Editing River Witham (section)

===Improvements===
{{River Witham map}}
The state of the Witham had deteriorated by 1802, and the Commissioners asked [[John Rennie the Elder|John Rennie]] for advice. He stated that the Kirkstead lock was badly placed, and the associated staunch was in danger of collapse. He recommended that it be demolished and rebuilt elsewhere, and also suggested that access to Boston should be through the Witham Navigable Drains, rather than the Grand Sluice, or that a new cut should be built to the south of the sluice, to rejoin the river at Boston Harbour.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |pp=261-262}} In 1803, he suggested that High Bridge at Lincoln should be demolished and rebuilt. Four years later, he suggested that the locks at Kirkstead and Barlings should be removed, and replaced by one near Washingborough church. The Commissioners petitioned parliament in 1808, and a new Act of Parliament authorised the work, to be carried out by a company of proprietors. They could borrow £30,000 for the drainage element of the scheme and £70,000 for the navigation element. Two new locks were built, one at Stamp End and the other at Bardney, which replaced the original locks. A new channel was cut near [[Fiskerton, Lincolnshire|Fiskerton]], upstream of Bardney, and the plan for a lock at Washingborough was dropped.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |p=262}} While Stamp End lock was being rebuilt, an alternative route was provided, utilising the Sincil Dyke and the South Delph.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |p=261}} Rennie recorded that Branston Delph, Carlton Dike, Nocton Delph and Timberland Dike were navigable at the time. The proprietors obtained three more Acts of Parliament, in 1812, 1826 and 1829, all with the main aim of allowing more capital to be raised.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |pp=262-263}}
[[File:Poster for the Favorite Paddle Steamer (1828).png|thumb|left|Poster for the Favorite Paddle Steamer between Lincoln and Boston, July 1829]]
Tolls on the Witham had gradually risen as improvements had been made. £263 was raised in 1763–4, and had reached £898 by 1790.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |p=259}} In 1819, income exceeded £4,100 for the six months from March to September, and a five per cent dividend was paid in the following year. By 1826, over £180,000 had been spent on improvements, and another £40,000 was needed. However, the proprietors were still optimistic, and commissioned [[John Rennie the Younger|Sir John Rennie]] to investigate an extension to link the Witham to the [[River Ancholme]], but although he made two proposals, neither was implemented.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |p=265}} Most traffic was carried by sailing vessels or in barges hauled by horses, but in March 1816, the first steam packet boat arrived on the river. It was named ''Witham'' and had been built by Shuttleworth and Robinson, whose yard was on Sincil Dyke. Despite a boiler explosion in March 1817, fortunately without causing injury to any of the crew or the 30 passengers, a second steam packet was operating by July 1817, and they soon displaced the sailing packet boats. During a flood in 1828, one of them lost power when a floating hedge became jammed in the paddle wheels. In the following year, a Lincoln man, [[William Pool (engineer)|William Pool]] invented a new type of paddlewheel, which resulted in the boats travelling faster, and in 1836, wooden vessels were superseded by iron packet boats.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |pp=265-266}}

Railways reached Lincoln in August 1848, 15 years after the first proposal. The Wakefield, Lincoln and Boston Railway hoped to build railways in the area, and negotiated with the proprietors and those of the Fosdyke. Under the arrangement, they would take over both navigations, and guarantee a fixed income for the proprietors. They would then merge with the London and York Railway. Both proposals had been absorbed into the [[Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)|Great Northern Railway]] (GNR) by the time an Act of Parliament was obtained, but the original agreement was retained, and the GNR leased the Witham for 999 years for a payment of £10,545 per year to the proprietors. This figure represented the average profits for the previous three years, plus five per cent. The railway company also agreed to pay the interest on mortgages amounting to £24,692 which the proprietors held, but had redeemed them by 1857. The railway from Lincoln to Boston ran along the eastern bank of the river, and opened on 17 October 1848.{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |p=266}}

Most of the stations were located near to the landing stages which the steam packets used, and the railway did all it could to draw passengers away from the river. This included the provision of fourth-class carriages, with fares set at a halfpenny per mile, in 1850, and by 1863, the steam packet boats had ceased operation. Freight traffic also declined, with coal passing through the Grand Sluice dropping from 19,535 tons in 1847 to 3,780 tons in 1857. Nevertheless, the railway company had to maintain the river, and in 1871, spent £5,000 on making Bardney lock deeper by {{convert|5|ft|m}} at the request of the drainage commissioners. The GNR leased the navigation to the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Committee in 1882, and in 1897, by which time the [[Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway]] had become the [[Great Central Railway]], they built a large warehouse beside Brayford Pool, with a transhipment dock next to it. Total traffic on the river had fallen to 18,548 tons in 1905, and averaged 5,870 tons during the years of the [[First World War]], mainly general merchandise and agricultural produce. With the nationalisation of the waterways following the [[Second World War]], the navigation eventually became the responsibility of [[British Waterways]]{{sfn |Boyes | Russell |1977 |pp=266-267}} as a result of the [[Transport Act 1962]], and since 2 July 2012 has been managed by the [[Canal & River Trust]].