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Difficulties of communication; influence of natural waterways on inland trade; artificial waterways and canal construction; Roman roads; mediaeval road-repair: roads in Tudor times; introduction of turnpikes at the Restoration; condition of eighteenth century roads; failure of statutory labour; rival theories of Telford and McAdam; extinction of turnpike trusts; highway rates; main roads.
THE local progress of farming, at the close of the eighteenth century, had been great; but its general advance was still hampered by numerous hindrances. In many parts of England the inveterate preference for old-fashioned practices was slowly yielding to experience of the results of more modern methods. Defects in the relations between owners and occupiers were mitigated by the grant of leases, which secured to improving tenants a return for their outlay of money and labour. Obstacles presented by soil and climate, so far as they were capable of remedy, were in process of removal. Experience had shown that sands might be fertilised, and the acidity of sour land corrected, by the use of the proper dressings, selected with judgment and applied with perseverance; that considerable tracts of moor, heath, and moss might be brought into profitable cultivation; that fens and swamps might be drained; that even the disadvantages of climate might be ameliorated by plantations. But there remained a number of hindrances, which originated in the laws and customs of the country. To this class belonged difficulties of communication. The incidence of tithe on the produce of the land will be treated in a subsequent chapter.
A generation familiar with railways and good roads can hardly appreciate the obstacle to progress which was created by difficulties of transport and communication. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, rivers had exercised the greatest influence on the development of inland trade centres. In few districts, and only in favourable seasons, could heavy goods be conveyed over the unmade roads. The command of water carriage was all-important. On straightening, deepening, or widening rivers so as to make them navigable, early legislators from the fifteenth century onwards, had mainly concentrated their efforts to improve internal communications. Not only inland towns, but seaports themselves, often owed their early prosperity to their situation at the mouths of rivers. Bristol, or Hull, or Boston, or Lynn, for instance, collected and distributed produce along the course of the Severn and the Wye, or the Trent and the Idle, or the Ouse, the Welland, and the Witham. Even London derived some of its pre-eminence from the produce which was carried over the Thames and its tributaries. To Liverpool the closing of the port of Chester by the sands which choked the Dee, and the opening up of the interior by making navigable the upper waters of the Mersey (1694), the Irwell and the Weaver (1720), proved the real starting-point of its trade. By means of these water-highways inland towns became seaports. They were the centres for collecting and distributing produce over the interior of the country. Fleets of trows, "billanders," floats, lighters, and barges were engaged in the trade. On the Severn, for instance, which was navigable as far as Welshpool, 376 vessels were employed in 1756. The famous Stourbridge Fair was supplied with heavy goods by the Ouse, which enabled boats, each carrying 40 tons of freight, to load and unload at Cambridge. York was accessible to vessels of from 60 to 80 tons, and claimed rights of wreckage as a seaport. Exeter and Taunton carried on a home and foreign trade by means of the Exe and the Parret. Coal reached Hereford by the Wye. Coventry communicated with the sea by means of the Warwickshire Avon. From Bawtry, on the Yorkshire Idle, were distributed the lead of Derbyshire, the edged tools of Sheffield, the iron goods of Hallamshire, as well as the foreign goods which entered the country at Hull. Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire shipped their barley and malt from Ware on the Lea. Gloucestershire cheesemakers sent their cheese to London down the Thames from Lechlade. Burslem wares were carried in pot-waggons or on pack-horses to Bridgnorth on the Severn.
