James Green (1781–1849) was a noted civil engineer and

canal Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...

engineer, who was particularly active in the South West of England, where he pioneered the building of

tub boat A tub boat was a type of unpowered cargo boat used on a number of the early English and German canals. The English boats were typically long and wide and generally carried to of cargo, though some extra deep ones could carry up to . They a ...

canals, and inventive solutions for coping with hilly terrain, which included

tub boat lift A tub boat lift is a type of boat lift designed to lift tub boats between different elevations of a canal. Tub boats are small boats used to transport coal and other minerals, sometimes working singly, sometimes in long trains. A tub boat lift (g ...

s and

inclined planes An inclined plane, also known as a ramp, is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle from the vertical direction, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. The inclined plane is one of the six clas ...

. Although dismissed from two schemes within days of each other, as a result of construction problems, his contribution as a civil engineer was great.

Early career

James Green was born in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, the son of an engineering family. He learned much from his father, by whom he was employed until the age of 20. He then worked with John Rennie on a number of projects around the country, until 1808, when he moved to

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, and established a base at

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

. He submitted plans for the rebuilding of Fenny Bridges, in East Devon, which had collapsed only 18 months after their previous reconstruction. The plans were accepted, and Green became the Bridge Surveyor for the County of Devon. By 1818 he had been promoted to Surveyor of Bridges and Buildings for the county, and held this position until 1841. These official duties did not prevent him from involvement in many private projects.Helen Harris (1996) ''The Grand Western Canal'', Devon Books, His initial involvement with canals in the

West Country The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucesters ...

included his appointment as engineer for the Braunton Canal and drainage schemeClare Manning, (2007), ''Braunton Marsh Management Scheme'', Taw Torridge Estuary Forum
and the Exeter and Crediton Canal. This project, which started in 1810, was abandoned in its early stages and was never completed. He was also involved with extending and enlarging the

Exeter Ship Canal The Exeter Ship Canal, also known as the Exeter Canal is a canal leading from (and beside) the River Exe to Exeter Quay in the city of Exeter, Devon, England. It was first constructed in the 1560s predating the "canal mania" period and is one o ...

, a project which started in 1820 and lasted for seven years.

Tub boats and inclined planes

James Green brought his own individual style to canal building. He was faced with the engineering problems of building canals in hilly terrain, where the water supply was limited. His solution was to advocate the use of

s, which were fairly small and capable of transporting between five and eight tons of goods, and rather than using conventional

locks Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

to alter the level of the canal, advocated the use of vertical lifts and

The Bude Canal

The first project that used this approach was the Bude Canal, for which he presented a report in 1818, and then acted as engineer from 1819 to 1825. The plans included three conventional

and six inclined planes. Five of the planes were powered by

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with a number of blades or buckets ...

s, which were located near the top of the planes. The sixth one, at Hobbacott, was long and raised the canal by . It was powered by a system of buckets which descended and ascended in a pair of wells. Each bucket was capable of holding 15 tons of water, and they were attached to either end of a chain, which passed over a drum. The buckets were arranged so that when one was at the top of its well, the other was at the bottom. The top bucket was charged with water, and its weight then caused it to descend, raising the other bucket and a tub boat at the same time. When it reached the bottom, the water was automatically discharged, and ran along an

adit An adit (from Latin ''aditus'', entrance) is an entrance to an underground mine which is horizontal or nearly horizontal, by which the mine can be entered, drained of water, ventilated, and minerals extracted at the lowest convenient level. Adits ...

to empty into the bottom level of the canal. The process was quick and efficient, raising a tub boat in about four minutes, which was half the time required when the standby

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

had to be used. Green took his inspiration for the methods of operating the planes from the work of

Robert Fulton Robert Fulton (November 14, 1765 – February 24, 1815) was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the world's first commercially successful steamboat, the (also known as ''Clermont''). In 1807, that steamboat ...

, but brought his own engineering skills to make a workable system.

The Rolle Canal

Before working on the Bude Canal Green had been invited by Denys,

Baron Rolle Baron Rolle was a title created twice in the Peerage of Great Britain for members of the Rolle family, related as uncle and nephew. History This family was established at the manor of Stevenstone in Devon in the 16th century. In the 17th centu ...

to draw up plans for a canal from

Bideford Bideford ( ) is a historic port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is the main town of the Torridge local government district. Toponymy In ancient records Bideford is recorded as ''Bedeford'', ''By ...

to Torrington. He presented his report in 1810 but it was not until 1823 that construction commenced with Green as the engineer. As at Bude, the canal was designed for tub boat operation with a single, double track, inclined plane powered by a

. The other notable feature was a five arch aqueduct carrying the canal across the River Torridge. The canal opened in 1827 with principal cargo being limestone and coal, both shipped from South Wales. These were processed in the

limekilns Limekilns is a village in Fife, Scotland. It lies on the shore of the Firth of Forth, around south of Dunfermline. History and economy Unlike the neighbouring village of Charlestown, Limekilns is an old settlement dating back to the 14th cen ...

built, also by Green, at the head of navigation in

Great Torrington Great Torrington (often abbreviated to Torrington, though the villages of Little Torrington and Black Torrington are situated in the same region) is a market town in Devon, England. Parts of it are sited on high ground with steep drops down to ...

