused) Irlam Container Terminal River Mersey joins canal route Liverpool–Manchester lines Irlam Locks Barton Locks  M60  Barton High Level bridge Barton Low Level bridge Thirlmere Aqueduct (buried pipeline) Barton Swing Bridge Barton Swing Aqueduct  A576  Centenary Lift Bridge Mode Wheel Locks Media City Footbridge Millennium Bridge Salford Quays Railway swing bridge (moved to Salford Quays) Trafford Road Swing Bridge  A5063  Trafford Road Manchester Metrolink Pomona Docks Bridgewater Canal Woden Street Bridge, Salford Junction of canal and River Irwell

Footnotes

Bibliography

• Albert, William (2007), The Turnpike Road System in England, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-03391-8
• Cumberlidge, Jane (2009), Inland Waterways of Great Britain (8th ed.), Imray Laurie Norie and Wilson, ISBN 978-1-84623-010-3
• Dickson, Hubert (1994), "Bridges of the Manchester Ship Canal – Past, Present and Future", The Structural Engineer, 72 (21), Institution of Structural Engineers: 350–355
• Farnie, D. A. (1980), The Manchester Ship Canal and the rise of the Port of Manchester, Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-7190-0795-X
• Fisher, Stuart (2009), The Canals of Britain, Adlard Coles Nautical, ISBN 978-1-40810-517-7
• Gray, Ted (1993), A Hundred Years of the Manchester Ship Canal, Aurora Publishing, ISBN 1-85926-030-6
• Gray, Ted (1997), Manchester Ship Canal, Sutton Publishing, ISBN 0-7509-1459-9
• Harford, Ian (1994), Manchester and its Ship Canal Movement, Ryburn Publishing, ISBN 1-85331-075-1
• Haws, Duncan (2000), Merchants Fleets No.38 Manchester Liners etc, Duncan Haws, ISBN 0-946378-39-8
• InCom Working Group 16 (May 1996), Standardization of ships and inland waterways for river/sea navigation, The World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |publication= ignored (help)CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Kirkwood, Niall (2004), Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 978-0-415-24365-0
• Nicholls, Robert (1996), Trafford Park: The First Hundred Years, Phillimore & Co, ISBN 1-86077-013-4
• Owen, David (1983), The Manchester Ship Canal, Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-7190-0864-6
• Parkinson-Bailey, John J. (2000), Manchester: An Architectural History, ISBN 0-7190-5606-3
• Rennison, Robert William (1996), Civil Engineering Heritage: Northern England, Thomas Telford, ISBN 978-0-7277-251-89
• Stoker, Robert B. (1985), The Saga of Manchester Liners, Kinglish Ltd, ISBN 0-9507480-2-1
• The Monopolies and Mergers Commission (1976), Eurocanadian Shipholdings Limited and Furness, Withy & Company, Limited and Manchester Liners Limited: A Report on the Existing and Proposed Mergers (PDF), Competition Commission, retrieved 22 November 2008 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
• Wheeler, James (1836), Manchester: Its Political, Social and Commercial History, Ancient and Modern, Whittaker and Co.
• Willan, Thomas Stuart; Ratcliffe, Barrie M. (1977), Trade and transport: essays in economic history in honour of T. S. Willan, Manchester University Press, ISBN 0-8476-6013-3{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Wood, Cyril (2005), Manchester's Ship Canal The Big Ditch, Tempus Publishing Ltd, ISBN 978-0-7524-2811-6

Further reading

• Leech, Sir Bosdin (1907), History of the Manchester Ship Canal (2 volumes), Sherratt & Hughes

External links

• A documentary about the history of the Ship canal, in three parts
• Virtual Tour
• The Manchester Ship Canal by W.T. Perkins
• Manchester Region History Review Volume 8 1994, The Ship Canal: Raising the Standard for Popular Capitalism, Ian Harford
• MSC Online tracking of vessels on the Ship Canal
• The Transport Archive: Archive images of the Manchester Ship Canal
• Ships entering the Manchester Ship Canal
• Ship Photography on the Manchester Ship Canal