From utilising the natural waterways of the country it seemed but a short step to supplementing them as arteries of trade by the construction of canals. Pioneers in the early stages of this movement were Sir Richard Weston, who in the reign of Charles I. canalised the Wey, and Sir William Sandys, of Ombersley in Worcestershire, who in 1661 obtained extensive powers to cut new channels, and build locks on the Wye and the Lugg. More extensive plans were floating in the minds of Francis Mathew and Andrew Yarranton.*
* The Opening of Rivers for Navigation, etc., by Francis Mathew, 1655. A Mediterranean Passage by Water , from London to Bristol, etc., by Francis Mathew, 1670. England's Improvement by Sea and Land., by Andrew Yarranton Gent. 1677,
Mathew in 1655 had laid before Cromwell a scheme for connecting London with Bristol, by the construction of a canal to join the Thames and the Avon. No notice seems to have been taken of the plan. Nor was his project more successful fifteen years later. "Many Lords and Gentlemen," says Yarranton, "were ingaged in it. . . . But some foolish Discourse at Coffeehouses laid asleep that design as being a thing impossible and impracticable." Yarranton himself proposed to make Banbury a great distributing centre by connecting it with the Severn and the Thames. At an estimated cost of £10,000, he planned to make the Cherwell navigable from Oxford to Banbury, and to cut a new channel from the latter place to Shipton-on-the-Stour, whence goods might be carried by the Avon into the Severn below Tewkesbury. Both writers insist on the extreme isolation of inland districts, the need of supplying food to manufacturing centres, the prohibitive cost of conveying heavy goods by land, and the impassable nature of the roads for wheeled traffic.
In canal construction England lagged far behind foreign countries, though useful work continued to be done in making existing rivers navigable. Thus the clothiers of Leeds and Wakefield found new and cheaper markets when communication with Hull by the Aire and the Calder was opened up in 1699; Preston gained its opportunity for manufacturing development when the Douglas (1720) carried Wigan coal to the Ribble; the connection of Sheffield with the Humber by means of the Don (1732) gave a fresh impulse to the cutlery trade. But rivers were unsatisfactory as carriers of goods. Subject to flood or drought, constantly liable to become choked, tortuous in their course, they were also limited in their range and left large districts untouched. If waterways were to be made efficient means of carriage, they must be permanently supplied with water, subject neither to deficiency nor excess, capable of being carried over or through natural obstacles in any direction required.
In 1755 the Sankey Brook Canal brought the St. Helens coalfields into direct communication with Liverpool by means of a new channel, fed with a continuous supply of water, and provided with a system of locks which overcame the difficulties of the descent into the valley of the Mersey. This channel was the first true canal, as distinguished from straightening the courses of rivers. Before the work was completed, the Duke of Bridgwater obtained the sanction of the legislature (1759) for the famous canal which bears his name. Brindley's triumph was the real starting-point of the movement. He was the engineer of numerous similar works. The Mersey and Trent Canal, for example, joined Liverpool and Hull, and thus united the ports of the East and the West. Branches were thrown out, which gradually linked together Liverpool, London, Bristol, Birmingham, and Hull by water. The development of inland navigation which Brindley had begun was continued by Telford and others. The new means of transport powerfully influenced the progress of the industrial revolution. Between 1790 and 1794 alone, 81 Canal Acts were obtained, and a canal mania was started, which was only paralleled by the railway mania of the last century. By 1834 England had been covered with a network of more than 4000 miles of canals and navigable rivers.
To some extent the surface of the roads was saved by the substitution of water-carriage for the conveyance of heavy goods. But the development of canal traffic did not always improve internal communications. The increased carriage of heavy goods, such as coal, iron, timber, lime, stone, salt, and corn, to and from the wharves, destroyed the roads in the neighbourhood. To some extent this extraordinary traffic was carried on railways, laid down by the canal companies, as feeders to their trade. But the range was limited. It was plain that, if full advantage was to be taken of the new means of inland navigation, roads must be scientifically constructed to bear the increased traffic. In McAdam and Telford were found the exponents of this necessary science. The progress of enclosures also favoured road-improvement. So long as land lay unenclosed, travellers were allowed to deviate from the track to avoid the ruts worn by their predecessors. Thomas Mace (Profit, Conveniency, and Pleasure, to the Whole Nation, Being a Short Rational Discourse . . . concerning the Highways of England, 1675) a describes how land was "spoiled and trampled down in all wide roads where coaches and carts take liberty to pick and chuse for their best advantages." A century later, a Reporter contrasts the state of a district near Norwich in the last decade of the eighteenth century with its condition before 1760: "Thirty years ago," he says, "it was an extensive heath without either tree or shrub, only a sheep-walk to another farm. Such a number of carriages crossed it, that they would sometimes be a mile abreast of each other in search of the best track. Now there is an excellent turnpike road, enclosed on each side with a good quickset hedge, and the whole laid out in enclosures and cultivated in the Norfolk system in superior style." Instead of these common tracks, with their wide margins of deviation, enclosure Acts substituted defined and constructed roads. Not only was science needed for making new highways, but the existing machinery for maintaining those already in existence had broken down under the stress of modern needs.
