1716 - 1772

James Brindley was born in Tunstead, Derbyshire in 1716, but they were not a Derbyshire family but one with  long Staffordshire associations. The family moved to Leek in 1726 when James was aged 10, and it was then that he started showing an interest in mechanical work and visited local corn mills to gratify this interest. It was then, with a strong sense of vocation that he determined to take up the trade of millwright, and in 1733 aged 17 he entered into a 7 year apprenticeship with Abraham Bennett, a millwright and wheelwright of Sutton, near Macclesfield. This job involved the making of windmills and watermills, wagons and carts, using primarily wood, but also the trade of the blacksmith, stonemason, or bricklayer in the construction of mills, dams and sluices etc. In the construction of watermills, the job called for an appreciation of local topography and the ability to take accurate levels and understand earthworks as well as the use of the science of hydraulics, in the working out of waterflow and the potential energy that was available at the site. While James was working there he proved his mechanical skill and ingenuity and was left in principal charge of the 'shop' until the death of his employer, which at that time moved back to his home town of Leek in Staffordshire in 1742.
When he returned home, James set up business on his own as a millwright, but even though he built on his good  reputation, work was too slow for an ambitious young man and he set his sights on the Potteries where the Industrial Revolution had begun to gather momentum. He rented a workshop from the Wedgewood family and expanded his business. James's outstanding wok in the Potteries area soon brought him to the attention of Earl Gower of Trentham, who with other promoters, employed him to make a survey of a proposed waterway to link the seaport of Liverpool and the Mersey with the Potteries, but this was not commenced untill 1766.
Brindley's activities as a canal engineer brought him to the notice of the Duke of Bridgewater (The Duke was the brother in law of Lord Gower), who was anxious to construct a waterway from Worsley to Manchester, and what followed, The Bridgewater Canal is still there to be seen to this very day.
Canals that were surveyed and laid out by Brindley along with the Trent and Mersey Canal, The Bridgewater Canal are the Coventry, Oxford, Birmingham, Staffordshire and Worcestershire, Chesterfield, Droitwich, Chester, Bradford, and Huddersfield Broad canals.