Published Resources Details
Conference Paper
- Title
- Benjamin Hawkins Dods (1829-1892) and the audacious "Grand Victorian North-Western Canal, Irrigation, Traffic, and Motive Power Company" scheme of 1871
- In
- 19th Australasian engineering heritage conference: putting water to work: steam power, river navigation and water supply
- Imprint
- Engineering Heritage Australia, Barton, Australian Capital Territory, 2017, pp. 278-298
- ISBN/ISSN
- 9781922107923
- Url
- https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.384782247488551
- Subject
- Chronological Classification 1788-1900 Applied Sciences Engineering and Technology
- Abstract
This paper explores the life and times of Benjamin Hawkins Dods (1829-1892), plumber, inventor, "hydraulic, mechanical and civil engineer"; the "projector" of the Grand Victorian North-Western Canal, Irrigation, Traffic, and Motive Power Company scheme of 1871; and the influence his ideas had in helping establish irrigation in Australia. His scheme was truly audacious, proposing to lease three million acres of Crown Land in Northern Victoria, and through it, construct 300-400 miles of canals, for irrigation, navigation and power purposes. Commencing at a reservoir on the Goulburn, near Murchison, this canal would flow westward, intercepting all the north flowing rivers, then sweep north to the Murray River via Lake Tyrell, and also sweep north to the Murray River via Lake Hindmarsh and Lake Albacutya. The main canal was to be 300 feet wide, 10 feet deep, dropping between 4-1/2inches and 9-inches per mile. A network of interconnected supplementary canals for both navigation and irrigation were proposed, together with a projected canal south to Portland, tapping the waters of the Glenelg River. This "Grand Victorian North-Western Canal" did not eventuate, but many of the ideas in the scheme influenced the design and construction of the Goulburn Irrigation Scheme in Victoria: the location of the Goulburn Weir, Waranga Channel and Basin; and the location of today's irrigation settlements. Dods also lobbied strongly for irrigation in New South Wales, and for irrigation to be included on the agenda for Federation. Many of his contemporaries later argued that Dods was "the father of irrigation in Victoria".
- Source
- cohn 2018
Related Published resources
isPartOf
- 19th Australasian engineering heritage conference: putting water to work: steam power, river navigation and water supply edited by Engineers Australia and Engineering Heritage Australia (Barton, Australian Capital Territory: Engineers Australia, 2017), 536 pp. Details