The Rattlechain Brickworks Breach

Historical Profiles: NarrowBoat, Winter 2024

Phil Clayton examines the contested causes and aftermath of a breach at Dudley Port in 1899

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 s…