Throughout the Middle Ages the great Roman roads were the main thoroughfares. Watling Street ran from Kent to Chester and York, branching northwards to Carlisle and Newcastle; the Fosse Way crossed England from Bath to Lincoln; Ermine Street led from London to Lincoln and thence to Doncaster and York; Icknield Street, more difficult to trace, swept inland from Norwich, passed through Dunstable, and ultimately reached Southampton. For centuries they required and received little repair owing to the solidity of their construction. A firm foundation of beaten earth was secured. On this were laid, first, large stones, often embedded in mortar; then a layer of small stones mixed with mortar; above these two layers, lime mixed with chalk and pounded brick, or with gravel, sand, and clay; and finally the paved surface.
Planned and built by the State, these Roman highways offered a striking contrast to the subsequent roads, which were laid out in haphazard fashion as need arose. The art of road-making was lost, or the cost beyond the reach of local effort. Unmetalled tracks crept along the edges of streams, which often afforded a better bottom than the ways themselves, or sought sound foothold for men and beasts across unenclosed land, or boldly kept on high ground to escape the bogs and quagmires. Gradually footways, horseways, and cartways were levelled by traffic across the plains or hollowed through the hills. Besides the highways between town and town, each manor had its by-roads, leading from the village to the open fields, the commons, the mill, or the church. The ordinary principle which governed the repair of thoroughfares was that they should be maintained by those who had the use of them. The duty of maintaining communication between market towns rested on the inhabitants of the parishes through which the roads passed; within the limits of chartered towns it fell on the townsmen, on whom rates or tolls were sometimes levied. Local by-roads within the boundaries of manors were repaired by the manorial tenantry as one of the conditions of their tenure, and they were bound to provide the necessary implements and labour. These obligations were respectively enforced by county or municipal authorities or manorial courts. But road repair did not entirely depend on the performance of legal liabilities. It was also enjoined as a religious duty. Travellers were classed with the sick and poor as objects of Christian charity. Indulgences were granted to offenders who gave their money or their labour for the construction or repair of roads and bridges. For the same object pious bequests were encouraged. Gifts of this kind occur as late as the sixteenth century, and in the reign of Edward VI. one of the enquiries made at the Visitations of Bishops was whether these bequests were administered according to the intentions of the donors.
For a short period during the reign of Edward I., road improvement had received some attention from Government. When new ports, like those of Sandwich and Hull, were constructed, care was taken to provide good approaches by land. An attempt was also made to safeguard the lives and property of travellers on the king's highway. Adjoining landowners were compelled by statute to clear all roads between market towns from trees and underwood to a space of 200 feet on either side. The object was not the preservation of the roads by the admission of light and air, but the destruction of the lurking places of robbers. If any crime of violence was committed on a highway not properly cleared, the adjoining owner was held responsible. But the energies of Edward's successors were absorbed in other directions than the maintenance of rural roads. As the fourteenth century advanced, the general burden of taxation and the scarcity of labour increased the growing neglect of public highways. Agricultural changes told in the same direction. So long as lay and ecclesiastical nobles, in order to consume the produce of their estates, had travelled from manor to manor with their retinues, household furniture, and utensils, they had been interested in the means of transit. Their visits ceased when their lands were let on lease. At the same time the decay of the manorial organisation facilitated the evasion by the tenants of duties which had ceased to be personally valuable to their lords. Roads, made at will, were repaired, or not, at pleasure; everybody's business was nobody's business; the parochial liability, like the manorial obligation, was rarely and unsystematically enforced. Highways fell deeper into decay, and their neglect was increased by the cessation of voluntary efforts, when services which mediaeval piety recognised as religious duties came to be regarded only as civil burdens.
