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John Hore
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John Hore
John Hore (baptised 13 March 1680 – 12 April 1763) was an English engineer, best known for making the River Kennet and River Avon navigable. Hore was one of the earliest English canal engineers, and Sir Alec Skempton wrote that he was "in the first rank among the navigation engineers". The Hutchinson Chronology of World History described his work on the Kennet navigation as "[setting] a new standard for inland waterways, and is an important forerunner of the canals of the Industrial Revolution".
Hore's date of birth is disputed; some sources give his year of birth as 1690, although it is likely he is the same John Hore who was baptised in Thatcham, Berkshire in March 1680. Hore's father, also named John, was possibly a yeoman in Thatcham who became a joint proprietor of the River Kennet, though the family were established and prosperous maltsters in the Newbury area. Hore's mother was Frances. Hore married Hannah Hedges in Thatcham on 25 September 1701.
Hore was recorded as working as a millwright, possibly in relation to the family business. In 1718, however, he was appointed to survey and engineer the River Kennet to make it navigable from Reading to Newbury.
The 23-mile (37 km) section of river from Reading to Newbury has a gradient of 66 inches per mile (1.1 metres per kilometre), thus requiring locks to traverse the terrain. The Kennet Navigation Act (1715) had allowed construction to begin, although straight away the navigation proprietors saw huge expense in employing "unskillful person[s]"; ten locks were built at mills on the stretch of river but the severe lack of engineering experience meant the quality of the work undertaken was poor and it progressed at an unacceptable rate, thus Hore was appointed engineer and surveyor. It is likely that Hore's father, as a proprietor of the waterway, had a hand in arranging his son's employment on the project.
Hore recognised the inappropriate nature of this solution, proposing more locks and artificial cuttings to be dug. He was subsequently employed on a salary equivalent to £12,000 in 2023 plus expenses, with a responsibility of delivering 18.5 miles (29.8 km) of navigable waterways, 11 miles (18 km) of which would be new cuttings.
Work on the navigation began in 1719, although local opposition the following year threatened works—Mayor of Reading Robert Blake led a 300-strong mob along with the town's recorder to Burghfield where the construction was damaged; Blake owned a wharf near the junction of the Kennet and River Thames, and feared that his trade would be adversely affected by a new waterway. Further setbacks came the following winter, when extraordinary floods damaged the works. In March 1721, an extension to the original timescale was granted. The following July, Hore reported that good progress was being made:
Sheffield and Widmead Cutts are opened, and the two large boats employed raising Colthorp Bank, the dams are made, the screw fixed, and great part of the lock at Aldermaston. I hope next week to begin at Padworth. The locks at Fobney and Southcote are framed, as are the timber work for the two brick locks to be placed in Padworth field except the gates which must be those from the Old Locks when taken up and altered.
— John Hore, July 1721
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John Hore
John Hore (baptised 13 March 1680 – 12 April 1763) was an English engineer, best known for making the River Kennet and River Avon navigable. Hore was one of the earliest English canal engineers, and Sir Alec Skempton wrote that he was "in the first rank among the navigation engineers". The Hutchinson Chronology of World History described his work on the Kennet navigation as "[setting] a new standard for inland waterways, and is an important forerunner of the canals of the Industrial Revolution".
Hore's date of birth is disputed; some sources give his year of birth as 1690, although it is likely he is the same John Hore who was baptised in Thatcham, Berkshire in March 1680. Hore's father, also named John, was possibly a yeoman in Thatcham who became a joint proprietor of the River Kennet, though the family were established and prosperous maltsters in the Newbury area. Hore's mother was Frances. Hore married Hannah Hedges in Thatcham on 25 September 1701.
Hore was recorded as working as a millwright, possibly in relation to the family business. In 1718, however, he was appointed to survey and engineer the River Kennet to make it navigable from Reading to Newbury.
The 23-mile (37 km) section of river from Reading to Newbury has a gradient of 66 inches per mile (1.1 metres per kilometre), thus requiring locks to traverse the terrain. The Kennet Navigation Act (1715) had allowed construction to begin, although straight away the navigation proprietors saw huge expense in employing "unskillful person[s]"; ten locks were built at mills on the stretch of river but the severe lack of engineering experience meant the quality of the work undertaken was poor and it progressed at an unacceptable rate, thus Hore was appointed engineer and surveyor. It is likely that Hore's father, as a proprietor of the waterway, had a hand in arranging his son's employment on the project.
Hore recognised the inappropriate nature of this solution, proposing more locks and artificial cuttings to be dug. He was subsequently employed on a salary equivalent to £12,000 in 2023 plus expenses, with a responsibility of delivering 18.5 miles (29.8 km) of navigable waterways, 11 miles (18 km) of which would be new cuttings.
Work on the navigation began in 1719, although local opposition the following year threatened works—Mayor of Reading Robert Blake led a 300-strong mob along with the town's recorder to Burghfield where the construction was damaged; Blake owned a wharf near the junction of the Kennet and River Thames, and feared that his trade would be adversely affected by a new waterway. Further setbacks came the following winter, when extraordinary floods damaged the works. In March 1721, an extension to the original timescale was granted. The following July, Hore reported that good progress was being made:
Sheffield and Widmead Cutts are opened, and the two large boats employed raising Colthorp Bank, the dams are made, the screw fixed, and great part of the lock at Aldermaston. I hope next week to begin at Padworth. The locks at Fobney and Southcote are framed, as are the timber work for the two brick locks to be placed in Padworth field except the gates which must be those from the Old Locks when taken up and altered.
— John Hore, July 1721
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