The Society’s annual Clinker Memorial Lecture was given on Saturday 23rd October. The subject was ‘John Smeaton and the Calder Navigation’.

A video recording of the event may be viewed via the link: 2021 Clinker Lecture.

The speakers, Shirley Levon and Lesley Taylor have recently edited for the Wakefield Historical Society the engineer’s journal of his work on the navigation up the Calder Valley towards Halifax and are thus well qualified to give insights into eighteenth century construction management and the many problems that were encountered in the hugely ambitious scheme for this volatile Pennine river.

Fresh from his acclaimed work on the Eddystone Lighthouse, John Smeaton was employed by the Calder Navigation Commissioners to superintend and construct a navigation beyond Wakefield up the Calder valley towards Halifax. His detailed journal of this work from 1760 to 1763 has been fully transcribed by the speakers and included in their book ‘John Smeaton and the Calder Navigation’ published by the Wakefield Historical Society. It describes the construction of the cuts, locks and weirs as work continued from Wakefield through Horbury, Dewsbury, Mirfield and Brighouse. The story is peopled by merchants and aristocrats, surveyors and engineers, suppliers and contractors, craftsmen and labourers. There are conflicts between interest groups, disappointments in Parliament, and many delays. The practical requirements are also brought into sharp focus: the planning, negotiating and financing, and the sourcing of materials and equipment as the work began.