The Rattlechain Brickworks Breach

George Robert Jebb, chief engineer of the Birmingham Canal Navigations, was in Galway on the west coast of Ireland when he received news of the disaster. The 61-year-old engineer had been in his position for nearly 25 years and had held the same post at the Shropshire Union Railways & Canal Co since 1869. He was also an officer of the London & North Western Railway which controlled both canals. He first heard of the incident at 2pm on Saturday 9th September 1899, about 12 hours after the occurrence. Catching the first available train, he arrived in Birmingham at 5am on the Sunday and was on the ground soon after to take charge.

Breach scene

The disaster was the collapse of the embankment on the southern side of the canal adjacent to Samuel Barnett’s Rattlechain Brickworks at Dudley Port in the heart of the Black Country, 6 miles north-west of Birmingham. The canal was part of the BCN’s New Main Line, known as the Island Line, planned by Thomas Telford, with this stretch being opened in 1838, the year of Jebb’s birth. 

The Black Country had long been exploited for its mineral resources, the growth of the BCN being a major contributor to its development, and the land around the brickworks was pitted with old coal shafts and disused collieries. In the latter part of the 19th century, and with the depletion of its 30ft layer of thick coal, the latest bonanza was brought about by the manufacture of bricks, particularly hard Staffordshire blue bricks. Among several works established in the neighbourhood were Samuel Barnett’s Rattlechain and Stour Valley New Brickworks. Samuel was the son of a brickmaker and was 45 at the time of the breach. He had taken out a lease on the unprofitable Rattlechain works in 1887, modernising it to produce both red and blue bricks at a rate of over 180,000 per week.

Joseph Elwell, employed at the London & North Western Railway’s goods yard in nearby Tipton, was walking home after work on night duty along the railway to Albion around 2.30am on 9th September 1899. Opposite the Rattlechain works he noticed the canal water was rushing through a gap in the embankment at Barnett’s marl hole (claypit). He immediately ran to inform the signalman at Albion Station, just over ½ mile away eastwards along the line, who telegraphed the man on duty at Dudley Port to inform him what had happened. Elwell then went back and aroused the BCN’s man living in the canal company’s cottage at Dunkirk Stop, a couple of hundred yards away near the end of the Gower Branch Canal and about 700 yards from the breach, telling him to put in the stop planks there. Other stop planks were placed as quickly as possible, but it was not until around 5.30am that the flow of water was entirely stopped.

By this time a gap had been made in the canal embankment about 120 yards long and 35ft deep in the middle, through which, according to some reports, the contents of some 6 miles’ length of the canal had poured into the marl hole, completely inundating it and the surrounding brickworks. Boats on the canal were stranded and some, drawn along by the water, ended up in the flooded pit or on the churned-up bed of the canal which was burst into rocky fragments in numerous places, with the whole scene looking, in the words of an onlooker “like an earthquake”.

News of the breach spread quickly. Under the heading “Canal Burst at Dudley Port. Two Boats Swept Away. Meadows Flooded,” the Birmingham Daily Mail later in the day reported that Tipton and the neighbouring districts of Dudley Port and Burnt Tree had been thrown into a state of alarm. Thousands of people had visited the scene and gentlemen with cameras were busy taking photographs.

The aftermath of the breach at Dudley Port, which was described by one onlooker as like an earthquake.

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Repair 

In October the contractors were making good progress, with 5,400 yards of material for the new embankment put in position. The puddling at the western end was also making satisfactory progress with 95 lineal yards of bottom puddling completed and work on the side puddles and waterway walls underway. November’s report repeated Jebb’s optimism, and he stated that 17,800 yards of material had already been put in place in the new embankment, while 3,200 cubic yards of puddle had been put in at the western end where the canal company was employing its own men in repairing the lining of the cut, where it was either completely destroyed or seriously damaged for 400 yards. New clay puddle was rammed in to a thickness of 1ft along the bottom and 3ft on the sides. Also that month Barnett gave notice that he was to claim damages from the company and in December a writ was served.

By the end of 1899, when work was suspended for a fortnight due to frost, Holme and King’s men had finished rebuilding the embankment using a total of 26,054 cubic yards, much of which had come from a large cinder mound, a slag heap owned by BCN.

The puddling and brick-lining of the sides were finished during March 1900. On 26th March, water was let in from Dunkirk Stop, ¼ mile along on the Birmingham side of the breach, and two days later the level was back to normal. However, on 2nd April it was found that water was escaping from four places between 170 yards and 350 yards on the Birmingham side of the breach. Jebb stated he had been informed that there had been leakages at Dunkirk Mill culvert and the railway embankment for some 30 years. After the stoppage it was found that these had increased considerably, a result that he put down to sudden withdrawal of the water from the canal at the time of the breach, the walls and side puddle being forced inwards towards the canal. The engineer was renewing the puddle on either side of the canal for a length of about 150 yards which, he hoped, would either altogether stop the leaks or considerably reduce them.

Barnett’s claim against BCN

Samuel Barnett’s claim for damages was delivered on 6th February 1900 alleging that on 9th September 1899 the embankment opposite the Rattlechain works had burst and given way by reason of the negligent manner in which the defendants caused or permitted the said canal, the bed and the embankments thereof to be constructed, repaired and maintained. This went on to explain that a large volume of water had flooded the Rattlechain works and a considerable quantity of debris had washed onto his premises and been deposited in the clay pit, causing damage to tools, implements, plant and pumps. 