The condition of the roads across the Weald of Kent, at the opening of the Tudor period, was probably no worse than that of highways in other districts. Yet they are described as "right deep and noyous," only to be used at "great pains, peril and jeopardy." The isolation of rural districts can hardly be pictured by the present generation. It restricted the agricultural use of the land, because the interchange of its products was difficult, and each district was compelled to grow its own corn. At the same time, it was recognised that, in the interests of expanding trade, the provision of better means of transit was necessary. The first general Act of Parliament applied to bridges and their approaches. Passed in 1530, the statute placed the county on the same footing with regard to bridges as that in which the parish already stood to highways. It directed justices of the peace to enquire into the conditions of bridges in their districts, to ascertain what persons were liable for their maintenance, or to levy a rate on the inhabitants for their repair and that of their approaches for 300 feet on either side. In 1555 another general Act was passed, dealing with the roads from market town to market town, which it describes as "verie noysome and tedious to travell in and dangerous to all Passengers and Carriages." It applied to the discharge of parochial liabilities the same methods by which manorial tenants had met their local obligations. Each parish was to elect two "honest persons " of the parish as "surveyors and orderers," for the repair of the roads within its boundaries by compulsory labour. Four days of eight hours each were appointed for the work, the parishioners providing carts, teams, implements, and labour, according to their means. Like other Tudor legislation, the Act failed in its administration. Though neglect to discharge the liability was punishable by fines, little effect was produced.
After the Restoration further efforts were made to improve facilities of communication. Stage, or long, waggons had begun in 1564 to ply between the metropolis and the principal towns in the provinces; private carriages were increasing; about 1645 stagecoaches were established. Travelling on wheels was recommended for its "admirable commodiousness," and many of those who thus traversed the roads to London were "persons of quality" who could make their influence felt. Some means, in addition to statute labour, was required to maintain the roads in repair for the increasing traffic. During the first ten years of the reign of Charles II. it seemed probable that this supplement would be provided by the development of highway rates, which had been introduced in 1656. Eventually a new auxiliary to statute labour was devised, which arrested the growth of rates, and prolonged the life of the old system by a century and a half. In 1663 the first Turnpike Trust was established on the Great North Road by the erection of toll-bars at Wadesmill, Caxton, and Stilton, and by the exaction of toll from those who used the highway. This portion of one of the principal roads in the country is described in the Act as "ruinous and almost impassable." The inhabitants of the adjoining parishes were too poor to put or keep the highway in repair, and though the Act did not relieve them from their liability, the tolls raised a fund towards the maintenance of the road. Other turnpike trusts were established on the same principle. Their creation was unpopular. Riots broke out, like those subsequently associated with the name of Rebecca in Wales; toll-bars were frequently pulled down and burned; and the opposition was only checked by an Act passed in the reign of George II. (1728) which made their destruction a felony. Turnpike Trusts multiplied rapidly, till in 1760 it was true to say that
"no cit, nor clown,
Can gratis see the country or the town."
Travelling still continued to be a peril. The number of patents that were taken out to prevent coaches from overturning is some evidence of the risk. Nor were the inventions always effective. They did not prevent George II. and his queen from being upset in 1730 near Parsons Green on their way into London. In October, 1736, the queen was advised to leave Kensington Palace for St James's, because the road was so "infamously bad" as to separate her from her Ministers by "an impassable gulf of mud." If travelling was so difficult for royal personages over roads in the neighbourhood of London, the perils of penetrating rural districts may be imagined. In the winter months carriage traffic was suspended. Only horsemen could make their way. Judges and lawyers rode the circuits, chasing John Doe and Richard Roe from assize town to assize town on horseback. Few Quarter Sessions passed without some district being "presented" for non-repair of roads, and heavy were the fines inflicted by bruised and shaken judges, who, thinking that the majesty of the law was ill-supported by top-boots, endeavoured to reach their destination in carriages.
