Since that time the directors have been proceeding to lay down the line upon the narrow gauge, and with the view of working it independently of either of the great companies, nor have the Great Western been able to hinder them further. The whole of the loop line was opened on the 18th of February, 1852, and thirty-six miles of the main line, from Evesham to Stourbridge, on the 1st May, 1852. IMPROVEMENT OF THE RIVER SEVERN. BEFORE the age of railways, the advantages to a nation as well as to a district of having its ports brought as far inland as possible, were so many and apparent, that it can be no wonder the improvement of the navigation of the Severn was contemplated at an early date. It was projected in 1784, by Mr. William Jessop, an engineer of some note at that day; and though the science of hydraulics was then very little understood—as, indeed, it is even now {165}—yet the nature of the bed of the Severn and its very gentle fall, marked it out as a river easily admitting of improvement, and not at all beyond the reach of the means then known and practised. The plan proposed by Mr. Jessop was, so far as can be gathered from the reports and documents still in existence, a very fair and feasible one; he proposed to convert it into a ship canal as far as Stourport, by means of weirs. As to the details of the scheme, we have of course no means of judging. It was, however, opposed most strenuously by the landowners on either bank of the river, who feared that the weirs would prove obstructions to the current, and increase the frequency and mischief of the floods which often cover the lands near the banks. The project was, therefore, at that time abandoned, nor was it ever formally broached again till 1835, when Mr. Edward Leader Williams, an ironmonger in Worcester, pressed the matter so strongly upon his fellow citizens, and so clearly demonstrated, by models and plans of his own devising, that it was perfectly possible to make the river, as far as Worcester, navigable for ships drawing twelve feet of water, that they at length awoke to the advantages which would accrue to them by the improvement of this outlet to “the great highway of nations.” The fears and objections of some of the leading landowners having been overcome, a company was started for the purpose of carrying out the scheme.