Gloucester and Worcester, by means of two extraordinary moveable weirs, to be inserted at Saxon’s Lode and Wain Lode Hill; and this, though seen to be totally impracticable and ridiculous, was advocated in the Gloucester papers by way of rivalry to the Severn Company’s plan, which they continued to describe as fraught with injustice, because it would deliver a free river into the hands of a Joint Stock Company. The funds of the Severn Navigation Company proved insufficient to carry the scheme out in its integrity; therefore the improvement of the river, from Worcester to Stourport, for the present was abandoned. This alienated the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal Company, and altogether the opposition again got up to the measure was so strong, that after the bill had been introduced into Parliament in the session of 1838, and the standing orders passed, a deputation of the Worcester Company met the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal Company proprietors, to see if some further concessions could not be made which might get rid of the principal objections to the scheme. The result of this interview was, that the Gloucester and Berkeley Canal Company consented to support a project for the improvement of the river under public commissioners, instead of a Joint Stock Company; and the bill was therefore withdrawn, with the view of introducing another, on the principle thus suggested, in the next session. The shareholders in the Company were called together in September, and received the report of the committee, but there were no assets to divide—the additional expenses (£5,333) had just swallowed up the deposits. The exertions of Mr. J. W. Lea, the chairman of the Company, were acknowledged by a special vote; and many gentlemen present declared their willingness to further any future efforts which might be made, by all the means in their power. The year 1839 was consumed in efforts to induce the Government to take the matter up, as they had recently done the navigation of the Shannon; but these, though zealously backed by Sir Denis Le Marchant, Bart., then member for Worcester, all proved fruitless. In August, 1840, the shareholders of the Company were again convened at Worcester, and another attempt resolved on to raise funds to apply to Parliament for powers to obtain a six feet depth of water and place the undertaking under the management of a Commission. A further call of ten shillings per share was accordingly made, but so few of the subscribers responded to it that another meeting was held in the ensuing month, and the Company dissolved itself—thus ending the attempts to improve the Severn by private enterprise and speculation.