« Reply #2 on: Saturday 24 March 18 10:49 GMT (UK) »
If the surname "Hope" was a rarity in the vicinity in the timeframe you're looking at, then it's a probability that his ancestors were not from that area or county.
The people who usually put the money together to build the canals were merchants, industrialists and coal/mineral mine owners who started to thrive and expand at the end of the 1700s. With this in mind it could be that John's father was born along the route of the canal maybe left his low paid job to work on the canal, or was in an occupation allied to either the coalfields further north, e.g. Derbyshire, Yorkshire, etc., or agriculture in Herefordshire.
Apparently the word "hope" describes the side of a valley and I see from surfing that the 1068 Domesday book mentions a couple of places (villages) with the name of "Hope", which suggests your ancestors surname is derived from a place name. .
Aberdeen: Findlay-Shirras,McCarthy: MidLothian: Mason,Telford,Darling,Cruikshanks,Bennett,Sime, Bell: Lanarks:Crum, Brown, MacKenzie,Cameron, Glen, Millar; Ross: Urray:Mackenzie: Moray: Findlay; Marshall/Marischell: Perthshire: Brown Ferguson: Wales: McCarthy, Thomas: England: Almond, Askin, Dodson, Well(es). Harrison, Maw, McCarthy, Munford, Pye, Shearing, Smith, Smythe, Speight, Strike, Wallis/Wallace, Ward, Wells;Germany: Flamme,Ehlers, Bielstein, Germer, Mohlm, Reupke