. The canal continued in use until 1871 when much of its course was converted to railway use. The sea-lock at

can still be seen and the aqueduct now carries the drive to

Beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

House.

The Grand Western Canal

Green's next assignment was more ambitious. He was engineer for the Somerset section of the Grand Western Canal. The

section had been built as part of a proposed scheme to link the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...

, but the scheme had foundered due to lack of finances, and the section near Tiverton was isolated, with the link to

Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...

never having been built. In 1829, Green again proposed a tub-boat canal with inclined planes, but by 1830, this had been altered to seven vertical

boat lift A boat lift, ship lift, or lift lock is a machine for transporting boats between water at two different elevations, and is an alternative to the canal lock. It may be vertically moving, like the Anderton boat lift in England, rotational, like ...

s and one inclined plane. Green acknowledged the ideas of Dr James Anderson of Edinburgh, who had proposed vertical boat lifts in 1796, but also noted that the proposals required interpretation to make them workable. Various prototypes had been built around the country, but none had proved successful. There were delays in the commissioning of the boat lifts, as Green struggled with the engineering problems. The lift consisted of two chambers, each holding a caisson, which was joined to the other by chains which passed over a series of wheels. Since a boat displaces its own weight of water, a caisson with a boat in it balances one with no boat in it. To make the system work, the top caisson was filled with about of water more than the bottom one, and motion was provided by the extra weight of water, which was about a ton. The difficulties arose when the descending caisson reached the water in the bottom chamber. Anderson had suggested that the water level should be lower than the level of the canal, so that the caisson could sink low enough for the boat to float out. Green had not implemented this, and ultimately the problem was solved by constructing what amounted to a lock at the bottom, so that the boat floated out into the lock and descended the last as it would in a conventional lock. The inclined plane was more problematical. Green seems to have made an error in calculation, which resulted in the buckets being much too small. On the Bude Canal, he had used a 15-ton bucket to raise a five-ton boat. Here he had designed a 10-ton bucket, and the loaded boats weighed about 8 tons. Commissioning tests indicated that a bucket capable of holding 25 tons of water would be needed, but the shafts were not big enough. The novel power source had to be abandoned, to be replaced by a

. Green was dismissed in January 1836.

The Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal

Green was also involved in the extension of the

Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal The Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal was a canal and tramroad system in Carmarthenshire, Wales, built to carry anthracite coal to the coast for onward transportation by coastal ships. It began life as Kymer's Canal in 1766, which linked pits at Pw ...

from 1833. Once again, he advocated a tub-boat canal, this time with three inclined planes: two twin-track inclines, which were counterbalanced, and a third, single-track incline, which required power. Ultimately, the power was supplied by a

, but Green had to admit that he could not complete the inclines, as he had underestimated the cost of their construction by a huge margin. He was dismissed from the project on 30 January 1836, just three days after his dismissal from the Grand Western project.Raymond Bowen (2001) ''The Burry Port & Gwendreath Valley Railway and its Antecedent Canals'', Oakwood Press,

Final Days

The Grand Western and the Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal were the last canal projects that Green was involved in. He remained a prominent engineer, acting as a consultant for the

Bristol Docks Bristol Harbour is the harbour in the city of Bristol, England. The harbour covers an area of . It is the former natural tidal river Avon through the city but was made into its current form in 1809 when the tide was prevented from going out per ...

and the

Newport Docks Newport Docks is the collective name for a group of docks in the city of Newport, south-east Wales. By the eighteenth century there were a number of wharves on the west shore of the River Usk; iron and coal were the principal outward traffic. Th ...

, and working on the South Devon Railway. He remained responsible for hundreds of structures in Devon until he was 60, and died, aged 68, in 1849. At the time of his death his son Joseph D. Green was resident engineer at Bristol docks. Green had a prodigious workload for much of his career as an engineer, and it is not surprising that some mistakes were made. Nevertheless, he made a huge contribution to civil engineering in

South West England South West England, or the South West of England, is one of nine official regions of England. It consists of the counties of Bristol, Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly), Dorset, Devon, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire. Cities and ...

References

The Canals of South West England, David And Charles 1967 {{DEFAULTSORT:Green, James 1781 births 1849 deaths English canal engineers Engineers from the West Midlands (county)