Peter Birt

Peter Birt ( – June 1791) was a businessman from Airmyn, Yorkshire, England, who made his fortune from the Aire and Calder Navigation and used part of his wealth to build the mansion named Wenvoe Castle. He became High Sheriff of Glamorgan. Businessman Peter Birt was born around 1723 in Yorkshire. One source says his family was well-off yeomen from Berkshire, but others said he had been "bred a tailor". He became a merchant in the trade with Russia. Birt became involved with Sir Henry Ibbetson in a coal-mining venture. In 1758 Birt and Ibbetson acquired a 14-year lease on the tolls of the Aire and Calder Navigation for £6,000. This privately-managed waterway in the West Riding of Yorkshire was one of the first river navigation schemes in Britain. It provides a water route from the North Sea inland to the Pennine waterways by way of the Humber estuary and the River Ouse. The partners agreed with the request of the proprietors of the Navigation to give up trading so they could not be accused of giving their goods preferential treatment. Birt was described as unpopular but efficient. In 1771 Birt asked John Smeaton for advice on improving the navigation to head off the threat of a proposal to build a trans-Pennine canal that would bypass the navigation. Smeaton issued a report on 28 December 1771 that recommended construction of new locks and canal cuts, large-scale dredging to ensure that even in a dry season the water was at least deep, and a bypass canal cut below Haddlesey. The planned cut was extended in 1772 to almost between the River Aire at Haddlesey and the Ouse at Selby. In 1772 Peter Birt became the sole lessee of the Navigation, with a 21-year lease for which he paid £8,500. This in effect gave him a monopoly of transport on the Navigation, which he exploited ruthlessly. Birt soon owned many boats on the waterway and several important collieries in the region.