Some aspects of the History of Thorne - the draining of the wetlands and water borne transport Prior to the 17th century Thorne was a village/hamlet with a low population surrounded by swamp and marshland, particularly to the east. The land was unsuitable for cultivation and the area was used for hunting. The fact that Thorne was part of the royal hunting Chace of Hatfield must have influenced the lives of the inhabitants quite a lot. There were Keepers situated all around the village, of which one station was occupied by a Chief Regarder of the Chace. Quite a number of local men would be employed by the officers of the royal hunting ground. The way of life of the people of this area was to suffer a drastic change during the 1600's. Agriculture had been of secondary importance and few could imagine any difference because of the thousands of acres of wetlands. However, Cornelius Vermuyden, a Dutch drainage engineer, persuaded the King that he could drain the land and make valuable farm land out of it. Between 1626 and the Civil War period the engineer and his foreign workers performed prodigious feats of drainage using what we would recognise today as primitive tools. They were also under constant harassment by the inhabitants of Thorne who did not want the job doing in the first place. Vermuyden lived in Thorne in the Old Hall on Queen Street while constructing the Ashfield Bank. The Dutchman's financial backers abroad encouraged the settlement on the reclaimed lands, and hundreds came over from Holland, Belgium and some from France to live here. Although many serious floodings happened after the drainage and a series of writs against the Participants were fought out in court, the value of the land had increased and brought new hope for agriculture, so that today the value of the vast farmland far outstrips any other industrial or natural asset in the local area. Farming really came into its own during the next two centuries, with constant attention to drainage dikes and the construction of more and more waterways and sluices. More farm houses were built and also town houses as prosperity increased. The River Don shipping trade was expanding and Thorne Quay or Waterside had its own ship building yards and the population grew. Ships sailed to York, Hull, London and even the continent. There were warehouses and inns, rope and sailmaking businesses and many more. With the construction of the canal in the 1790's trade increased even more and shipyards started to be constructed on the canal and not just the rivers. As late as 1800 most traffic between the towns and villages was waterborne, but new turnpike roads were being built between Bawtry, Selby and Doncaster. During the enclosure of the common lands at this time, the appearance of the town and surrounding country changed. The several huge gates which kept the animals from straying into the town and precincts were taken down, and the commons were split up for more farming; also more dwellings and businesses were built in the town, in places which we now know as South Common etc. In the middle of the nineteenth century the railways came to Thorne, making travel and the transport of goods quicker than ever. The mail coaches became obsolete and stage coaches no longer carried people from Doncaster. The river trade also began to die with the new railways. As William Harlington was a waterman based in Thorne and as he later gives his birthplace as Ealand it seems entirely possible that he was a waterman on the Stainforth and Keadby Canal which connects the two. The Stainforth and Keadby Canal is a navigable canal in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, England. It connects the River Don Navigation at Bramwith to the River Trent at Keadby, by way of Stainforth, Thorne and Ealand, near Crowle. It opened in 1802, passed into the control of the River Don Navigation in 1849, and within a year was controlled by the first of several railway companies. It became part of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, an attempt to remove several canals from railway control, in 1895. There were plans to upgrade it to take larger barges and to improve the port facilities at Keadby, but the completion of the New Junction Canal in 1905 made this unnecessary, as Goole could easily be reached and was already a thriving port.