ArcGIS shapefile of the 5751 miles of navigable waterways of England and Wales in 1851. This shapefile derives from a time dynamic GIS and database of navigable waterways of England and Wales 1600-1948 which is so structured that it can generate a GIS of navigable waterways for any given year between these dates. These data were created as part of a wider research program directed by Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Tony Wrigley, which aims ultimately to reconstruct the evolution of the occupational structure of Britain from the late medieval period down to the early twentieth century.