The
River Don Navigation was the result of early efforts to make the
River Don in
South Yorkshire,
England, navigable between
Fishlake and
Sheffield. The Dutch engineer
Cornelius Vermuyden had re-routed the mouth of the river in 1626, to improve drainage, and the new works included provision for navigation, but the scheme did not solve the problem of flooding, and the Dutch River was cut in 1635 to link the new channel to
Goole. The first
Act of Parliament to improve navigation on the river was obtained in 1726, by a group of Cutlers based in
Sheffield; the Corporation of
Doncaster obtained an Act in the following year for improvements to the lower river. Locks and lock cuts were built, and, by 1751, the river was navigable to
Tinsley.