# Was there an earlier attempt to build a Channel Tunnel? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** science-math\ **Created:** [July 20, 2025, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105 "2025-07-20T04:39:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/1 "2025-07-20T04:39:00Z")
To answer my own question, yes: Wikipedia notes that it was proposed more than once, and work started on both the English and French side in 1882, abandoned in 1883 with over a mile of tunnel built. I was watching a hundred-year-old silent English animated cartoon, [“Bonzo the Traveller”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Up942j0RT0&t=323s&pp=2AHDApACAQ%3D%3D), in which the dog hero is fired from a cannon in France and ends up plunked into the English Channel near a swimmer. And this odd title card appears: **Captain Webbfoot Swimming the Channel Tunnel** [[Album] imgur.com ![](https://i.imgur.com/yCoRVti.jpeg?fb "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/a/mdl0eRA) But there was no such thing in 1925! Or was there? Did anyone at the time refer to crossing the channel as “crossing the tunnel”? Or was some cartoon producer hallucinating? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/2 "2025-07-20T05:59:36Z")
Just to muddy the waters, Captain Mathew Webb was the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875. What an odd turn of phrase; “swimming a tunnel”. I wonder if someone in recent times redid the title card and just had a brain fart. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/3 "2025-07-20T07:23:05Z")
It’s a joke - _because_ it would have been seen as a surreal impossibility. . ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/4 "2025-07-20T07:34:42Z")
Yes, there were numerous proposals and attempts to build a Channel tunnel. See [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel#History) for list. > [@wiki](#): > > _In 1919, during the [Paris Peace Conference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Conference,_1919), British prime minister [David Lloyd George](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd_George) repeatedly brought up the idea of a Channel tunnel as a way of reassuring France about British willingness to defend against another German attack. The French did not take the idea seriously, and nothing came of the proposal.[[42]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel#cite_note-42)_ > > _In the 1920s, [Winston Churchill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill) advocated for the Channel Tunnel, using that exact name in his essay “Should Strategists Veto The Tunnel?” It was published on 27 July 1924 in the [Weekly Dispatch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Dispatch), and argued vehemently against the idea that the tunnel could be used by a Continental enemy in an invasion of Britain._ So, discussion of a Channel tunnel was a current, or at least recent, thing when the cartoon was new. Saying “swimming the Channel tunnel” instead of just “swimming the Channel” is just a bit of sillyness. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2025, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/5 "2025-07-20T11:38:27Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > It’s a joke - _because_ it would have been seen as a surreal impossibility. . 'Zactly. They’d sooner see cannons used for channel crossing than that tunnel the politicians have been yabbering about for decades now. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/6 "2025-07-21T17:18:19Z")
Regarding pre-WWI opposition to Channel Tunnel construction and its link to invasion panic: > [@](#): > > Giving evidence before a Parliamentary Select Committee on a Channel Tunnel in June 1883, the Adjutant General, Lord Wolseley, was “certain that the construction of it will create panics; it will increase panics; we have panics even without the tunnel” [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592296.2022.2113255](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09592296.2022.2113255) There’s also a reference to one of the more ludicrous sources for British invasion panic, Erskine Childers’ _The Riddle of the Sands_, a novel about secret German plans to send a host of small boats through narrow tidal channels off the Frisian Islands in order to carry an invading army to Britain. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2025, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/7 "2025-07-21T20:13:46Z")
There was another attempt at construction in the 1970s, which actually started and was abandoned again. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/8 "2025-07-22T21:21:50Z")
Nelson: “I did not say they will not come, Sir. I said they will not come by sea.” ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2025, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/9 "2025-07-22T23:58:03Z")
Recently reading Winston Churchill again, and he reports that the Americans were worried about sinking military resources into Britain, if it was about to be invaded and conquered. The American report was that the British home defense was inadequate to prevent conquest. WC’s point of view was that the American General making the report was reporting on the wrong part of the defense. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/10 "2025-07-23T00:18:53Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Nelson: “I did not say they will not come, Sir. I said they will not come by sea.” It reminded me of an early documentary about the most modern and successful effort at making the tunnel, it showed this cartoon that was popular in those days: [https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/362880/view/channel-tunnel](https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/362880/view/channel-tunnel) > Channel tunnel. Historical artwork of a tunnel beneath the English Channel through which Napoleon’s troops are moving to invade England. The possibility of a tunnel under the Channel was first put to Napoleon in 1802. This cartoon was drawn in 1804, after the resumption of war between England and France in 1803. And, as I always check the quotes, it is not likely that Nelson said that, it was the First Lord of the Admiralty John Jervis,1st Earl of St Vincent. > **[British anti-invasion preparations of 1803–05](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_1803%E2%80%9305#cite_note-32)** > > British anti-invasion preparations of 1803–05 were the military and civilian responses in the United Kingdom to Napoleon's planned invasion of the United Kingdom. They included mobilization of the population on a scale not previously attempted in Britain, with a combined military force of over 615,000 in December 1803. Much of the southern English coast was fortified, with numerous emplacements and forts built to repel the feared French landing. However, Napoleon never attempted his planned in In... ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2025, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-an-earlier-attempt-to-build-a-channel-tunnel/1021105/11 "2025-07-23T20:54:48Z")
You are correct Sir, but just as Wellington should have said at Waterloo, “We owe this victory to the English public school system”, he _should_ have, and Nelson should have pronounced the phrase in question.