Even after Turnpike Trusts were generally established, travelling still continued to be neither swift, nor easy, nor safe. Guide-posts were almost unknown, and the way was frequently lost. In the reign of Charles II., the stage had taken two days to reach Oxford from London, and the journey to Exeter occupied four days. A century later, the one stage-coach, which plied once a month between Edinburgh and London, accomplished the journey in from twelve to fourteen days. Family coaches, lumbering and jolting over the uneven roads, for steel springs were not applied to carriages before the middle of the eighteenth century, made twenty miles a day. They set out provisioned and armed as if for a siege. When Sir Francis Headpiece travelled to London, he carried with him in his coach "the family basket-hilt-sword, the Turkish scimetar, the old blunder-buss, a good bag of bullets, and a great horn of powder." Such precautions were not always effectual against a well-mounted highwayman, expert in the use of handier weapons; and the slow pace at which vehicles travelled, unless they were defended with determination, made them easy victims.
Off the frequented lines of communication, and often even on these, the condition of the eighteenth century roads, as has been shown in a previous chapter, rendered travelling in the winter months difficult, and sometimes, except for horsemen, impossible. But after 1760 a determined effort was made at improvement. Here and there some local genius, like "Blind Jack" Metcalf of Knaresborough, had already anticipated the methods of Telford and McAdam. In other parts of England, the turnpike trusts were placing portions of the highways in better repair. But the districts for which they were formed were often too small to be useful. Thus the main road from Shrewsbury to Bangor (85 miles) was in the care of six trusts, most of them in debt, all too poor to pay for skilled labour, and each too jealous of the others to co-operate. The multiplication of these turnpike trusts, though it often defeated its own object, affords strong evidence of the extent to which public attention had been called to the need for improved facilities of communication. Between 1760 and 1774 no less than 452 Turnpike Acts were passed, and in the sixteen years from 1785 to 1800 this number was increased by 643. Two General Highway Acts were passed in 1773 which consolidated the previous legislation on the subject of parochial liability for road repair, transferred the appointment of surveyors to the justices of the peace out of lists of names submitted by each parish, allowed the compulsory statute labour for six days to be commuted by money payments, and authorised the levy of a rate, not exceeding 6d. in the pound, for the provision of road materials. In 1784 Palmer organised the service of mail-coaches. But letters were often still left at inns on main thoroughfares, where they remained in the bar till the ink had faded and the wrapper had turned the colour of saffron. The arrival of the pedlar was still eagerly expected in country villages, where he did not always appear as the philosophical enthusiast of the poet's licence. Rather he was the milliner of rural beauties, the arbiter of fashion to village bucks, the newsagent of the alehouse politician, the retailer of the most recent gossip, the vendor of smuggled tea, the purveyor of the latest amorous ditty. He was typical of the times when villages were isolated, self-sufficing, dependent on his summer and winter circuits for their knowledge of the world beyond the parish boundaries.
Both Young and Marshall note the improvement which was made during the last quarter of the eighteenth century in the roads of certain districts. Yet their writings, as well as the reports to the Board of Agriculture (1793-1815), afford abundant evidence that elsewhere much remained to be done. For the slow progress made there were many reasons. Country gentlemen used the same arguments against new roads which were afterwards employed against railways. "Merry England" would be merry no longer if her highways ceased to be miry. They dreaded the disturbance of their game, feared the intrusion of town manners, resented the sacrifice of their interests to those of wealthy traders. As magistrates they were reluctant to enforce the law of road-repair against their own tenants. Statute labour was deservedly unpopular. Surveyors, forced into office against their will, only called upon their neighbours to fulfil their liabilities as a last resource, and at seasons when agricultural work was slack. Urban and rural interests were opposed. Market towns might demand metalled roads for the transport of their merchandise; but self-sufficing villages were content with the driftways which were sufficient to enable them to house their crops, and to drag their flour from the mill through the same ruts which their ancestors had worn. Even when a parish was active in road-repair, its energies were generally misdirected. Roads were unguarded at the sides. Drainage was often provided by cutting open grips across their surface. If any convexity was attempted, it was so exaggerated as to be dangerous; the sides sloped like the roof of a house. Hence the whole traffic fell on the centre, which soon wore into ruts. Many roads were undrainable, because the continual scraping of mud from the surface had sunk them below the level of the adjoining land. Hence they were always wet, and, from the rapid decay of material, expensive to maintain. Where a parish was apathetic, the least possible mending was done in the worst possible way. A faggot, or a bundle of broom or heather, powdered with gravel, served to stop a bad hole; if beyond repair by such means, mud, scraped from the sides of the roads and ditches, was thrown on the centre of the road, and into this bed was shot a cartload of large unbroken stones. Not infrequently the road material, raised and carted at the parish expense, missed its destination, and made good, not the road, but the gateways or the yard of some neighbouring farmer.
