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Canal & Railway Investment

The Leveson-Gower family exerted a powerful influence over the development of inland transport in Britain during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Correspondence surviving in the Sutherland Papers from 1720 reflects Sir John Leveson-Gower (1694-1754), Earl Gower’s involvement in the development of navigable waterways in the early eighteenth century. Later in the 1750s the Leveson-Gower family were instrumental in the development of canal networks, involved with the civil engineer James Brindley (1716-1772) and Francis Egerton the third Duke of Bridgewater (1736-1803). A number of canal plans produced by Brindley in the 1760s can be found amongst the vast collection of maps and plans in the Sutherland Papers.

Much correspondence survives in the Sutherland Papers relating to George Granville Leveson-Gower (1758-1833), the first Duke of Sutherland’s investment in railways in the 1820s. James Loch, the Chief Agent on the Sutherland estates, worked alongside the leading engineers and politicians of the day, including Thomas Telford, George Stephenson and William Huskisson, to ensure that the Leveson-Gower family benefited from and influenced developments in transport and industry throughout the nineteenth century. The Sutherland Papers contain a fascinating collection of letters providing a vivid insight into the struggle between canals and railways in the early nineteenth century.