Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
navigable rivers thanks to the access they offer, to and from their terrestrial interiors and,
in many cases, to territories overseas. The River Thames and London provide a good ex-
ample. In medieval England, the transportation of goods along the river played an import-
ant role in the development of London as a city, and indeed of many other settlements in
the Thames valley. Water transport was attractive at this time because of its relatively low
cost: moving commodities such as grain and wool by land could be more than ten times the
price of transport by water. Cheap transport by river stimulated economic development by
increasing the size of markets, encouraging regional specialization, and promoting urbaniz-
ation. Historical research of transport along the Thames and its tributaries around the year
1300 shows that these waterways greatly extended the market for grain and fuel supplied
to the capital. The specialization in farming that developed around London at this time is
also likely to have been a result of the increase in transport by river, since some areas were
better suited to the production of particular crops than others. Two main impacts on urb-
an development can be identified. For London, development of the cheap fluvial transport
network removed a constraint on the city's expansion because it reduced the cost of food
and fuel used in the capital. Urban development was also stimulated outside London, in
the capital's hinterland, as towns such as Henley-on-Thames grew to become a specialized
centre supplying agricultural produce to the city.
Navigable rivers also became major arteries of trade and stimulated the growth of larger
settlements elsewhere in medieval England. Gloucester and Bristol were served by the
River Severn, York had quays on the River Ouse, and Norwich on the River Wensum. The
importance of water transport to urban development was even embodied in the early 12th-
century Laws of Edward the Confessor, an Anglo-Saxon king of England. The laws note
that navigation should be maintained on the major rivers 'along which ships transport pro-
visions from different places to cities or burghs'.
Many economic historians suggest that England's rivers provided the cheapest form of in-
land transport for hefty goods right up until the 18th century. Nonetheless, bargemen and
merchants wanting to use rivers for trade in the Middle Ages had to struggle constantly
against those who wanted to build mills and fish-weirs. The mid-18th century is thought of
as the birth of the 'canal age' in England when industrialists built their own waterways, an
era that followed a 150-year period in which water transport became progressively easier
as many of the country's rivers were 'improved'.
The importance of river transport has played a key role in the economic development of
many countries. In Sweden, for example, in the 17th and 18th centuries, logs felled in the
country's northern forests were floated down rivers to the mining district of central Sweden
where they were used as fuel in smelting operations. During the second half of the 19th cen-
