Turnpikes and Their Traffic: The Example of Southern Hampshire

Abstract

Although there is general agreement about the importance of developments in inland transport to the progress of the British Industrial Revolution, it is the canal rather than the turnpike road that has attracted most study. Drawing on the example of southern Hampshire, the paper shows how it is possible to extend existing knowledge and appreciation of the contemporary road transport sector. The pattern of turnpike development followed closely that set at the national scale, with a marked concentration in the years 1750-70. A comprehensive and well-connected system existed by 1770 and development continued up to 1840o. Examination of the administrative effectiveness of the region's turnpike trusts, levels of repair expenditure and road repair activities shows a system of road maintenance markedly superior to the Statute System it was conceived to supplement. The true practical contribution of the turnpikes to road improvement is seen clearly in the remarkable expansion of turnpike traffic between 1750 and 1830, especially in the public sector. When the region's developing road transport system is placed against the evolving contemporary economy, the broad outlines of its role in urbanization, agricultural and industrial change emerge clearly. Comparison of the paper's findings with related earlier work on West Yorkshire makes apparent the need for a re-examination of the view that it is to the canal rather than the turnpike road that one should look in seeking to elucidate the place of transport in the British Industrial Revolution. THE improvements that occurred in the conditions of inland transport in Britain between 1750 and 1830 have long been recognized as a vital element in the Industrial Revolution. Mathias sees the development of investment and innovation in transport during the period as inseparable from the parallel development of investment and innovation in productionI, while Hartwell considers that without improved transport, markets for the growing industries would have been limited, a generally higher cost structure would have prevailed, and there would have been a wider disparity between the development of different parts of the country.2 The primary components in such transport improvement were the canal and the turnpike road. Of these two, the canal has received far more thorough and systematic investigation. As well as Hadfield's series of scholarly regional surveys, for example,3 a remarkable variety of detailed local monographs are available on British inland waterways, both in published and unpublished form.4 The turnpike road, by comparison, has attracted surprisingly little attention. Apart from the recent work of Albert and Pawson dealing with the national scale,5 there have been few detailed regional or local studies of academic merit. Traffic over turnpikes, meanwhile, proves to have been almost totally neglected.' The reasons for this deficiency are uncertain. The importance of road transport during the period, however, is beyond doubt. Prior to the full flowering of the Canal Age, nascent inland industrial centres like Birmingham and Manchester relied heavily on road transport in the performance of their expanding functions. More significantly, as late as the 1830s inland waterways were to a large extent still only complemen- tary to roads, for there were comparatively few parts of Britain by this time which could justly be described as possessing dense waterway networks. It is true that over the course of the Canal Age the size of the area which was more than the oft-quoted 15 miles (24 km) from navigable water8 steadily declined, but this can hardly be considered as indicative of a dense waterway system. Fifteen miles was 2 to 3 hours' travelling time in contemporary terms. More important, the location of inland waterways was guided as much by physiographic factors as by economic