In a submission on 3rd May of particulars in support of his claim, Samuel Barnett expressed his opinion that the canal embankments at and for some time prior to the canal bursting were not composed of materials of a binding nature. Instead, they were mainly ashes and other unsuitable materials that were supported partly by piles driven into the embankment. In addition, the canal company had placed a large quantity of debris at the top of the embankment and against the piles, which caused them to be displaced and the embankment itself to be torn up, partially destroyed and considerably weakened. 

For a long time prior to the breach, the canal had been permitted to subside and, according to Barnett, no proper means had been adopted by the defendants for making good the effects of the subsidence, apart from depositing loose materials in the canal bed. The original brickwork and puddle, strained by the subsidence, were not made good; neither were the junctions of the original and the added parts, while the raised bed and sides were not bricked and puddled throughout. As a result, the brickwork and puddling were weak and insufficient to resist the water pressure and make the canal watertight. 

BCN, even with the knowledge that the amount of water escaping from the canal was increasing, failed to take steps to ascertain the state of the bed and sides of the canal, or to deal with the problem. Instead, it caused the canal at and near to the spot where the bursting occurred to be dredged or cleaned and this only increased water loss. Barnett’s original claim was for £7,546 15s, being increased in July to £14,193.

BCN’s counterclaim 

The BCN’s defence and counterclaim for £15,827 10s, submitted on 28th May 1900, denied guilt of negligence, stating that the plaintiff had not suffered the damage he had alleged, or any damage at all, except in consequence of his own acts. In September 1899, Barnett had been excavating clay for brickmaking from the marl hole. BCN’s statement furthermore alleged that in May 1899 and at other times at present unknown to the defendants, “Barnett, improperly and recklessly disregarding the probable effect thereof upon the canal and works of BCN”, fired heavy shots of ammonite or other high explosive in the clay close to and in the defendant’s land. This had the effect of exacerbating an existing problem. 

At the beginning of March 1898, certain inflammable material ignited on Barnett’s land and he had been given notice of this by George Jebb. BCN claimed that Barnett took no, or insufficient, steps to prevent the fire from spreading to BCN’s land which, as a result, became burned, heated and cracked. This was what had caused the breach and the damage alleged by the plaintiff. It was, therefore, Barnett’s negligence, in allowing the fire to spread from his land to BCN’s, that led to the breach that caused the defendants to have suffered damage.

The New Main Line Canal from Dudley Port Junction looking back to Dunkirk Stop. The breach occurred on the right-hand side. Since 1899 industry has vanished and nature has taken over.

The view from Dunkirk Stop island towards Dudley Port Junction. The bridge over the arm leading to Barnetts Basin is on the left. Phil Wild

The entrance to Barnetts Basin. Phil Wild

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The trial

 BCN Society Archive  

The trial, Barnett v Birmingham Canal Company, got underway on 6th August 1900 at the Birmingham Summer Assizes before Mr Justice Bucknill and a special jury, chosen from a more limited group than a common jury, largely depending on the rateable value of property owned.

Later hailed as a “nine days’ wonder” by local papers, over 60 witnesses were called and the evidence was recorded in shorthand and later transcribed, totalling nearly 570 printed foolscap pages. The length of the trial occupied an editorial in the Dudley Herald, comparing it to the “celebrated Bleak House Chancery suit of Jarndyce v Jarndyce, a mythical prolongation of an action at law”. Mr Jelf, leader of the counsel for the defence, could never recall so many expert witnesses in a trial, while “some of us who have had to listen to it all the week feel almost canal experts”.

The question of the quality of the embankment puddle was referred to again and again, with witnesses of the civil engineering calibre of Sir Edward Leader Williams, builder of the Manchester Ship Canal, being called by BCN. 

On the last day of the trial, the judge’s summary lasted for nearly five hours with Mr Justice Bucknill giving a forensic examination of the evidence to the jury who took one hour and 42 minutes to return their verdict, finding for Mr Barnett on both the claim and counterclaim.

Aftermath

Nine days later, on 24th August, BCN’s solicitor reported to the committee that as a result of the trial a verdict had been returned for the plaintiff. The damages were to be settled by an official referee if necessary but the company’s QC recommended that notice should be given of its intention to apply for a new trial on the grounds that the judge had improperly repeated certain evidence tendered by the company. It was resolved that such notice be given. On 26th October the solicitor reported that the plaintiff’s costs had been fixed at £1,307 8s and it was resolved that the amount be paid.

On 30th November, committee minutes recorded that the solicitor reported that a written opinion of counsel had been obtained in respect of the company’s request for a new trial, “to the effect that there was a substantial risk that the application … would not succeed”. 

In BCN’s committee minutes at the end of October 1900, the payment of Barnett’s costs, as noted above, was confirmed. The following month’s financial abstract showed that £9,107 8s had been paid towards Barnett’s claim and the final abstract for 1900, reported in the minutes of 25th January 1901, note Barnett’s claim and costs of £11,817 3s 5d. As a comparison, the company’s salaries and wages bill for the year totalled £16,995 0s 5d.

BCN’s agreement, when it had come under railway control in 1846, guaranteed that L&NWR would pay a 4% dividend to the canal company’s shareholders in the event that it failed to make a profit. February 1901’s BCN committee meeting heard that £12,000 relating to Breach in Canal Dudley Port and Barnett’s Claim was part of an application to L&NWR for the sum of £34,076 19s 6d, the deficiency in the sum required to pay the dividend for the year ending 31st December 1900. 

In 1878 BCN’s chair had reflected on the company’s placing themselves under the tutelage of the railway, stating that they might rest under the shadow of the £4 per share which the L&NWR company guaranteed to them. It was certainly a valuable shadow following the events of 9th September 1899.