The system of road maintenance was proving inadequate for modern requirements. Responsibility ceased at the parish boundaries, and no uniformity was possible. The statute labour was everywhere enforced with difficulty. It was also exhausted at one particular season, and nothing more was done till the period recurred. It was a system of occasional outlay without continuous repair. Surveyors were not appointed for their skill, but were compelled to serve against their will. The experience which they gained in their twelve months' service was wasted by their retirement at the end of the year when their successors were appointed. Already in France, Pierre de Trésaguet (1716-74) had set an example to European countries, laid down the principles of the construction of broken-stone roads, organised his corps of day-labourers, and substituted the principle of continuous upkeep for that of periodic repair. Already both Ireland and Scotland had gained a lead over England in the matter of road improvement. In Ireland statute labour was abolished in 1765, and road-making entrusted to the County Grand Juries. Arthur Young says (in Tour in Ireland, part ii, p. 40) that before the Act was passed, Irish roads, "like those of England, remained impassable under the miserable police of the six days' labour; . . . now the effect in all parts of the Kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable to travel upon wheels by a map. I will go here, I will go there; I could trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate; and everywhere I found beautiful roads, without break or hindrance, to enable me to realise my design." In Scotland, in 1803, Commissioners were appointed for making roads in the Highlands. The expense was defrayed in equal portions by grants from Parliament and local contributions; the assistance of Telford was secured, and more than 900 miles of good roads were constructed.
England, however, still lagged behind. Various alterations in the law were proposed and discussed. It was suggested that the labour service should be commuted for a money payment, and that, even if only a quarter of the equivalent were obtained in money, the roads would gain. On the other hand, it was said that commutation would be certainly unpopular with farmers, who would regard the pecuniary liability as a new tag. It was urged that large districts should be formed by uniting a number of parishes; that surveyors should be appointed for their knowledge of road-making, and should be paid salaries; or that, as Mace had suggested in 1675, "daymen" should be continuously employed upon the roads at weekly wages. It was not, however, till twenty years after the peace of 1815 that any substantial legislative changes were made. Before that time the science and practice, as well as the expense, of road-making and repair had made considerable advance. From 1811 onwards Parliamentary Committees sat almost continuously to hear evidence and to report. It was gradually realised that the construction of a good road required an unusual combination of practical and scientific knowledge, and that the task was not only above the abilities of inexperienced surveyors, but beyond the means of the inhabitants of an ordinary parish. Public money was voted for the improvement of national highways, and the services of the most celebrated engineer of the day were enlisted in the work. Telford in 1814 was employed to make good the road from Glasgow to Carlisle and in the following year to reconstruct the road from Shrewsbury to Holyhead. In his opinion and practice, it was necessary to make a regular bottoming of rough close-set pavement, on which a hard, smooth, inelastic surface could be laid, so as to minimise the labour of traction by offering the least resistance. The rival system was advocated by McAdam. To him the "Telford pavement" seemed unnecessary for the preparation of a suitable surface. In his view an elastic subsoil was even superior to a solid foundation; he preferred a bog to a rock, provided that the bog was sufficiently solid to bear a man's weight. As Surveyor-General of the Bristol roads (1815), he was already putting his theories into practice on an extensive scale. His practical success, his evidence before Parliamentary Committees, and his skill with the pen (A Practical Essay of the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Public Roads, 1819; Remarks on the Present System of Road-making, 1820, 5th edition 1822). persuaded the English public of the soundness of his theory. But the battle was hotly contested, and the very heat of the controversy served a useful purpose. It kept the improvement of English roads prominently before the public. Scientific opinion, here and abroad, was on the side of Telford; but McAdam was the popular favourite. In 1827 he was appointed Surveyor-General of roads in Great Britain. His influence was paramount, and men, in their gratitude for the unwonted luxury of safe and smooth travelling in fast coaches, were not disposed to criticise too closely the scientific principles of the road magician.
