BCN Branches and Byeways
by Ray Shill
11. Pickfords, Wolverhampton Wharf
The Firm of Pickfords began as road carriers that speacialised in conveying goods between Manchester and London. They were pioneers in various improvements to road carrying including the introduction of the Fly-Waggon that covered the distance by road between Manchester and London in 4 1/2 days. In 1814 they introduced the Fly-Van that shortened delivery time from Manchester to London to 36 hours.
To many canal enthusiasts, the name of Pickfords is asociated with canal carrying in a time before railways. Pickfords entered this trade in 1779 and gradually increased the number of their boats as the canal network expanded. With the completion of the Tame Aqueduct and the canal between Fradley and Atherstone Pickfords Boats reached Coventry and following in their success of Fly Waggons started Fly Boats to Coventry. As elements of the Grand Junction Canal were finished Pickfords Fly Boats carried as far as Blisworth with road carriage to London.
The final piece of the Grand Junction Canal navigation was put into place in 1805 with the opening of Blisworth Tunnel and Pickfords fly boats made the journey to Paddington Basin. Their business was on the increase. They operated fly waggons through Leicester to Derby and the Macclesfield for Liverpool and Manchester. Some wagons also went by way of Nottingham, Mansfield and Sheffield to Manchester. On the canals their route was via the Grand Junction, Oxford, Coventry, Trent and Mersey to Bridgewater where they either went to Runcord (for Liverpool) or onto Castlefields in Manchester.
With the cessation of the Burton Boat Company trade, Pickfords gained a foothold in Birmingham with take over with the former Burton Company Wharf at Love Lane. Pickfords also gained a wharf at Wolverhampton that had formerly been occupied by the bankrupt London Carrier, Henry Weeks. They also started to carry to Derby when they acquired a private wharf at Siddals Lane.
Once the Old Grand Union was opened from Norton Junction to Foxton, in 1814, Pickfords built up another important route through Leicester and boats called at their West Bridge depot alongside the Soar south of the bridge.
With the final completion of the Worcester & Birmingham in 1815, Pickfords set up depots at Wocester and formed associations with River Severn carriers to take their goods to Bristol. During the 1820's Pickfords improved their East Midlands trade with a canal side depot at Lean Bridge Nottingham and a river trade through to Gainsborough.
Further canal expansion included the making of the Macclesfield Canal and with it a new route to Manchester (via the Peak Forest Canal) and Huddersfield. By 1832 Pickford's canal empire was perhaps at its most extensive, however with the prospect of a public railway system on the horizon. Pickfords management decided that railway carrying was a new market and started to look at the potential business opportunities.
Pickfords, the company had come close to bankruptcy, but received new funds when the former family firm were taken over by a group of business's headed by Joseph Baxendale. It was the Baxendales that grasped the nettle and took carrying to the railways. Baxendale himself even became superintendent for the London & Birmingham Railway.
According to one recent waterways world article Pickfords ceased carrying on the canals with the development of the British Railway system handing over much of their canal fleet to another carrier.
In reality Pickfords did dispose of their London trade to the Grand Junction Canal Carrying Company,a feat that Canal manager, Mr Bryan Paget Gregson deserves a certain credit. B.P. Gregson's brief leave of absence from his home and place of work during 1847, 1848 and 1849 enabled the setting up for the Grand Junction Canal Company a formidable carrying organisation that absorbed the fleets of a number of West Midland and East Midlands carriers and gave the Grand Junction Canal Carrying Company depots in Birmingham, Dudley and Wolverhampton on the BCN. But Pickfords did retain certain West Midlands Boatage services, carriage on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal and a depot at Nottingham and Gainsborough.
Another canal carrying merger on midland waterways came with the acquisitions made by the Duke of Bridgewaters Trustees whose canal carrying expansion began first with the Anderton Carrying Company and then, in 1849, the fleets of the North Staffordshire Railway whose nucleus had been acquired from Shiptons and Co, Wolverhampton cariers in 1847. The Duke of Bridgewater made Albion Wharf their West Midlands headquarters and installed Thomas Bantock as agent. A third new Carrying force was developing under the bsnner of the Shropshire Union roads. But with railway mergers a number of seperate local railway companies were brought together to form the London and North Western Railway and the Midland Railway.
These were essentially the core of the early carrying between London through the Midlands to the North. These concerns now preferred to carry goods on their own account and this system became the standard for British Railways thereafter.
The firm of Pickfords however continued to prosper by diversity. They concentrated in supplying cartage to and from the railway stations and together with competitors Chaplin and Horne became the principal cartage suppliers in the country.
In the West Midlands Pickfords retained their Worcester & Birmingham trade for a time and kept a warehouse at Bridge Street in Birmingham through to the end of the 1860's. Boatage services lasted longer. The BCN and associated waterways had a number of railway interchangw basins. Such was the nature of industry that many factories, ironworks and blast furnaces were located at a distance from the nearest railway, but had access to a navigable waterway. Three railway companies, the Great Western, Midland and London & North Western came to operate local railway and canal interchange facilities.
Each made their own carrying arrangements. The Great Western used the services of Thomas Railway and Canal Company with local agent William Bishton effectively in charge of finding boats and horses.
Seemingly Pickfords role in the area was diminished. Between 1838 and 1848 Pickfords had pursued every aspect of railway business and carried merchandised along various railways in a similar fashion that they had done on the canals and Bantock, who had ceased to be agent for the Bridgewater Trustees in 1857 and went onto to be the Great Western boatage and cartage agent. The Midland chose to use their own boats, whilst the London & North Western made agreements with Crowley and Pickfords for boatage services.
The origins of Pickfords warehouse may go back as far as 1774, when Roger Eykin completed a warehouse on the BCN and near the turnpike bridge for the road leading through Walsall to Lichfield. This wharf was served by Russell and Co, Talbot and Co and Walls Boats that worked from Birmingham to Stourport.
Henry Weeks announced that he had taken a wharf in Walsall Street during 1804. Weeks was a London based carrier whose boats navigated the Grand Junction Canal from Paddington. At this time the navigation was not complete and goods had to be transhipped along a railway that went over the hill at Blisworth. Week's boats first went to Birmingham, in 1803, but gradually their routws increased and by 1806 included services to Liverpool and Manchester before Henry Weeks faced bankruptcy and disposed of his boats.
Walsall Street Wharf then passed to Pickfords. Wolverhampton remained Pickfords base in the West Midlands. In the days of canal carrying this depot acted as a road and canal interchange point for wagon transfer to Bridgenorth, Wellington and Shrewsbury. The role changed with the coming of the railways. The basin and wharf was maintained for the boatage and cartage trade, although part of the wharf was leased off to a succession od coal merchants. There were stables here, a blacksmith and provender store.
Pickfords kept the Walsall Street depot through to the early 1900's when they gave up the railway cartage and boatage trade.
