VERY RARE, ORIGINAL 1677 EDITION OF \"ENGLAND\'S IMPROVEMENT BY SEA AND LAND.\" This important 18th century work was written Andrew Yarranton and printed by R. Everingham for the author, London. Author was an English polymath who vigorously advocated for the expansion of England\'s navigable waterways. This fascinating work, chock-full of Yarranton\'s insightful observations and adventurous plans, is passionately dedicated to that cause. In 1681 he issued a follow-up to the present work inwhichhe further elaborated on many of the ideas set forth here.We could not locate another obtainable copy of this scarce workand to our knowledge all other known copies are institutionally held (see OCLC;WorldCat). Goldsmiths\' Lib. cat., 2194; Wing Y13.\"One of the earliest to advocate river improvements in Britain was Andrew Yarranton, an original genius, who had ideas and plans quite a hundred years in advance of his times. He occupied himself with many different projects designed to effect improvements in means of communication, and in developing the resources of the country generally. At one time serving as a soldier, at another engaged in the manufacture of iron; now planning how to provide employment for the poor, and again studying how to bring about more economical processes of husbandry, Yarranton made a special hobby of the improvement of navigation, undertaking surveys of the principal rivers in the West of England at his own cost, and urging upon the people the importance of opening up the facilities of communication thereby available to them.In 1665 Yarranton proposed to the burgesses of Droitwich to deepen the small river Salwarp, so as to connect that town, now an important centre of the salt industry, with the river Severn...In 1666 Yarranton proposed to make the river Stour navigable between Stourport and Kidderminster, and to connect it with the river Trent by a navigable canal. He carried out this work so far as to make the river navigable from Stourbridge to Kidderminster; but his scheme was not completely adopted for lack of means...At a later date Yarranton proposed to connect the Thames and the Severn by means of an artificial cut, at the very place where, more than a century after his death, it was actually carried out by modern engineers\" (see Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries by James Stephen Jeans, London, 1890, p. 25-26).\"England had not a single canal or a single artificial waterway before 1759, a hundred and fifty years later than the construction in France of the Briare canal and nearly eighty years after the inauguration of the canal which connects the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. Nevertheless the advantages of communication by water within the country, revealed by foreign examples, had their champions. One of the earliest was Andrew Yarranton. In turn an officer in the army of the Long Parliament, an ironmaster, a linen-cloth manufacturer, an engineer, an agriculturalist and an economist, he united the wild schemes of an adventurer with the broad views of a man of genius.In 1677 he published a curious book in which were jumbled together the observations, plans and dreams of his whole life with a host of new and daring ideas. Yarranton was bold enough to believe that his country could prevail over rival nations without fighting, that a well-used peace was better than a successful war, and that the true glory of a State consisted in the work, wealth and civilization of its inhabitants. Among the sometimes chimerical means he thought would insure his country\'s prosperity, the development of an internal system of navigation held first place\" (see The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century by Paul Mantoux, Abingdon, 2006, p. 121-122). Andrew Yarranton (1619-1684) was an important English engineer in the 17th century who was responsible for making several rivers into navigable waterways. He was born at Astley, just south of the town of Stourport-on-Severn in Worcestershire, and was from a yeoman family. He was apprenticed to a linen draper in Worcester circa 1632, but left after a few years to live a country life. According to John Aubrey he died violently; \'The cause of death was a beating and thrown into a tub of water\'.During the English Civil War he served in the Parliamentary army rising to the rank of captain. In 1646 he became a member of the Worcester County Committee to administer \"parlimentary justice\" to the county and to list and fine all \"delinquents\" who had supported the Royalist cause. After the war, he used the arrears of military pay to speculate in forfeited crown and royalist estates.
With other officers, he set up ironworks, a blast furnace at Astley, to smelt cinders from Worcester with iron ore from the Forest of Dean, using charcoal obtained locally. Neighbouring ironmasters leased Shelsley Forge to him to discourage him from building one of his own. He probably withdrew from the iron industry after the Restoration. However he still had a share in a furnace at Sudeley near Winchcombe in 1673. Yarranton had been a leading Roundhead before the Restoration and was therefore under political suspicion afterwards. He was imprisoned several times during the 1660s, at least twice on trumped up charges.
His other achievement related to making tinplate. The Stour Navigation proprietors, and certain notable men in the local iron industry commissioned him and Ambrose Crowley to go to Saxony to find out how tinplate was made. On their return, experiments were undertaken, including rolling (which was not part of the process in Saxony). This was sufficiently successful to encourage two of the sponsors Philip Foley and Joshua Newborough to set up a mill for the process on the Stour at Wolverley.
In the 1660s, he was active in promoting the growth of clover, which is a fodder crop, but also fertilises the land. At the end of his life he was involved in pamphleteering during the Exclusion Crisis, and may have been more deeply involved. He also published a book, \"England\'s improvement by sea and land\", describing some of his achievements and suggesting various other improvements, including river navigations.
Yarranton is mainly remembered as a navigation engineer. His first interest in this was a proposal in 1651 to make Dick Brook navigable from the River Severn to a forge and furnace he owned an the Astley bank of the brook. In 1655 he proposed to make the River Salwarpe navigable from the Severn to Droitwich. This was partly to be financed with money raised by the town corporation, but came to nothing. However the proposal was revived in 1662, and an Act of Parliament was obtained authorising the improvement of the Stour and Salwarpe. Droitwich Corporation renewed its agreement in 1664, to provide financial assistance to Thomas Lord Windsor (later Earl of Plymouth), who was the scheme\'s leading financier. However, when five of the six locks had been built the proposal was found \'not to answer\' and was abandoned. A century later the Droitwich Canal was built to fulfil the same objective, promarily that of bringing coal up to Droitwich to boil brine and taking the resultant salt out.
The River Stour, Worcestershire flows through Stourbridge and Kidderminster to join the Severn at Stourport-on-Severn (which was then the hamlet of Lower Mitton). The proposal was that coal from Amblecote and Pennsnett Chase should be brought down railways (known as footrayles) and loaded on to barges to transport down the river. Several attempts were made to improve the river, but each time money ran out, either before it was finished or before a trade could be got going. These lasted intermittently until 1680, the later ones being under the immediate supervision of Andrew\'s son Robert Yarranton. The scheme was thus ultimately a failure, but its objectives were achieved at much greater expense a century later by the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal and the Stourbridge Canal.
Yarranton\'s work on a third navigation, the River Avon, Warwickshire was far more successful. William Sandys had improved the river in the late 1630s, but it had passed into the hands of Willam Say (one of his financiers), who was attainted at the Restoration (thus forfeiting his property). His rights passed to James, Duke of York, later King James II, who sold them to Lord Windsor in 1664. The navigation had languished under its previous ownership and needed substantial further investment. Lord Windsor retained the Lower Avon (below Evesham) himself, but employed Yarranton to maintain it, and also to rebuild Pershore sluice (i.e. lock). The Upper Avon Navigation (above Evesham) needed much more to be spent on it, and he took partners, including Yarranton. Within a couple of years, the river was again navigable, and remained so for over two centuries above Evesham, and ever since below that town.
Condition: Rare book remains in goodto faircondition (see images). Volume bound in contemporary full calf; cover worn, endpapers refreshed, armorial bookplate pasted to verso of front cover, couple of loosening leaves,mild toning, occasional small closed tear, etc., generally clean internally. Volume contains [18], 195 p. (pages 193-195 are incorrectly numbered 177-179 as issued) with 7 (of 8) folded leaves of plates and maps; and measures approx 7.5\" tall x 6\" wide x 1\" thick. Quite a find and a very worthy acquisition indeed.
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