Editing Oxford Canal (section)

====20th century====
In 1934, the Braunston-Napton stretch of the canal was taken over by the recently formed [[Grand Union Canal]] company, and widened as part of that company's London to [[Birmingham]] main-line.<ref name="OCCG"/>

In a bid to raise funds to overcome an arrears of maintenance, in 1936, the Oxford Canal Company decided to sell off their terminal basin at Oxford. In 1937 [[William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield|Baron Nuffield]] (Later Viscount Nuffield) bought the canal basin at Oxford for £133,373<ref>{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Lord Nuffield's Purchase | url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000640/19370325/137/0006 |newspaper=Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette |location=England  |date=25 March 1937 |access-date=24 August 2020 |via=British Newspaper Archive |url-access=subscription  }}</ref> ({{Inflation|UK|133373|1937|r=-2|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} In 1951 he filled it in and built [[Nuffield College, Oxford|Nuffield College]] on part of the former coal [[wharf]]. Coal traffic was relocated to a canal wharf in Juxon Street, in [[Jericho, Oxford]]. The goods wharf and the remainder of the coal wharf are now under a public car park that Nuffield College lets to Oxford City Council. For this reason, the canal today ends abruptly in central Oxford.<ref name="OCCG"/>

Many Oxford Canal boatmen and women favoured [[Horse-drawn boat|horse traction]] long after those on other canals had changed their narrowboats to diesel power. In the 1930s, only around one in thirty of the boats trading on the canal's southern section was mechanically powered.<ref name="OCCG"/> One narrowboat carrying coal on the Oxford Canal was drawn by a [[mule]] until 1959 and was the last horse-drawn freight narrowboat in [[Great Britain]]. This boat, ''Friendship'', is preserved at the [[National Waterways Museum, Ellesmere Port]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/ships_register.php?action=ship&id=449|title=Historic Boat Record|access-date=23 February 2010|archive-date=11 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120311112541/http://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/ships_register.php?action=ship&id=449|url-status=dead}}</ref>

The Oxford Canal remained independent until it was [[nationalization|nationalised]] in 1948 and became part of the [[Docks and Inland Waterways Executive]], later the [[British Waterways Board]]. The Oxford Canal remained profitable until the mid-1950s, paying a dividend right up until nationalisation. As with most of Britain's narrow canal system, the Oxford Canal suffered from a rapid decline in freight traffic after the [[Second World War]]. By the mid-1950s very few narrowboats traded south of Napton and the southern section was at one point being threatened with closure, although the northern section (Napton to Coventry) remained well-used by commercial traffic until the 1960s.