Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Regent's Canal begins north-west of Paddington Basin in west London and ends as it joins the River Thames at Limehouse Basin in east London. The waterway stretches from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal to the Limehouse Basin.
Work began on the 14th of October 1812 under new leadership arrangements after an act passed in 1811 authorized the project. The Camden to Limehouse section including the long Islington Tunnel opened four years later on the 1st of August 1820.
A narrowboat barge named Tilbury exploded right under the Macclesfield Bridge outside London Zoo carrying sugar, nuts, petroleum and around five tons of gunpowder. Captain Charles Baxton, labourer William Taylor, a third man and a young boy all died aboard the craft while debris caused roofs to blow off surrounding houses.
Thomas Homer first proposed this link in 1802 as a connection between the Paddington arm of the Grand Junction Canal and the River Thames at Limehouse. An act passed in 1811 authorized the construction after the Prince Regent approved John Nash's masterplan for redeveloping central north London.
The Central Electricity Generating Board installed underground cables below the towpath between St John's Wood and City Road in 1979. Pumped canal water circulates as coolant for the high-voltage cables running beneath the surface that now form part of the National Grid supplying electrical power to London.