Turnpike tolls provided some of the cost of road maintenance, and served as auxiliaries to statute labour. For a time they satisfied the urgency of the need. But the heavy interest on the loans raised by the turnpike trustees, the excessive cost of management, the profits exacted by those who farmed the tolls, left, at the best, small margins for road expenditure. To increase the income, toll-bars were multiplied or scales of payment raised. The inequality of the burden was strongly felt. In one district, five tolls might be paid in twelve miles; in another, thirty might be travelled without a single payment. The financial chaos of the trusts, as well as the inadequacy of the statute labour, gave a fresh impulse to the ultimate triumph of the rival principle of a rate. Already Justices in Quarter Sessions had been empowered to levy a rate, assessed on the principle of the poor-rate, for general purposes of highway maintenance when other means proved insufficient, for the purchase of road material, and to buy land for the widening of highways. Already also the liability for statute labour might be compounded by the payment of a money equivalent. In 1835 these principles were extended by an Act which abolished statute labour and substituted highway rates for the maintenance of all minor roads. The abolition of statute labour was a severe loss to the turnpike trusts, to whom the legislature still looked for the repair of important highways. In 1839, four years after the passing of the Highway Act, a Select Committee reported that in some instances the creditors of turnpike trusts had seized the tolls to secure payment of the interest on their mortgages, and that nothing was available from that source for road-repair. The development of railways struck the trusts another blow, for the decay of the coaching-traffic deprived them of one of the chief sources of their revenue. Their financial position went from bad to worse. Drastic action was needed. The powers of the Home Office to refuse the renewal of Turnpike Acts were in 1864 transferred to a Select Committee of the House of Commons. The new authority acted with vigour. Roads were dis-turnpiked at the average rate of 1,500 miles a year.
The extinction of turnpike trusts threw upon local ratepayers a heavy burden. Their existence had not relieved the parish from its old liability: their removal revived that liability in the form of increased rates. In rare instances, individuals were liable by tenure or prescription for the repair of portions of public roads. But, speaking generally, the parish was always responsible for the maintenance of the highways within its area. For a time, turnpike roads had been partly maintained by the tolls which the trustees were authorised to raise. Yet whenever the trusts neglected their work, became bankrupt, or were extinguished, it was the inhabitants of the parish, not the trustees, who were subject to indictment for failure to maintain the roads. Tolls were subsidiary to local labour and local rates ; they were substitutes for neither. Now that they were withdrawn, the whole burden fell on the locality. Some relief was urgently needed. In order to distribute the burden more equitably, the parishes were grouped into Highway Districts. Within each area the cost was equalised. But parochial districts remained responsible for the maintenance of roads within their areas, legally liable for the extra burden if the expense was disproportionately heavy, legally entitled to the special benefit if the cost was disproportionately light. Further relief to local ratepayers was required. It came in the form of excepting main roads from the general law of district liability. Under the Highways and Locomotives Acts Amendment Act, 1878, the turnpike roads, whose trusts had been dissolved, were made main roads, and half the cost of their maintenance was transferred to the county authority, then Quarter Sessions. The remainder of the liability for the repair of main roads still rested on the parochial districts, a grant-in-aid being made by the Government. Under the Local Government Act, 1888, the County Council became the county authority, and parochial districts were relieved of the remaining half of their liability for the maintenance of main roads, wherever situated, and the cost of their upkeep was transferred to the county generally. But under the Public Health Act, 1875, the urban authorities were already responsible for the maintenance of highways within their areas. The effect of the two Acts of 1875 and 1888 was that urban authorities might elect either to maintain the main roads within their area themselves, or to call upon the County Council to do the work. If they elected to maintain the roads themselves, the measure of the County Council's liability was a contribution towards the cost properly incurred in the maintenance and reasonable improvement of the main roads within the area.